Stella
The voice at 2 a.m.
Victor Kosuda, a Stella fan for more than 20 years, has been taping every Stray Pop episode since the early ’80s. “I started when she was on Tuesday nights. Very few people can do freeform radio — she’ll play a song by Dean Martin and then something punk rock, and it just fits together like a jigsaw puzzle,” he says. “I listen on Saturday when I wake up. One highlight was the show that had the Ramones, where they showed up just as the show was ending and Joey was more than a little tipsy.”
Stray Pop has been a good source of other employment for Stella. At the Rhino Records music store, she was hired by Phast Phreddie to fill in for Nels Cline as import buyer because, as Mr. Phreddie put it, “Stella knows all that Limey stuff, and she hates to work.” She also worked at Aron’s Records, was an editor at Larry Flynt’s heavy metal magazine, Rip, and has written for various British music publications.
After her son, Felix, was born in 1993, Stella would bring him to the studio, where he’d nap in his stroller while she did her show, nursing him every hour and a half.
Is Felix a punk rock fan? “One time, I brought him up to the studio with his Cub Scout troop. DJ Brett asked him what music he likes, and he said, ‘Aaron Carter.’ I was thinking, ‘You’re killing your mother!’ ” These days, she’s proud to report that the Clash, Bad Religion and the like fill up his iPod.
Reverend Dan, host of Music for Nimrods, which follows Stray Pop, wants Loyola to give Stella an honorary degree. “She didn’t just talk to every L.A.-area punk performer who’s ever been worth talking about; she talked with exotica keyboard master Korla Pandit, wild man Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and dozens more musicians from out of the mainstream. She’s talked with artists, authors and historians, creating an expanded definition of just what the term punk rock disc jockey really means. And she’s been doing it for over 25 years. If this wasn’t enough, KXLU, because of her recommendation, added me to their lineup. So to me, Stella is not just a legend, she’s a hero.”
And she does it all for free. “You mean actually make a living at it?” she says when the question comes up. The idea of getting paid to do Stray Pop is greeted as if it’s never crossed Stella’s mind: “I’m not opposed to it.” But pay would mean a commercial station. Anyway, it’d be hard for her to quit now.
“Every year, I fill out the questionnaire to renew my show, and there’s this one question, ‘How long have you been doing your show?’ And I write down, ‘Longer than you’ve been alive!’ ”
Now Trending
