Left Coast 70sLeft Coast 70s

Left Coast 70s joined SomaFM in 2015, one of the later additions to a network Rusty Hodge started in February 2000 out of a basement garage in Bernal Heights, after running a micropower transmitter at Burning Man the year before. By the time this channel appeared the station had grown past twenty of them, all carrying no advertising and running entirely on listener donations, which is the only reason a format this narrow gets to exist rather than having to chase a broader audience.

The music is the mellow end of late-70s and early-80s West Coast rock: thoughtfully produced, heavy on session players, folk-influenced and built for the drive rather than the club. It is the sound that blossomed out of Los Angeles and spread up the coast, back before yacht rock became a joke everybody was in on, and the channel plays it entirely straight.