Music always on the move with nomadic Fault Radio
With roving booth showcasing DJs, station breaks new ground
On a recent Sunday at Vinyl Dreams, carefully chosen disco, house and soul music bounced between the walls. Behind the decks, a trio of DJs — Dundee Maghen, Dor Wand and Patrick Lotilla — toggled spinning records and chatted with the people trickling down the stairs.
It was a joint DJ set at the record shop on Haight Street headed by Fault Radio, a nomadic radio station and DJ collective that, over the past year, has been expanding the parameters of radio and DJ culture in the Bay Area. The collective, cofounded by Maghen and Wand, doesn’t broadcast at a frequency or follow a regular radio format. They don’t have a physical location, either; they take their DJ booth with them around the Bay Area and set every live stream up from scratch.
“What you get from Fault Radio is not only the ability to listen, but to see, the music, the culture, the venues,” Maghen said. “You get the whole experience.”
In less than two years, the collective has managed to weave an increasingly interconnected web between rising and veteran DJs, promoters, longtime record shops and venues — no small feat at a time when many of the Bay Area’s longtime record shops and venues are struggling to hold on.
Maghen and Wand got the idea for Fault Radio, a net
work that would merge some of the Bay Area’s disconnected DJ scenes together, shortly after they separately moved to the Bay Area and were having trouble navigating the sprawl of its music scene. Maghen, a DJ who works in music production, had moved to Berkeley from Tel Aviv. She and Wand, who is also from Tel Aviv but moved to Oakland by way of London, were introduced by mutual friends. Shortly after they met, the two started dreaming up plans to start a station in Oakland.
They wanted to name the station something that would encapsulate the Bay Area. Fault lines came to mind, and something about the cosmic element of the geological imagery stuck. But over time, it started to take on an additional meaning; it became an expression of taking pride and ownership (their slogan is “It’s our Fault!”) over the Bay Area’s underground music culture that seemed, Wand said, to always be in a state of crisis and struggle. From club to club, they were hearing familiar narratives cycle through conversations about how tech had ruined creative culture and made artists the victims of the Bay Area.
“I feel like what we’re doing is changing the narrative to the heroic artist in the bay — because if you’re making art in the bay, you need a medal,” Wand said.
The station’s first broadcast was in May 2018. Since then, they’ve had on more than 300 DJs (some renowned ones too, like Detroit house legend Andrés), but their emphasis has always been on the hyperlocal and on the artistry of DJing, no matter the level of experience.
“Now, when music is being dictated by algorithms who push you to hear the same stuff, what we do is the antialgorithm,” Wand said. “It’s very personal. It’s not a playlist. This isn’t Discover Weekly.”
The locations of their broadcasts are also chosen with hyperlocality and inclusivity in mind. They mostly livestream out of small businesses with strong neighborhood ties. They have a residency at Classic Cars West but also bop around to other cafes, record shops and art galleries around the region.
They want music to be played in a multitude of places, not just clubs. They’ve also chosen to host DJ sets during the day, to create a distinction between the “club” atmosphere and DJing — because “our broadcast is not like a party. It’s more like a showcase,” Wand said.
Nina Sol, an Oakland DJ who has a residency at Spirithaus Gallery and first played for Fault Radio last winter, said she appreciated the thoughtful ways that the station was providing inclusive alternatives.
“One of the things that the club does is create a listening experience and community, but sometimes distractions like alcohol and scenes can take away from it,” Sol said. “Here, there’s no velvet rope. Anyone can access it and spark up a conversation.”
Sol added that she’s also sensitive to the fact that she’s not originally from Oakland, and she appreciated Maghen and Wand’s efforts to seek out DJs who are Bay Area natives — especially considering the two of them were newcomers themselves.
“I remember when Dor (Wand) was like, ‘Can you refer me DJs who were actually born and raised in Oakland?' I think there’s a way to be new and to enter a scene, and it’s about being thoughtful,” Sol said. “I think they’ve done that.”
Maghen and Wand conceptualize Fault Radio as a kind of community service — both for the DJs, whose sets they stream, edit, produce and post online — and for those who attend. All of their broadcasts are open to the public, familyfriendly and free. The cofounders pay for most everything out of their own pockets. Maghen and Wand both put more than 50 hours a week toward Fault Radio and support themselves with gigs on the side. They also enlist the help of Lotilla for graphics and Brennan Ko for copywriting.
On Saturday, Aug. 17, the collective, in partnership with the online music database Discogs, plans to bring more than 30 Bay Area music vendors — including Champion Sounds Records, VAMP, RS94109, Econo Jam Records and more — to Classic Cars West in Oakland for their second Shifting Plates Record Fair. The plan is to fundraise twice a year by hosting the record fair, which has also been aided by a few brand partnerships.
After Shifting Plates, the duo plans to work with the Bay Area’s other collectives and stations — Oakland’s Lower Grand Radio, BFF.FM, Radio Valencia and Sutro FM — to organize a big DJ night at a local museum.
For Chris Ledet, cofounder of the San Francisco DJ collective Groovewell, Fault Radio is one of the only platforms that brings all the different sounds of the Bay Area’s DJ scenes — from cumbia to minimal techno — together in one place.
“It’s just selfless,” Ledet said. “They’re doing it purely out of love; not for any expectation of return.”
“I feel like what we’re doing is changing the narrative to the heroic artist in the bay.” Dor Wand, Fault Radio cofounder