‘Lonesome Andrew’ Will Keep You Company on ‘Darlin’ Radio’
By Christopher Treacy & Andrew Sa
Andrew Sa is making mixtapes for the world. And that includes me and you. Every month on the second Saturday morning, from 11:00 am to Noon, CST, he spins a new sequence of songs for us. His ‘Darlin’ Radio’ show is broadcast over Beloved.wtf, an online network with an impressively diverse roster of contributors, Sa now among them. “Kick off those covers, and let me ease you into Saturday, babe,” he says in the show’s playful description. The next ‘Darlin’ Radio’ is this coming Saturday, February 11, so we reached out to him for a quick chat about his thoughts on being a DJ. Listen to an archived program here, which kicks off with Joni Mitchell’s “You Turn Me On (I’m a Radio),” her clever, half-in-jest plea for airplay from 1972’s ‘For the Roses.’ It’s a perfect choice.
Are you someone that has enjoyed making mixes/mixtapes at any point in your life?
Since I can remember. My mother had one of those double tape deck stereos which was perfect for making “mix-tapes”. For those who never made one, this was a pretty involved process. While playing the source tape, you had to hit the record button at just the right time on the blank tape, recording in real time. It was truly a labor of love and a treasured gift from any of my friends.
The same was true when we all started making playlists in iTunes and burning them to CDs. I had a LOT of fun changing the start and stop times, the fade-ins and fade-outs, ya know, the advanced features. I’ve always enjoyed crafting the whole experience.
Tell us a little about your personal relationship to the radio through the years.
As a kid, radio was everything. Every time I got in the car I hoped to hear my latest favorite songs. My dad would always quiz me on who/what band was playing and my mom always questioned whether or not I knew all the lyrics/the meaning of the song. Certain songs still place me back in the backseat of my dad’s Cadillac or my mom’s Celica, my head leaning against the cold window, singin’ along to country/pop radio without a care in the world.
When I got to high school I started to form my own taste and abandoned radio. They weren’t playing who I was obsessing over like crooners Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, glam rockers Elton John and Queen, or newer artists like Rufus Wainwright and Andrew Bird.
How did this show with Beloved come together for you? Did they ask? Did you pitch it to them?
Beloved reached out to folks who’d made them playlists in the past, offering an hour radio show every month. They program every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 10AM to 11PM CST. You can hear my show, Darlin’ Radio, every second Saturday at 11AM CST on www.beloved.wtf!
What are your goals for the show? Is it something you’d like to keep incorporated into your career? What do you hope listeners walk away with?
For myself, I’m taking this opportunity to explore new music. It’s so easy to get stuck in a loop of the music you’ve loved for years. I’m also using this platform to share music from my friends and peers.
So far, it’s definitely been a rewarding challenge and I’d like to stick with it for a while. I’ve always enjoyed the process of curating, and I know that I’ll continue doing so for my career. Will it always be radio? Maybe, or maybe not.
Darlin’ Radio is exactly what I’d wanna hear on the radio. Nothin too heavy, but nothin too shallow. I wanna lift you and move you. I wanna hold you and send you, darlin’.
Christopher Treacy has been writing about music and the music industry for 20 years. He’s contributed to The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Herald, Nashville Scene, and Berklee College of Music’s quarterly journal, as well as myriad LGBTQ+ outlets including the Edge Media Network, Between the Lines/Pride Source, Bay Windows and In Newsweekly. He’s the Managing Editor for CQ and lives in Waitsfield, VT.