JBJ
John B. Jones (JBJ to his friends) has been a community radio host / producer here in Portland since summer 2001, when he submitted a demo tape to KPSU Program Director Kaja Brown for a singer/songwriter show called "Hello Cruel World". His dream of hosting weekly in-studio performances on that show was realized in 2003 when local musician John Vecchiarelli took him under his wing and started sending guests his way.
John did 200 shows at KPSU before graduating from Portland State University in 2005. This coincided with the birth of his son Nathaniel, and John took a break from radio to be at home for Nate's early years. In 2011, John brought Hello Cruel World out of mothballs, this time on just-newly-formed community station KZME. Hello Cruel World was the 2nd show to be approved for KZME's roster (DJ Klyph's "Welcome To The Neighborhood" was the first) and ran until the station folded in 2014. XRAY.FM took over KZME's assets shortly after, and HCW was one of a handful of shows chosen to move over to its already- glowing programming lineup.
In January of 2018, Hello Cruel World celebrated its 500th episode with a celebratory show at The Old Church featuring Ritchie Young and his Dead Lovers, Robin Bacior, and Seattle's By The Wind Sailor. The 500th episode itself was a 2-hour broadcast on XRAY.FM featuring live performances from Laura Gibson, Chris Pureka, Casey Neill, Barna Howard, and Mike Coykendall.
In addition to his XRAY.FM show, John also hosts a (much noisier) late-night program on KBOO ("Back To The Egg"), plays sets from his record collection out in public as often as he is asked, and plays in the Balinese gamelan ensemble Gamelan Wahyu Dari Langit.
You can listen to "Hello Cruel World" Thursday afternoons from 3 to 4pm PST here on XRAY.FM. Listen online at https://xray.fm/
John did 200 shows at KPSU before graduating from Portland State University in 2005. This coincided with the birth of his son Nathaniel, and John took a break from radio to be at home for Nate's early years. In 2011, John brought Hello Cruel World out of mothballs, this time on just-newly-formed community station KZME. Hello Cruel World was the 2nd show to be approved for KZME's roster (DJ Klyph's "Welcome To The Neighborhood" was the first) and ran until the station folded in 2014. XRAY.FM took over KZME's assets shortly after, and HCW was one of a handful of shows chosen to move over to its already- glowing programming lineup.
In January of 2018, Hello Cruel World celebrated its 500th episode with a celebratory show at The Old Church featuring Ritchie Young and his Dead Lovers, Robin Bacior, and Seattle's By The Wind Sailor. The 500th episode itself was a 2-hour broadcast on XRAY.FM featuring live performances from Laura Gibson, Chris Pureka, Casey Neill, Barna Howard, and Mike Coykendall.
In addition to his XRAY.FM show, John also hosts a (much noisier) late-night program on KBOO ("Back To The Egg"), plays sets from his record collection out in public as often as he is asked, and plays in the Balinese gamelan ensemble Gamelan Wahyu Dari Langit.
You can listen to "Hello Cruel World" Thursday afternoons from 3 to 4pm PST here on XRAY.FM. Listen online at https://xray.fm/