Francesca Bessett
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Breaking through has never been easy for Phoenix bands and musicians. Finding an audience can be even harder.
Alt AZ 93.3 on-air personality Monique “Mo” Rodriguez has been helping with both for the past decade.
Since 2016, her weekly locals-only radio show, “Homegrown With Mo!,” has introduced Valley listeners to hundreds of Arizona artists.
Every Sunday at 9 p.m., Rodriguez fills Alt AZ’s airwaves with an hour of local music. Each playlist is different, mixing rising Arizona artists, longtime local favorites and the occasional genre curveball.
Case in point: Recent shows have featured local upstarts like East Valley emo band Phantom Spring and pop-punkers Perfect Sense.
More established Arizona talents like indie pop artist UPSAHL and singer-songwriter Sydney Sprauge are also in the mix, plus artists that don’t strictly fall into the alt-rock category.
“Sometimes I’ll make exceptions for bands that don’t necessarily fit the alt-rock genre. It feels like I’m being a little sneaky,” Rodriguez says. “The good thing about alternative is there are so many different fabrics that are apart of its quilt. And genre is even a hard thing to define right now, anyway.”
A similar genre-hopping mix artists will perform at Alt AZ 93.3’s Homegrown showcase at FOUND:RE Phoenix Hotel on Friday night. The lineup includes alternative hip-hop artist The Kaleidoscope Kid, “intergalactic neo-soul” act Hyperbella and post-hardcore act Life on Standby.
That stylistic free-for-all has been baked into “Homegrown With Mo!” since the show debuted a decade ago.
‘Something I’ve always wanted to do’
Rodriguez, a Valley native, grew up listening to legendary Phoenix alt-rock station The Edge in the late 1990s and early 2000s with dreams of one day getting behind the microphone. One of her favorite programs was the station’s weekly “Local Frequency” show.
“When I was younger, I’d listen to The Edge constantly,” she says. “It felt like they were really championing a lot of the local bands I’d heard about back then that are all big now.”
That included Arizona favorites like Authority Zero, Jimmy Eat World, The Format and Phunk Junkeez.
When Rodriguez signed on with Alt AZ in 2014, a locally focused show was one of her pet projects. It became a reality in late August 2016.
“It’s something I’d always wanted to do,” she says. “It felt like there was a hole that needed to be filled when it came to local music. I wanted to showcase all these bands that I had been hearing about over the years and they finally gave me the opportunity.”
“It’s something I’d always wanted to do,” she says. “It felt like there was a hole that needed to be filled when it came to local music. I wanted to showcase all these bands that I had been hearing about over the years and they finally gave me the opportunity.”
It started out small, with Rodriguez closing each weeknight air shift with a song by an Arizona artist, inviting listeners to vote online for their favorite. The winning track got another spin on Friday.
“I’d spend time talking (bands) up and then playing their song,” she says. “It got a good response, so I kept doing it.”
“Homegrown with Mo!” eventually grew into a weekly hour-long night program that began airing on Sunday nights in 2018.
The show’s name also had a serendipitous connection to the station’s past.
Years after “Homegrown With Mo!” debuted, Rodriguez discovered KDKB, which became Alt AZ in 2014, released a series of “Arizona Sounds” compilation albums in the 1970s featuring local artists like Hans Olson and Duane Davenport. The first volume, released in 1977, had the subtitle “Homegrown Music.”
“I had no idea. Someone sent me a copy of that vinyl record,” Rodriguez says. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is just really cool.’ It feels like I’m continuing the legacy of KDKB with the local music.”
‘It feels like I’ve done some good’
When Rodriguez started airing local music a decade ago, she scoured the local music scene for band and artists to feature. These days, it’s no longer an issue as Rodriguez says her inbox is filled with submissions from Arizona musicians .
“I’m having trouble going through all my emails because there are so many,” she says.
Over the last decade, Rodriguez has also found other ways to spotlight local artists beyond the airwaves. In 2022, she began staging the “Homegrown Sessions,” a series of Tiny Desk-inspired live performances in the Alt AZ studio that she paid for out of pocket.
While the series ended in 2023 because of funding issues, Rodriguez hopes to revive it someday in a larger space.
Both the sessions and “Homegrown With Mo!” have also introduced Valley listeners to a few breakout acts over the last decade.
Rodriguez remembers featuring future indie pop star UPSAHL long before her national breakthrough. Hardcore act Bite the Hand also found a wider audience after appearing on the show.
Rodriguez downplays any role in their respective success stoties, though.
“I don’t say that it’s because of me at all,” she says. “Ultimately, I just wanted people to hear bands that I was hearing because I love sharing new music. And if it’s new music from your backyard, even better.”
Rodriguez says artists who have been featured on “Homegrown with Mo!” frequently send videos of themselves hearing their songs on commercial radio for the first time.
These moments, which Rodriguez says are “really magical,” are just some of the perks of her job.
“People reach out and tell me, ‘Thank you for showing me this new band,’” Rodriguez says. “If I can give them just one new fan, it feels like I’ve done some good more than I’ve done bad.”
Alt AZ 93.3 Homegrown Showcase. Friday, Aug. 7, 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Found:RE Phoenix, 1100 N. Central Ave. Admission is free.
