Heather: First of all, it is an honor to spend an evening with the two of you. I am new to Live Wire and learning about its incredible past has been such a unique and charming pleasure. I am in awe of what you created and how it has continued to thrive. Let’s talk about those early days and how it all began!

Kate: The beginning, for me, was right before Robyn’s beginning. I was in the middle of a divorce (aka mid-life crisis aka “this is not my beautiful life” kind of thing) and I was talking to my friend in theatre and said, “I don’t want to go back to my life in public health, I just want to produce things” and my friend said, “why don’t you do something like West Coast Live in the Bay Area?” I knew nothing about radio but I had only gone a few times to West Coast Live when I lived in the Bay Area. So I just started telling everyone I knew that I was going to do this thing. And then a friend said, “You should meet my friend Robyn. She used to work with West Coast Live and she is also in Portland now.” So we met the next week at Grand Central Bakery on Weidler and emerged Co-Producers of a thing that didn’t exist yet.

Heather: So, you two were just thrust together on a blind date?

Robyn: That’s right!  And then the phone rang and, you know, for me, my son was a year-and-a-half and had just started day care.  I had set up my office and was ready to get back to work after moving from San Francisco and spending my full-time with my newborn. Seemingly, in the moment my office was set up, Kate called. The timing was perfect.  A few months earlier in 2002, my friend Jim Brunberg (who was a band member with West Coast Live and in the band Box Set that played on West Coast Live many times), contacted me to say he just had bought a church on Mississippi in North Portland (now the wonderful Mississippi Studios) and wanted to produce a live radio show called “Life on the Mississippi” (or something) modeled after West Coast Live. It was just a few weeks before meeting you, Kate.

Live Wire has this strange way about it – the way it moves in the world. Jim and I had had a very lackluster talk/brainstorming session because we were both so new to Portland that we just didn’t know who the players would be be or how to go about it. And then Kate drops in with the idea and the players. Jim had the experience and knew how to make radio sound great.

Kate: Courtenay Hameister, who was working in advertising at the time, quickly joined us as head writer and brought in designer Bob Thompson. Bob suggested we put our pitch book in red velvet. I knew I wanted to make it something people would want to touch. It had to be on-brand: clever, funny, interactive. When I think about it now, given that none of us knew what the fuck we were doing, our instincts were pretty spot on. We knew we wanted everything to be “on brand” even though we barely knew what “on brand” even meant!

It’s so weird. I don’t think I have ever used the word ‘serendipity’ as much as I did that year. And, I bet a lot of people, especially women, go through this phase where they say “I just want to do something really cool.” I had been producing shows (starring my siblings and friends) since I was 5 years old. That part didn’t scare me, but I knew nothing about anything else. I knew nothing about radio, but I just wanted to be that person who “did that thing.” It never scared me.

Robyn: Kate, Jim, Courtenay, and I (along with a slew of incredibly talented people) grew up and learned together as we were launching the show. Portland was such a perfect place to start this – big enough, but small enough and definitely supportive enough. I remember our first show, filling the Hollywood Theatre with 175 of our closest friends, giving them free beer. At that very first laugh Kate and I looked at each other from across the theatre with a knowing grin… it was incredible.

Kate: Oh, yeah. It was a ‘holy shit’ moment. We decided then that it didn’t matter if it made money, we were going to love doing it.

Robyn: Looking back, those early days were very special. First with our original host, Rob Sample and then with Courtenay [Hameister] for 8 years.  People who used to come to the early shows will remember the sketch comedy and our troupe “Faces For Radio Theater,” and our house band Klezmocracy, led by Ralph Huntley.  Our original tag line was “Variety for the Ears, Vaudeville for the Mind,” and we worked hard to give the live audience a rich experience while pushing the boundaries of what we could do on the radio (mime, puppet shows, ballet…).

Kate: Face for Radio Theater (FFRT) used to meet in my living room to work on sketches for the show; decide what got in, figure out the sound effects – which were always done live. I remember Pat Janowski, our “Siren of Sound” brought over a bunch of melons and a knife. We were working on an Ides of March sketch so there was going to be some stabbing and she started stabbing each different type of melon to see which one sounded best. You know, based on our collective experience of having heard multiple stabbings! It was watermelon, by the way. That sounded the best. 

Heather: How much time passed between meeting each other and your first show?

Robyn: Our first show was September 9, 2003, and we had met in February of that same year. OPB started airing us in March 2004.

Kate: Sounds right, yeah.

Heather: Could you have guessed that, 16 years later, 200 radio stations and 300,000 listeners per week was in your future?

Robyn: That’s what we were hoping for. But it has totally exceeded our expectations, wouldn’t you agree, Kate?  What I didn’t foresee – and what I am so delighted about – is what a cultural institution it has become. If and when Live Wire ever went away, it would will always be remembered here in Portland. And for that we are incredibly proud.

Kate: Ira Glass says everything takes 8 years to become successful so I thought it would happen sooner. But I read that women are less comfortable going into debt and we just weren’t willing to take out loans on our houses and such. If we had been less risk-averse we probably could have grown it sooner. But, at the same time, Portlandia hadn’t happened yet, Powell’s hadn’t become as big of a juggernaut yet, but the literary scene was getting big. Music was starting to get big here. We really hit at the right time.

Heather: Was there an episode or a moment when you just knew, “this is really happening”?

Kate: Our first Wordstock Show (2005) was one of our biggest moments, for sure. I’ll never forget, we were at The Aladdin, it was our first show there, and I remember listening to this great music and thinking “this is a show anyone I know and love would enjoy.” That was a national show.

Robyn: There’s been so many gems.  I always remember when Chuck Barris (of Gong Show and The Dating Game fame) was a guest. Our musical guest for that show was The Minus 5 (which included Scott McCaughey and Peter Buck from REM). During sound check, the band was messing around and played one of Chuck’s songs (a totally obscure song called Palisades Park). Chuck was so tickled. At the end of the show, 75 year-old Chuck jumped on stage like a rock star and sang along, twirling the mic and dancing around like a kid. I remember an overwhelming feeling of pride and joy over that unexpected moment. I love those unexpected moments. And still do. I also love that so many relationships were forged backstage. I love that our show did does that for people.

Heather: Live Wire has had so many chapters of evolution. If we were to break it down into its first five years, the next five, and the current five, how would characterize those chapters?

Kate: The first five years: naive and beautiful hope, so joyous.

Robyn: Yep. Unbridled hope at the beginning for sure. Chaos and joy.

Kate: The 2nd chapter: reality set in a bit more and we had a big job to manage.

Robyn: Yeah, Kate, you moved on around year ten and that was a huge shift for us. Prior to that time, we were all doing everything. When Kate left it was me, Courtenay and Jim. I was a reluctant leader. We all were. I remember saying “who’s in charge?” and we all said “not it!”  I then became a hybrid of Executive Producer and Executive Director though my heart and experience has always been as EP. We all kept things moving, grew the show, and hired some great people along the way.

Kate: We all wanted to do the things we loved doing. And then there’s that pile of stuff no one wants to do. The fact that I love Robyn still is huge.

Robyn: Ha! Some of those early days were tough, weren’t they? We were a really nice package though. Very different people, good balance. And this chapter? This is all Luke.

Kate: Yeah, Luke has found a wonderful way to bring the weird, quirky Live Wire-ness out in himself.

Robyn: Yeah, yeah.

Kate: The show has evolved a great deal but the spirit remains.

Robyn: Yes, for sure. I love that.