Nate Butler, on his 'local' KFSR radio show and creating a Fresno music archive

Plus, your weekly events listing

Nate Butler was a guest on KFSR’s The Local Show years before he became its host.

“They had me on as a guest in 2013, and invited me to play my favorite local music,” Butler says. He showed up with a giant box of stuff — just part of his personal collection — and an immense knowledge of the artists he was playing.

They joked that maybe he should just take over the show.

When the station finally asked him to do just that four years later, “I was kinda like, ‘What took you so long to ask?,’” Butler says.

“This is like a dream assignment for me, chronicling the history of local music.”

For close to a decade, The Local Show has served as a showcase for music from Fresno and the surrounding Valley. With Butler as host, it’s also become an archive, having amassed more than 180 hours of (obviously) local music, which has been made available in podcast form.

For those into the old-school radio show experience, the show does air 8-9 p.m. Sundays at 90.7 FM (it’s also streaming online).

I emailed with Butler to find out about his favorite local “discoveries” and what he’s learned about the “Fresno sound” over his years as host.

A lot of your playlists involve archival stuff. Was that historical accounting something you had in mind when you took over as host?

Oh, absolutely, yes. From the very beginning, it was always my intention to feature a lot of music from Fresno’s past. I’d like to consider myself somewhat of an armchair historian. What better history to focus on than the music scene of my own hometown?

Of course, it’s also important to focus on what’s new and what’s happening on the scene now. And I do that. I feature new releases, as soon as I can get my hands on them.

But I believe that knowing the history behind Fresno’s past music scene gives us more perspective on the present. So, The Local Show almost always features little historical reviews. I think the oldest local music I’ve played goes all the way back to the 1940s.

Sometimes you play something and I’m like, ‘how did he get his hands on that?’ How much of what you play is part of your existing collection and how much is new ‘discovery’?

I’ve been collecting local music since before I became part of the scene myself in the mid-1980s. Back then, there were more vinyl records and cassette tapes than CDs, and of course digital streaming didn’t exist.

So, I came to The Local Show Fresno already prepared with a pretty big archive of my own; plus KFSR already had a big bin of CDs, many of them by more recent artists whom I was unfamiliar with. So, I had to do research on all of them to bring myself up to date.

Side note from Butler: I always do research on our local artists; I try to find any information available online (or simply copied from their CD covers) and have compiled a word document that’s like an encyclopedia. It is currently over 500 pages long and growing every month.

New acquisitions happen in many different ways. Often, an artist will send their music to KFSR, and KFSR will forward it to me. Many times, friends have let me raid their old LP/CD/cassette collections. That has yielded wonderful treasures from the past, which I take home, digitize and return.

Sometimes, a friend will send me an internet link to something old and/or off the wall and say, ‘Do you know about this one?’

Many times I’ll simply see a post on Facebook.

That’s how I ‘discovered’ ‘60s garage rockers The Brymers from Lemoore, whom I’d never heard of. A friend had linked one of their singles in a post. After some research, I learned all about them and downloaded some of their music.

Also, I have a lot of friends in the scene, past and present, and whenever they release something I’ll see their post and follow those leads wherever they go.

The entire Local Show Fresno archive has grown to include over 450 bands and artists and it continues to grow almost every week.

Any discoveries that blew your mind? Stuff you didn’t know existed?

Gosh all hemlock, yeah! So many. All great. Intruders comes to mind. They were a mid-80s hard rock/hair metal band and they totally shredded. I had no idea they’d made a record. I found their 1986 EP in a stack of records that George Rotalo (of The Clams, Bev, and now Joybowl) gave me.

Another fun find was Groundstar’s ‘Forced Landing’ LP from 1978 — a rather Styx-ish record that forced me to do some serious research to prove that they were indeed a local band.

One time, a guy who had worked at The Starline nightclub (now Strummer’s) dropped off a whole box of promo CDs leftover from a decade before. Most of them were of out of town bands looking for a gig, but there were some local jewels in there, including late ’90s Cure knock-off The Chamberlains and an early 2000s band called GATJA, who totally rocked, but I hadn’t heard of.

And then there’s all the classic Fresno punk music that I’ve pilfered from the great site that Dale Stewart (of Capitol Punishment) has stored online at Stagedive Records. It has been an amazing and always surprising resource for me.

Sidenote from Butler: I’ve discovered a lot of music, especially new releases by new artists, by simply following the ‘Bandgeeeek!’ emails.

Do you have a favorite genre/time period for Fresno’s music scene?

If I do, it would probably be for the decade starting when I first became a player on the scene myself, which would be 1986-1997. I was mixing with so many other fellow musicians and bands and the scene was truly alive for me personally. That’s the era that I have the most personal hands-on experience with, so naturally I have a fondness for it.

But I’m also fascinated by the two decades before (1965-1985) — the artists making the music that was happening when I was either a child or still too young to get into the club. That era holds a certain mystery for me, and I’m always looking for more recordings from that time.

Sometimes your playlists are themed. Is there a particular theme that really resonated with you and why?

I did a whole show about the mysterious and strange Lucia Pamela that I worked so hard on and was so happy with that I’ve re-run it a couple times, which I almost never do.

I did a Christmas show in 2018 that was like a radio play, with the concept that Santa Claus had his Elf agents kidnap a bunch of Fresno musicians to perform a concert at the North Pole. I was quite pleased with that.

There have been sooo many other themed shows: Halloween (always a favorite to do), Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Memorial Day, President’s Day, election week. Shows themed on “The Walking Dead” and “Game of Thrones.”

The one that comes to mind as really resonating was fairly recently, on the Fourth of July. I played a mix of songs celebrating the 4th and America, as well as some darker songs portraying the not-so-perfect aspects of modern American life. I didn’t talk at all during the show (rare for me). I just wanted the music to take the listener on a journey, as if it were one magnum opus piece of work.

I hope it worked.

Having heard so much Fresno music now, is there anything you're learned about “the Fresno sound?”

That’s a really tough question. And you’d think I would know, right? I wish I could say that there is a “Fresno sound,” but I don’t think there is — at least, I can’t hear it. The music coming out of Fresno and the surrounding towns might be too widely varied in genre and style and delivery to be pinned down to any particular set of aesthetics.

It is arguable that within genres, there might be a common sound — local ska might fit a certain mold, and perhaps local rap as well — but that might have more to do with their individual influences than a local vibe.

I will say this: Fresno artists are not lazy. They work hard at their craft. Even the most lo-fi of recordings demonstrate a certain will, a demand to be heard. If there is such a thing as a “Fresno sound,” perhaps it is the sound of determination and perseverance. I know that sounds kinda ‘high-falutin’, but it’s the truth.

Of course, because I hear so much local music, of wildly varying styles, perhaps I’m simply too overwhelmed to perceive an overlapping “Fresno sound.” So, while I may seem like the best person to ask, I might be the worst.

Events list July 25-31

Songwriter Erin Olds and Tower Village has a CD release (and farewell to Fresno party), 5:30 p.m. July 25 (tonight) at Fulton 55. Tickets are $8-$10.

Two sets of jazz from Richard Gidden Band and Mark Ferber, at Veni Vidi Vici, 6 and 8 p.m. July 25 (tonight). Reservations recommended.

Foreigner’s Greatest Hits tour stop at Saroyan Theatre, 8 p.m. July 27. Tickets are $33-$133.50.

Local rock from Call Me James, Gypsy Vision, Stoneshiver, Unlikely, Might As Well, 7 p.m. July 31 at Fulton 55. Tickets are $5-$7.

That’s it for this week. If you have anything you think I need to be looking at or listening to, feel free to let me know: jtehee@gmail.com