Mutiny Radio is Closing its Mission District Station

Director/owner Pam Benjamin doing standup in front of Mutiny Radio.

After 13 years of holding court at the corner of 21st and Bryant Streets, Mutiny Radio is shutting down operations of the station/studio.

While Mutiny Radio will remain as a brand that does five open mics around San Francisco each week, it will no longer be a storefront internet radio station that records and broadcasts live music, poetry, comedy, theater, or interviews with artist, activists, and thinkers. The website and the podcast archives will remain up, and the force behind Mutiny, comedian Pam Benjamin, will be producing her 3rd art film under the Mutiny Radio brand, the actual station and studio are officially kaput.

Mutiny Radio arose from the ashes of Pirate Cat Radio, a community radio station that broadcast on lower power frequencies until they got hit with a $10,000 fine. A little after switching to an internet radio format, Monkey, the station’s founder, allegedly “sold a majority share in the station, took the broadcasting equipment, cashbox from the cafe, and left town.” The afore mention cafe was famous for its Maple Bacon Latte, which Anthony Bourdain stopped in for in 2009 when he visited for the SF episode of No Reservations.

The DJs, interns, and volunteers who were left holding the bag after Monkey’s hasty departure, immediately formed a collective with the goal to keep the station going. Shortly afterwards, Mutiny Radio was born.

After being run as a collective for a few years with “wavering success and financial challenges”, Pam Benjamin took over in full as director/owner and has been running it ever since. But that’s all over now.

“I got tired of being a poor, disrespected artist. Not worth the struggle,” Pam tells me over Facebook Messenger. “It was an impossibly hard job to do alone. The pandemic killed the money flow. No podcast rentals. We came back from the pannie with only 9 paying DJs at $100 a month, who were not always paying on time. $900 a month was less than 1/4th  the overhead without paying me.”

And so after over a decade of struggle, Pam Benjamin has hung up her studio headphones. Since everything has to be out of the studio by January 31st, Pam put it all up for sale and is now giving the rest away. She’s moving to Greece to work on a film with Nikos Kihem.

Besides producing hundreds of podcasts, radio programs, live shows and comedy over the last decade, Pam and Mutiny also put on the Mutiny Radio Comedy Festival for 8 years. And the list of famous people who’ve stopped by to be on the air include George Clinton, Belinda Carlisle, and Toots and the Maytals.

George Clinton at Mutiny Radio in 2011

San Francisco is just a little bit less interesting now that the Mutiny Radio station is closed.

You can still support them thought by hitting up the following weekly comedy shows:

Monday: Joke Workshop at Gallery-o-Rama – 6pm
Tuesday: Comedy at OMG – 7pm
Wednesday: Candy Comedy at Mars Bar – 7pm
Thursday: Comedy at the Bar on Dolores – 8pm
Saturday: Titans of Comedy at Atlas Cafe – 2pm