Episodes

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking What if the most unforgettable show you'll ever see is one you never would have thought to buy a ticket for? We're continuing our partnership with the City of San Luis Obispo celebrating ARTober, and this time, Adam Montiel welcomes back Molly Clark, Director of Cal Poly Arts, for a conversation about creativity, curiosity, and the incredible power of experiencing something unexpected. Molly takes us behind the curtain ...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking Everybody thinks they have the best dog in the world. Well, it's time to prove it! Jill Alexander from Paso Market Walk and our good friend Robin Coleman from Woods Humane Society join Adam Montiel on Up+Adam to talk about the first-ever Best in Show Dog Show, happening Saturday, November 7th, in Paso Robles. And Adam's not just talking about it, he's emceeing the whole thing! From impressive tricks and outrageous costum...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking Opera San Luis Obispo is going GRAND, and apparently nobody told the Lord High Executioner that Adam was conducting an interview. Brian Asher Alhadeff and Luana join Up+Adam for a look inside OperaSLO’s massive production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, coming to the Performing Arts Center San Luis Obispo October 17 and 18. We’re talking a full OperaSLO Grand Orchestra, an internationally acclaimed cast, enormous ...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking There's more to SLO CAL than great wine, incredible food, and postcard-worthy scenery. There's an extraordinary arts community bringing world-class talent right into our backyard, and Festival Mozaic is helping lead the charge. Executive Director Lloyd Tanner joins Adam Montiel for a lively conversation celebrating ARTober, the City of San Luis Obispo's month-long celebration of arts and culture, and the people working ...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking The Fifth Annual Autumn Soirée: The SLO Way is coming back to Hotel SLO, and this one is basically a greatest-hits album of what makes the Central Coast so ridiculously good. Rebekah Fancher and Mikey Sayegh join Adam for a conversation about the food, wine, cocktails, creativity, and community behind the November 14 event. Rebekah shares how Autumn Soirée has grown into a celebration of the region’s harvest, culinary t...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking October is ARTober in San Luis Obispo, and Up+Adam is kicking off a month-long partnership with the City of SLO by looking at the art hiding in plain sight all around us. Adam sits down with City of San Luis Obispo Public Art Coordinator Amanda Grieshop, an artist and photographer who has turned a lifelong need to create into a job helping other artists become part of the visual life of the city. Amanda shares why she b...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking It’s a two-part Wednesday on Up+Adam. First, we pick up with Part Two of Adam’s conversation with Chris Lambert. This half starts with the fun stuff: Chris and Allie’s cross-country RV adventure, Graceland, My Cousin Vinny locations, their wedding, six-minute vows, and the coffee-shop proposal Chris spent 14 years working his way toward. Then the conversation comes back to Southervisions and Chris’s relationship with hi...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking Chris Lambert returns to Up+Adam, and this time the conversation begins with the music. His new album, Southervisions, arrives October 6 and draws from family, Louisiana, memory, and Lambert’s experience growing up half-Cajun on California’s Central Coast. Chris talks with Adam about the relationship with his father at the center of much of the record, the childhood trips to Louisiana that shaped him, and the unusual wr...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking The big oak at Monterey and Nipomo in downtown San Luis Obispo is staying put. That is the good news. The bigger question is how we got here. Earlier this year, the San Luis Obispo City Council approved removal of the oak after arborists working with SLO REP and the City concluded the tree was extremely unlikely to survive construction of the new theatre. Then volunteer arborists stepped in, the root system was physical...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking Nevada Gibson joins Adam on Up+Adam for a conversation about what happens when you stop waiting for your life to change and decide to change it yourself. A Central Coast host, comedian, content creator, event producer, and podcaster, Nevada opens up about a year that completely rerouted her life. After a secret marriage, a quick divorce, and the realization that she was no longer living in alignment with the life she wa...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking The Bloody Marys are back, the burritos are hot, and somewhere in Creston, one very important cow is preparing for its moment. Lisa Miller and Alex Cook from the Creston Women’s Club join Adam to preview the second annual Bloody Mary Battle, Burritos & Bovine Bingo, happening October 3rd from 11 AM to 3 PM at the Creston Rodeo Grounds. Top Bloody Mary makers from across the Central Coast will battle for Judge’s Choice, ...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking SLO Symphony Music Director Andrew Sewell joins Adam Montiel on Up+Adam for a deep dive into “Rites of Passage,” the orchestra’s 2026-2027 classics season opener and a program built around one of the most electrifying works in classical music: Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Andrew takes Adam inside the music itself, from the famously exposed opening bassoon solo to the irregular rhythms, enormous orchestral force...