Sector FM is changing the face of radio in Tampa Bay

Sector FM, one of the newest radio stations in the Tampa Bay region, is incredibly unassuming, especially in the physical space it takes up: a small closet-like room on the second floor of one of the plain buildings that make up St. Petersburg’s The Factory.

There’s no air conditioning, so the station’s presenters frequently crack the door open to let in cool air. One of the corners houses an ever-shrinking number of boxes belonging to Daddy Kool Records, which also operates out of The Factory.

On the two desks placed along the walls is the equipment used to run this nascent project: turntables, CDJs, speakers, microphones and a huge iMac computer among other things.

In many ways, Sector FM’s headquarters is an audio enthusiast’s delight.

However, despite appearances, this small office powers a bold idea: a twice weekly, online radio station led by a handful of artists, musicians and music lovers who considered themselves a part of the Gulf Coast’s arts and music community.

Before Sector FM’s launch, Radio St. Pete, with its four separate streams, and Black Power 96 Community Radio were the only other online radio stations broadcasting from the Sunshine City (WMNF Tampa 88.5-FM, which celebrates its 45th anniversary this fall, broadcasts a signal that reaches well beyond Tampa Bay.)

Sector’s first Sunday online happened on Christmas Eve 2023. What started with seven presenters has expanded quickly in six months. The station now broadcasts one-hour shows curated by about 20 presenters twice a week. Presenters later upload their sets to Mixcloud, an on-demand streaming website.

The presenters come from wildly differing backgrounds, from working musicians and visual artists to bartenders and baristas. Some—like Alex Charos—are lifelong residents of the Tampa Bay region. Others—like Deja Denice, HorseShoeCrab and SmushySlugs—are newcomers who found their way here from major cities like New York City and Minneapolis for the first or second time. What they all share is a dedication to curating music for their friends and community.

The birth of a station

The genesis of Sector FM stems partly from the COVID-19 pandemic. Vonne Parks and Andre Gainey of They Hate Change were no different than many Floridians who were seeking creative and social outlets from home.

They were longtime listeners of online radio stations like London’s legendary Rinse FM and NTS Radio. And in the summer of 2020, they got the chance to curate a set for a station based in New York City.

“We got to do [a show for] The Lot Radio remotely. We did an hour on there, which was cool,” Parks told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay in a recent interview at The Factory. “It was like 'It would be sick to have an hour on one of these stations.’ So we just had that in our minds and kind of set a goal with that.”

That goal later morphed into something more as they came out of isolation. In the summer of 2022, Parks and Gainey started touring to promote their album, Finally New, which came out in May. They eventually made their way to Europe, visiting and creating one off shows for other established stations.

“Refuge [Worldwide] radio was the first one I think we saw in person. They're in Berlin, in the back of a bar/coffee shop called Oona,” Parks said. “[The idea] just started ringing off in my head. We just started taking pictures. The person who was producing for us looked at me. He was like 'It's pretty simple. Y'all could do this type thing.' I think he picked up on [our] interest in it.”

They visited Noods Radios in Bristol, a city in south west England, where producers Tehmeena and Rose showed them some elements of running a station. They encountered a similar friendliness at Foundation FM in London with the producers there, Frankie and Knox. With every stop, Parks noticed that the stations were built on a standard DJ setup and were supported by a consistent community presence.

Then there was the visit to London’s NTS station last August. Parks and Gainey joined another presenter, Anu Ambasna, for a two-hour set. Once again, station producers took notice of their curiosity. Sigourney Watson and Giuliainvited them to hang around and ask questions the next day.

“We came back three days in a row, sticking around in NTS for hours,” Parks said. “Seeing how it runs, learning the ins and outs, the way that they set things up in the first place, the way they scheduled things, writing down notes of everything.”

After London, they started rolling out developments—making a plan for a station and buying the equipment they took note of at the NTS studio. They also started contacting friends, musicians and other regulars they met through the Tampa Bay area’s music scene to be presenters on the station, in addition to themselves.

“We invited people over to the house. We had the gear set up there first because we didn't have a space. And that was the plan. Until we get a studio, we'll just run out of here,” Parks said, referring to the home they share with their partner Zoe Robinson in St. Petersburg.

“It was like a house party vibe because it was just people over at the house, hanging and DJing. We were running fake broadcasts basically.”

As more people became involved, Parks said the station moved towards becoming a community station that is run and sustained by all of the presenters.

Leading up to December’s first broadcast, Raheem Fitzgerald, one of the presenters, helped secure the small office at the Factory. Sector FM had a new, more permanent home.

Local flavor

Delaney Staack was one of the first to present on Sector. She curates on Sundays, from 10 a.m.-11 a.m..

A Seminole native, Staack holds down a job at a museum in St. Pete while also making music and performing occasionally. She was at Parks and Robinson’s home often late last year, working on events with We’re Sweet Girls, a local collective of young women which books music shows and community events around St. Pete.

By just being in the room, she found out more about the plan for the station over time.

“As soon as I heard about it, I was really drawn to it and immediately asked 'What about me having a show?' And Vonne was down for that,” Staack said.

The music on Staack’s show often varies from 1960s and 1970s film scores to contemporary ambient music. Having a weekly show has put her into a constant state of discovering and digging for new music, whether it’s on her own or through the other presenters. Some of that helps with picking music for the next week. In other cases, it’s starting to influence her own music, she explained.

(Staack opens for Leah Senior this weekend at St. Pete's Bayboro Brewing Co.)

