The spirit of radio lives in Faders Up: The John Aielli Experience
, he welcomed Austinites to their day for five decades with a show that could feature in-depth interviews with local artists or day laborers, and a playlist could include Brahms, Asleep at the Wheel, and frog mating calls. It was the lack of format, his idiosyncrasies, and his cultural polyglotism that made him a true institution.his cultural impact was far greater than simply just playing some songs.
Hartstein’s memory was “a little hazy” because he’s not sure if he heard the man or the show first. Aielli, a classically trained baritone, would sing in the stairwell of the station’s studios on the UT campus. As a grad student in the same building, Hartstein would find himself serenaded by this invisible singer. “As soon as I put together that the guy on the radio show I was into and the guy singing in the stairwell was the same guy, it really was this 'a-hah!’ moment for me.
How the pair came to make the documentary is somehow like one of those beloved, diversion-filled and seemingly directionless Aielli anecdotes that peppered the show. They interviewed the radio legend in 2021 – an experience Hartstein compared to “talking with my grandfather” because it was so joyous and easy. “We thought it would probably be a short film about John and maybe some other KUT hosts,” Hartstein said.
When Aielli died in 2022, the duo filmed his estate sale, and cut together a proof-of-concept that they then showed to KUTX Program Director Matt Reilly and General Manager Debbie Hiott. They signed off on the idea of the film, and so the duo collected more interviews, and handed the footage over to editor Field Humphrey. Douglas recalled that their only direction was “just start editing, man.
So even if they didn’t know what they were making when they started, by the end Hartstein saw it as a celebration of “that 'be yourself, do what you do, and it will all be OK’ spirit that I think Austin still has. To me, that’s the legacy of John.”Inside the chaotic creative partnership of Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala from their POV.
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