Select Five

Dec 23 2024 37 ep. 127 mins 3

Select Five Podcast artwork

Hosted by Oakland music enthusiast Pam Torno, every episode of Select Five features a special guest talking about five songs and why they matter. Subscribe to the podcast now and get to know artists, music makers, filmmakers, community builders and other creatives from the Bay Area and beyond through the music they love.

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Ep. 35: Select Five's 2024 Year-Ender Episode

Dec 23 2024 96 mins

From heavy hitter new releases to quirky under-the-radar selections, we humbly looks back at the music that left the biggest impression on us in 2024. In the final episode of this tumultuous year, Team Select Five waxes on about the songs that marked our moments of personal grief and milestones of professional growth ... or just plain got us singing at the top of our lungs driving

Ep. 34: Live From Sierra Meadows, a Special Episode of Select Five

Nov 26 2024 40 mins

November’s been a rough month! Fortunately Team Select Five was able to take a field trip to Sierra Meadows, a cool glamping resort near Yosemite National Park, where we found a little peace of mind. Pam, Kate, and Brian joined about 50 other people at a private retreat focused on creativity and community, in which every attendee contributed to the weekend programming by sharing

Ep. 33: Exploring Filipino Culture in Five Songs with nic feliciano

Oct 14 2024 77 mins

When your sense of home is divided between two countries, it can have a profound effect on how you relate to the world and everything you create. Such is the case with nic feliciano. nic is an artist-performer-writer-musician-cook who was born in the Philippines but is now based in Berkeley. Whether it’s feeding people in the streets with her food hustle, Sup Streetfood, or makin

Ep. 32: Motown Covers with Mike C The Maitre D

Mike Cochran - aka Maitre D - is a Bay Area DJ and a prolific beatmaker who's been crafting hip-hop and R&B tracks for nearly two decades (producing credits include Jidenna, Sadat X, Wordsworth and Guilty Simpson). When he's behind the decks, he can rock any party with his creative open format sets full of original remixes and blends. But one of his favorite gigs of late is playing

Ep. 31: Bibi Khalili's Dance Journey in Five Songs

Jun 18 2024 46 mins

What does it take to make a living as a dancer? Just ask Paymaneh "Bibi" Khalili. A stalwart of the Bay Area hip-hop dance community, Bibi is the founder of DAM Events, a mixed arts showcase that gives up-and-coming talent the opportunity to strut their stuff. She's also a choreographer in her own right, having taught performance workshops, directed dance teams, and served as a jud

Ep. 30: Five Oakland Songs With Liam O'Donoghue/East Bay Yesterday

May 08 2024 50 mins

Celebrate the sounds of The Town with journalist Liam O’Donoghue, the host and producer of the popular local history podcast, East Bay Yesterday. Liam's show routinely covers the rich and underexplored tales of the East Bay's past, whether it's a deep dive into Emeryville's former "Rotten City" reputation, or a story about the long gone mass transit Key System that pre-dated BART

Ep. 29: Five Songs with Alexis Madrigal

Apr 16 2024 58 mins

As the co-host of "Forum" on KQED Public Radio and a writer for the Atlantic, journalist Alexis Madrigal often reports on big ideas and urgent stories that affect the Bay Area and the world. But in his spare time, he loves running, gardening, and 70’s funk and disco. In our latest episode, Alexis talks about a wide-ranging selection of five tunes he holds dear from his past and p

Ep. 28: Bar Shiru's Five Year Anniversary

Feb 21 2024 48 mins

February 2024 marks five whole years since Bar Shiru first opened to the public, and this podcast simply wouldn't exist without the creative partnership of its owners, Dan Gahr and Shirin Raza Gahr. To mark this special occasion, we gathered a few Select Five friends and supporters to the bar and recorded our very first episode in front of a live audience! Listen to Dan and Shirin'

Ep. 27: Five Songs With Filmmaker Cheryl Dunye

Jan 31 2024 37 mins

We're honored to kick off 2024 with the esteemed Cheryl Dunye, a world-renowned filmmaker and director of episodic television. Cheryl's work includes the groundbreaking 1996 film The Watermelon Woman, which is part of the permanent cinema collection at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and was added to the Criterion Collection in 2023. She's also directed episodes of The Umbrella Aca

Ep. 26: Our 2023 Year-Ender Episode

Dec 28 2023 88 mins

We made it through another challenging year and we couldn't be happier! From forced career changes to grieving the death of a pet, 2023 was a real struggle. But now that it's mostly in the rear view mirror, we can look back fondly at some of the musical highlights that kept us afloat. Brian's Selections: 5. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - "Nadja" 4. El Michaels Affair + Black Thou