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking Connie Valens joins Adam Montiel for a deeply personal conversation about her brother, Ritchie Valens, and the life behind one of rock and roll’s most enduring legends. Connie talks about the Ritchie the world never got to know, the brother she remembers as her caregiver and her heart, and what it has meant to spend a lifetime sharing someone she loved so privately with millions of fans. She opens up about the family’s ...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking Music video director Nigel Dick joins Adam Montiel on Up+Adam for a wildly entertaining trip through the era when music videos did more than promote songs. They helped define how entire generations remember them. And Nigel’s résumé is almost absurd when you stack it up. Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” Oasis’ “Wonderwall,” Cher’s “Believe,” Def Leppard’s “Rocket,” Celine Dion’s “Falling Into You,” Guns N’ Rose...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking Kenny Taylor is back on Up+Adam with a lot more than a new batch of songs. His latest album, Imaginary Grace, is his first collection of original music in a decade, and it arrives after a stretch of major personal and creative change. Kenny talks with Adam about nearly three years of sobriety, getting out of the comfort zone of cover gigs, reconnecting with songwriting, and why this record became a reflection of growth, ...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking Terrie Banish joins Adam in the SLO CAL Studios to talk about one of Atascadero’s most entertaining nights of the year, Brew at the Zoo at the Central Coast Zoo. It is a 21-and-over evening built around more than 20 breweries, wineries, cider makers and other pouring partners, with food, live music, contests, and the rare opportunity to wander the zoo after hours with a tasting glass in hand. But the conversation goes w...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking Tears for Fears founding member Roland Orzabal joins Adam Montiel on Up+Adam for a conversation that goes far beyond the hits. His new memoir, Welcome to Your Life: Love, Death, and Tears for Fears, looks back on a life shaped by fame, friendship, grief, ambition, creativity, astrology, and the long road toward understanding yourself. In this interview, Roland talks about seeing himself as both the character and the auth...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking Emmy-winning investigative journalist and producer Nancy Glass joins Adam Montiel on Up+Adam to talk about Season 3 of Burden of Guilt, the iHeart true-crime series centered on Cindy, a mother whose life is torn apart after a devastating allegation involving her fiancé Kenny and her 9-year-old son. What follows is years of court battles, fractured relationships, and a fight over not just what happened, but whose version ...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking UB40 founding drummer Jimmy Brown joins Adam Montiel for a wide-ranging conversation about nearly five decades of music, friendship, politics, and the strange art of knowing when not to play. Jimmy talks about why reggae drumming is harder than it looks, how slowing down can be more demanding than speeding up, and why that lesson applies far beyond music. He reflects on UB40’s working-class Birmingham beginnings, the ba...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking Maestro Andrew Sewell is back Up+Adam, and this conversation arrives at one of those fascinating moments when celebration and transition are happening at exactly the same time. Andrew joins Adam ahead of Pops by the Sea: Symphony Remix, the SLO Symphony’s end-of-summer celebration at Avila Beach Golf Resort featuring local powerhouse horn band Brass Mash. They get into what happens when a full symphony collides with the...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking There are certain local stories we love on Up+Adam, especially when entrepreneurship, family, and a little bit of “how did you even think of this?” all collide. Paso Robles father-daughter team Terry and Stella Gidcumb join Adam to talk about MVPee Portable Luxury Restrooms, a homegrown business bringing a seriously upgraded restroom experience to wineries, weddings, festivals, private parties, corporate events, and gath...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking James “Murr” Murray is back on Up+Adam, and this time he’s trading hidden-camera chaos for something with a few more legs. Murr joins Adam to talk about Don’t Move, the new horror-thriller he co-wrote and produced, where a church group wanders deep into the wilderness and discovers they are being hunted by a massive prehistoric arachnid that tracks its prey through vibration. In other words, running might be the worst t...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking This episode of Up+Adam lands in Hartford, Maine, at Bonaventura Vineyards, but the conversation quickly becomes about much more than wine. Adam sits down with Chad Casey and Jen Bonaventura to talk about the property they bought in 2015, the vines they planted themselves, the 1890s barn they cleaned out and later used for their own wedding, and the strange twist that came years later when they learned Hartford was still...

Sponsored by The Mountain Air | Sponsored by Benny’s Pizza | SLOFreeParking Acclaimed biographer and award-winning author Martha Ackmann joins Up+Adam for a timely conversation about Dolly Parton, following the country icon’s death at 80. Ackmann’s latest book, Ain’t Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton, looks far beyond the rhinestones and one-liners to the woman who built one of the most recognizable public identities in American culture while still keeping a remarkable amount of ...