“Campus Obscura” explores the underlooked history and culture of some of Stanford’s most vibrant student organizations. From the iconic to the irreverent, it aims to highlight the myriad of ways in which Stanford students build community.
At first glance, the KZSU headquarters feels frozen in time. Old vinyls and CDs line the shelves, their spines worn out despite being untouched for years. A corkboard on the far wall is crammed with photographs of people from decades past, while another board has flyers and newspaper clippings from 2007. The pipes running along the ceiling still have Christmas lights strung around them. With low ceilings, no windows and live radio blasting in every room, it feels like a separate dimension from the hectic college environment right outside its door.
Just like its central-yet-hidden location in the basement of Memorial Auditorium, Stanford’s only student radio occupies a unique space of being both a central fixture of campus as well as an underground niche. Founded in 1947, KZSU has persisted through decades of musical eras and rapid technological evolution. Yet even as its product — college radio — falls out of sync with modern music trends, its far-reaching network of students, faculty and community members keep it true to form.
“People just like to share information,” DJ suzi boneshaker said, a Stanford affiliate who started her KZSU show “Down to the Basement” in 2021 after hearing about the opportunity from a colleague. She likened the radio’s enduring relevance to blasting one’s interests on social media. “In one way, it’s self-serving. You’re like, ‘I want what I love to be shared with the world.’”
That love extends to not just each DJ’s personal music taste, but a variety of Bay Area artists as well. Once a week, the show Wednesday Night Live features a local musician playing live in KZSU’s own studio. Once a year, that invitation is extended to a variety of noise artists in the annual tradition Day of Noise, in which live music is broadcast from the KZSU headquarters 24 hours straight.
As a consequence of the pandemic, numerous traditions like Day of Noise had been on hold until as recently as last year. People from local news artists to Stanford volunteers worked to breathe life into these old traditions, with the revival of historic events as a testament to the enduring community the station has built.
“KZSU is like an ever-evolving diamond in the rough,” Eli Arguello ‘25 said. Arguello, who has been serving as KZSU’s special projects manager for three years, played a significant role in the effort to bring back Day of Noise. “Because […] nothing is really up to date with modern technology, you wouldn’t think it’s a diamond and that the rest of Stanford is the rough, but that’s kind of how it is. In my heart, this place is totally a gem because of the culture that it’s been a time capsule of.”
In the end, KZSU’s anachronistic identity is central to its appeal. This is reflected in the station’s retro branding, with its zine-like poster art to its Roy Lichtenstein-inspired stickers. Even the website looks like a product of the early 2000s Internet.
Yet even though the past still has its hold on the station’s culture, the present staff members are making their mark. Their first target? The headquarters itself.
“We have a million old photos of people from the 80s to the 2000s on our walls[…], and Ula and I were talking and thinking, we need us on these walls.” Arguello gestured to the photograph-laden corkboard. She pointed out the photos of her and KZSU’s current general manager, Ula Lucas ‘25. “And so we’ve left around disposable cameras, and Ula develops [the photos], and I put them up. So now it’s us on these walls with the people from the 90s.”
The new photos, with their imperfect fluorescent lighting and playful charm, fit right in with the ones of previous years. Together, they form an eclectic tapestry of everything the KZSU community has been. A camera sits on the printer under the board, inviting future members to add themselves to that legacy. It is a reminder that here on campus, nothing is ever stagnant. The Stanford community will find ways to make things new again.