Novena Carmel was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area surrounded by her mother’s record collection, classical music books atop her piano, and a deeply rooted musical legacy. Her father, Sly Stone of Sly & The Family Stone, instilled in her the love of the funk and the brilliance of “everyday people.” Her family’s decades-long connection to Brazil along with her Japanese-bilingual elementary schooling, further expanded her world view. Inspired by the guidance of one of her best friends and mentors, her grandfather, she moved to Los Angeles at 18, to attend UCLA. She has been a proud LA resident ever since with a deep appreciation for the city’s contributions to the global cultural landscape. For the past 14 years, Novena has worked in entertainment booking for Temple Bar Concepts, which owns and operates live music venues and cultural havens throughout the LA area. During this time she was also a member of multiple music groups, leading to the opportunity to perform at Lollapalooza, Warped Tour, Abbey Road and Coachella. She launched her DJ career six years ago, which quickly took off, fueled by her lifelong love of sharing the music she loves with people, infectious energy, and ability to read a room. In 2018 Novena was invited to join the DJ team at KCRW, and has quickly become popular through her quirky sense of humor, energetic spirit, and expansive and personalized music collection.

Michael Barnes is the co-host of Lost Notes. Obsessed with sound even as a child, Barnes got his start as a DJ at the age of 18 on WRAS Atlanta, Album 88, and from there has produced and hosted shows on WORT-Madison, KALX-Berkeley, KPFK-Los Angeles and KCRW.  Most recently, Barnes curated the program "Moods In Free Time" for Adrian Younge's Artform Radio on Worldwide-FM.  During his time in the Bay Area, Barnes received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, with an emphasis on the intersections of Race, Class, Gender and Culture.  He currently teaches courses in the department of Sociology at CSU-Long Beach.  Whether as a DJ, a Collector or a Scholar, Barnes has always championed independent music and culture, particularly highlighting the work of those criminally overlooked and obscured artists of the past. (Photo: Farah Sosa)

Ashlea is a researcher on Lost Notes. Brown is a former podcast producer at the Los Angeles Times. She is a native of North Carolina who majored in English at Spelman College in Atlanta. There she worked on the university’s newspaper, the BluePrint, and joined the National Association of Black Journalists. Brown enrolled in UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism in 2019, where she discovered a love for audio reporting, and graduated in May 2021. She has freelanced for KQED, interned with CapRadio in Sacramento, and worked as a producer on UC Berkeley’s Law School podcast, “Climate Break.” Previously, she was a Times’ 2021 summer intern, fill-in producer, and member of the 2021-22 Los Angeles Times Fellowship class.

Melissa Dueñas is a researcher on Lost Notes. Dueñas is a former podcast producer for Wondery and a long-time record nerd and DJ. Coming up as a record collector in her hometown of San Diego, Dueñas pursued DJing to create space for overlooked sounds. As a DJ she’s known for building eclectic sets that span decades and genres. Dueñas has opened up for artists like Durand Jones and the Indications, Peanut Butter Wolf and Dam-Funk. Throughout the years she’s had radio residencies on WorldWideFM and Dublab where she took deep dives into various facets of music culture through her curation and guest interviews. In 2015 Dueñas earned a B.A. in American Studies from UC Berkeley and in 2020 an M.A. in Arts Journalism from USC Annenberg. Her journalism has been featured in L.A. Taco, KQED and KPCC. Currently, Dueñas is working on a book that chronicles her original research on the East Side Story compilations. (Photo: Roberto Camargo)

Myke Dodge Weiskopf is the Senior Producer in KCRW's Music Department. From 2018 to 2021, he produced the original Lost Notes trilogy with creator/executive producer Nick White and hosts Solomon Georgio, Jessica Hopper, and Hanif Abdurraqib. During the pandemic, he created Private Playlist as a way to engage musicians and producers by talking about the music that was keeping them sane. Key episodes of the series were subsequently picked up by NPR under the rebranded title, "Lockdown Listening." Concurrently, he spent two years painstakingly digitizing and restoring the archive of former KCRW DJ Deirdre O’Donoghue, resulting in Bent By Nature: a sprawling, multi-pronged project that birthed a podcast series, an on-demand archive, and a 24/7 streaming station of her original broadcasts. The project won a 2023 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism award for Best Multimedia Package. Earlier, he was a contributing producer and editor for The Organist, KCRW’s audio collaboration with The Believer magazine, and a contributor to KCRW’s original audio documentary series, UnFictional. He began his career at the station as a music supervisor for Lea Thau’s Strangers podcast. His fingerprints are on countless other KCRW projects as a writer, story editor, sound designer, composer, mixer, and silent partner. (Photo: Daniel Topete)