“I'm really happy that we are doing this,” Staack said. “Because I feel like there's a pulse around here of people who want a scene and want the community and this, I think, could be something really powerful.”

Part of what Staack thinks is powerful about Sector FM is there is “permanence to it.” Hosting a community via the internet allows the station to get around the barriers to finding and maintaining spaces for community. Not only can Sector exist solely online, the presenters also archive all of their shows on Mixcloud, a streaming platform that distributes radio shows for on demand listening.

In the late-2010s, the closures of Fubar and The Local 662, two seminal music venues on St. Pete’s Central Avenue, left musicians with fewer options for booking shows. Then the COVID-19 pandemic halted all venues and even house shows that were put on in backyards across the region.

One of the realities driving presenters like Staack is knowing the ongoing development across the Bay Area may fundamentally change this once low key region on the Gulf Coast.

“Seeing how much the city [St. Pete] has changed from a local perspective, our city has started catering so much to tourists and transplants. And what makes this area cool is the fact that people here want it to be an arts town,” Staack said. “I don't want to lose that.”

Global experience

Christian Tapper came back home to Tampa to be part of something like Sector FM. Tapper—who makes music and performs as Johnny Champagne—lived in New York City for about five years before returning to the Tampa suburb of Lithia where he grew up.

He studied at New York University for four years before graduating with a degree in Recorded Music in 2021. He lived in the city for another year before coming to a realization.

“I felt like my message and what I do as an artist didn't really mesh well with a lot of the stuff going on in New York, except a very small scene that I really did love,” Tapper said.

“It was a hard decision because I wanted to come back. I always loved my community back home. And my goal from going to New York from the jump was to come back and just reunite with all my people that share my culture.”

A producer first at heart, Tapper teaches music production to middle schoolers and choir and keyboard at Hollins High School. While living in New York, he startedDJ-ing and hosted a livestream on Twitch to beef up his skills and share music with viewers.

(Champagne plays an album release party in Ybor City this weekend.)

Earlier this year, a few months into Sector’s “soft launch,” Parks approached him to become a presenter while he was DJ-ing at a Skatepark of Tampa party.

Although radio requires a different set of skills than the ones he honed from live streaming and DJ-ing, he was ready to take on the experience. Tapper is now one of the main Wednesday presenters on the station.

He’s been a big fan of The Lot Radio, which is similar in operation to Sector FM. Based in Brooklyn, the station broadcasts 24/7 from a renovated shipping container that occupies a small corner lot.

“I just see the vision so clearly for Sector FM,” Tapper said. “I'm a huge fan of the local online radio show idea and I see the community it creates.”

Instead of setting the mood for or catering to an audience at an live event, Tapper says he has more leeway over what he wants to introduce to Sector listeners.

“What I love so much about radio, you have so much control over the culture and I want to put all these Tampa artists on,” Tapper said. “I want to put all the music that I think is cool on.”

" ...this, I think, could be something really powerful.”

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Pressing flesh

Beyond radio, there’s another goal in mind for Sector presenters: tying in in-person events to their shows so listeners can meet them.

We’re Sweet Girls hosted the first Sector FM-related event at Bandit Coffee Co. in February for Valentine’s Day.

Jayda Abello, one of the presenters in attendance that night, likened it to a “school dance vibe.”

“We had all these lights and balloons and heart shaped things everywhere. There was confetti on everything [and a] special menu. So that was really fun,” Abello said.

“And I had not been to an event like that in St. Petersburg in the three years that I've lived here. But it reminded me of events that I had been to in other cities that I've lived in—Atlanta, Austin, New York—where older music from the ‘60s and ‘70s is still something that people want to hear every weekend.”

Before her move to St. Pete during the pandemic, she was a bartender for over 10 years, with some experience with DJ-ing. When she left New York City, she also left bartending. She’s now a full time DJ who regularly plays at Hotel Haya in Ybor City and Lost and Found, a bar in St. Pete.

Part of being a DJ working on corporate accounts means she doesn’t often play music “that I listen to at home.” Sector FM, where she hosts VG+, is the platform where she does play music to express herself more fully.

“There are so few things that I will do unpaid and this, I get stoked on it every week,” Abello said.

Using her connections to local businesses and a live music booking company, she’s taken on the role of Sector’s de facto event coordinator.

“My whole angle for wanting to help with the events is using the network that I have,” Abello said. “People come to me with opportunities that maybe I myself cannot do for whatever reason or maybe I'm not the perfect fit. But there's no reason I can't pass that on to some other presenters.”

Since the Valentine’s Day dance, presenters have been cranking out Sector-related events. Abello, They Hate Change and Club Miata played an all vinyl set for Record Store Day at the Bends. DJ Spur, HorseshoeCrab and SmushySlugs have hosted DJ nights at The Bends and Black Crow Coffee’s Old Northeast location. We’re Sweet Girls continues to put on their recurring “girls* to the front” event.

Starting in July, Sector Saturdays will be a regular event at The Bends. There are also plans for a sunset pool party at Hotel Haya in late July.

Abello said she is hoping for more partnerships with businesses to expand where Sector FM presenters can meet listeners.

“If somebody has an event that they need music for, we have like 25-30 people who all play music. And we all have this foundation of respect and responsibility.”

Parks, who joined the conversation with Abello, later summed up their outlook on what makes Sector successful so far.

“Nobody thinks they’re gonna get famous from Sector FM. Nobody thinks that this is going to generate millions of dollars for them or something like that,” Parks said. “So you can tell that everybody wants to be here.”
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