SF DocFest 2025: 40 Watts from Nowhere

Filmmakers in Attendance.

40 Watts from Nowhere is a documentary about Los Angeles pirate radio station KBLT. It is based around vintage footage shot in 1998 that shows the station operating 24/7 out of an apartment closet in Silver Lake with DJs running the gamut from Keith Morris (Circle Jerks), Mike Watt (Minutemen) and Don Bolles (Germs) to garden-variety music fans playing everything from jungle and punk to vintage country and French pop.

Sue Carpenter started the 40-watt FM station in 1995, exploiting a legal case that allowed hundreds of low-power illegal radio operators to proliferate throughout the country and gave birth to the legal LPFM movement. Carpenter was 28 years old, a secretary and an aspiring journalist when she first set up KBLT and invited strangers into her house to spin whatever the hell they wanted. It soon took on a life of its own, drawing Mazzy Starr to headline a benefit concert and the Red Hot Chili Peppers to play live in her living room.

The vintage footage captures the arc of the story, from its full-tilt heyday in the summer of 1998 to its FCC shutdown later that year. Shot by a DJ who intended to make a documentary but never did, the vintage footage is rounded out with interviews Carpenter conducted in 2023, including Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello and pirate radio activist Stephen Dunifer.