Skidrow Studios was a podcast and live-streaming internet radio production facility in Downtown Los Angeles. The studio specialized in live broadcast talk and entertainment — streamed direct to your computer or mobile device — with professional-grade equipment and engineering support for podcasters and independent radio hosts of all experience levels.
The studio is no longer in operation, but this site stands as a tribute to all the shows we produced over the years. Every episode, every host, every guest, every late-night conversation — preserved and cataloged for anyone who wants to listen back.
Skidrow Studios was a wild, unfiltered, anything-goes internet radio station broadcasting from downtown Los Angeles between 2011 and 2016. Over those five years, more than 80 different shows and nearly 6,000 episodes poured out of that little studio, and if you scan the transcript summaries, what jumps out immediately is the sheer range of what people came in to talk about. One hour you'd have Dave Chaos and Kitty Anarchy on Verbal Vomit dissecting the death of Osama bin Laden and racist political cartoons about Obama; the next hour you'd have Julianne Good on Psych 1 On 1 interviewing a licensed therapist about gay affirmative psychotherapy and the distinct needs of the transgender community. There was no format. There was no gatekeeping. If you had something to say, you could have a show.
The studio's programming swung from the deeply serious to the unabashedly absurd, often within the same broadcast day. On The Qumran Report, Andrea (Miss A.D.) and Melvin Ishmael Johnson hosted open-mic poetry and spoken word from Skid Row, with tributes to Paul Robeson and Martin Luther King and raw discussions on politics, race, and social justice. On Echoes of Blackness, Michael Blaze and Melvin Ishmael Johnson talked about the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, COINTELPRO, and personal experiences with FBI harassment. Meanwhile, on Bad Advice, Drew Marks and a panel of comedians were debating German bestiality laws and a Russian woman who kept her husband's corpse in the house. Both of those things happened on the same station, probably in the same week.
Music was the lifeblood of the place. The MorMusic Radio Pod had Cool Skull and Wiz Wars playing chiptune live in the studio, talking about the chip thrash scene. The Hotbox interviewed Dale Crover of the Melvins about their Guinness World Record tour. Neighborhood Love Radio and LA Taco spun tracks from LA's underground. Piñata Hour had bands like Batwings Catwings playing songs from their upcoming 7-inch and running lyric contests with callers. Johnny Scott Gramercy would play The Murder City Devils and Pablo Montero back to back and promote local art events. It was the kind of place where Fredo Ortiz could drop by to talk about drumming for the Beastie Boys, and a caller named Lars could ring in just to say hi to the host.
And then there was the human side, the shows that used the freedom of the platform to talk about things mainstream radio wouldn't touch. The Love Bite and Intellectual Kink discussed BDSM negotiation, aftercare, sub drop, and the emotional mechanics of kink with a frankness you couldn't find anywhere else on the dial. Blame It On Ginger, hosted by Ginger Lynn and company, was an explicitly erotic talk show that was unapologetic about it. An Exposed Secret featured Martha Nix-Wade interviewing survivors of childhood sexual abuse about their journey through therapy and healing, and her nonprofit A Quarter Blue. The Call Sheet's Keith Coogan and Gus sat down with Martha Nix to do the same. Psychic Every Day took calls from people asking about relationships, family spirits, and career direction. Bible Study for Progressives did biblical exegesis of the Gospel of Mark and then pivoted to panel discussions on women's rights and racism. The Master's Playground explored numerology, tarot, and yogic meditation. Bible study, sex education, psychic readings, and poetry about the Black Panther Party all shared the same bandwidth.
What made Skidrow Studios special was that nobody told any of these people what they couldn't say. Nestor Rodriguez interviewed Michael Chiklis about his role in the TV show Vegas and then talked about the Boston Marathon bombing. The Wrap Party took calls from Keith Coogan sharing memories of Jonathan Winters and celebrating International Tom Hanks Day. Hard Yards LA sat down with boxers from the Maywood Boxing Club to talk about the Cotto-Margarito fight and how to wrap hands for a bout. Life of an Entrepreneur talked to the founder of a yoga fitness chain about starting a business on credit cards. Galería Alternativa Radio broadcast in Spanish about the Latin Grammys. It was a cross-section of Los Angeles that you could only get if you opened the door to everyone, stuck a microphone in front of them, and hit record. That's what Skidrow Studios was: an open mic in downtown LA that ran for five years and captured a city talking to itself.
The studio offered a full broadcast setup with professional microphones, mixing consoles, and live-streaming infrastructure. Hosts could walk in, plug in, and go live to a global internet audience — no prior technical experience required. Engineering staff handled the backend so creators could focus on content.
This site is a living archive of the Skidrow Studios catalog. Every episode has been transcribed using AI speech recognition (Whisper), with metadata — show names, hosts, guests, summaries, and music identification — generated automatically. New episodes are processed as source audio becomes available. The archive is built on SQLite and PHP, running on a Rocky Linux server.
Note: "Skidrow" is one word when referring to the studio — not to be confused with the Los Angeles neighborhood "Skid Row."