Alkaline A069: Black Velveteen on the ¡AXOLOTL!
Burner Podcast
Born on the South Side of Chicago and based in Seattle, Chris Offutt (aka Black Velveteen) is a pillar of the Pacific Northwest creative community and the founder of the Sage Rites record label. Her musical foundation, built on a childhood range of Motown to Mozart, manifested in a career navigating the cultural textures of San Francisco and Seattle, including her 2011 London-based radio show Progressions in House. This session, recorded at sunrise on ¡AXOLOTL! Art Car, Burning Man 2024. Black Velveteen first appeared on Burner Podcast with the closing set for Episode 88 (Post Burning...
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Burner Podcast: From Earth With Love
Burner Podcast
Ben Haldeman is backing up our collective memories across the stars Published [3/31/26] Ben Haldeman is an engineer, explorer, and the visionary founder of LifeShip — designing pyramids filled with DNA archives and cultural time capsules to send to the Moon and beyond. A former early employee at Planet Labs, Ben left to follow a calling that crystallized during a vision quest through the forests of Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. In this conversation, Arash and Ben look past technical specifications to explore the existential heart of why we document ourselves as a...
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Alkaline A068: Shamiran (Camp YOUniversal)
Burner Podcast
Alkaline A068: Shamiran (Camp YOUniversal) 📅 [3/18/26] The Soundtrack to Your Burn In this session, we welcome a true sonic ambassador of the global community. Born in Iran and based in Los Angeles, Shamiran is an artist, musician, and sonic selector who has become a mainstay at Camp YOUniversal, known for their Persian Tea House (designed by the legendary Gregg Fleishman). A community activator and human rights activist to the bones, Shamiran can usually be found on playa with the sound and production team for Distrikt and coordinating Woman Life Freedom events in the default world. If she...
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Alkaline: Piccaya (Afrikaburn 2025 / Bubbles & Bass)
Burner Podcast
Burner Podcast Presents: Alkaline A067: Piccaya at Afrikaburn 2025 Welcome to the all new, all different (but mostly the same same) Burner Podcast Presents Alkaline — the soundtrack to your burn. Our new season opener welcomes back Piccaya, last featured in episode 90 of Burner Podcast, this time sharing one of his many sets from Afrikaburn 2025. Piccaya is a sonic traveler and storyteller based between Brussels and Barcelona, known for deep, organic, tribal-infused soundscapes that bridge the spiritual and the dancefloor. This mix captures a warm, glowy, hip-shaking journey recorded Friday...
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Don’t Go to Burning Man
Burner Podcast
A Post-Burning Man 2025 chat with 20-year veteran & camp lead Rand Pate The dust has barely settled, and Arash is still shaking it out of his hair—and maybe out of his brain. In this post-Burning Man 2025 debrief, he sits with Rand Pate, a 20-year veteran and long-time camp lead of Bubble Lounge, to unpack what might have been the roughest year on record. From hurricane-force whiteouts and shattered shade structures to an unexpected birth, a tragic homicide, and the most international population in playa history, 2025 pushed the community to its edge. They talk about the evolution of...
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Roadtrip to Burning Man 2025
Burner Podcast
Roadtrip to Burning Man 2025 The Annual Pre-Playa Planner™ It’s that time again, kids! The Pre-Playa Planner is the yearly tradition where Arash delegates all the actual research to his way-more-responsible guests. This year’s dialed-in crew to help you mentally prepare for your adventures ahead: Esquire, founder of Saffron aka Sara Barnett, repping Art Support Services (A.S.S.) Shamiran, artist, musician, sonic selector and Camp YOUniversal mainstay The crew breaks down some of the 2025 art projects we're excited to see, rituals we’re bringing back, new surprises we're...
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Welcome Home
Burner Podcast
And on his seventh Burn, Tyler Williams truly came Home For his first six Burns, musician and professional Las Vegas community builder Tyler Williams attended Burning Man the millionaire way — flying in late, partying big, and heading out before the Temple burn. After the tragic death of his friend and boss, Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, Tyler returned to the playa — this time sober and with a deeper sense of intention. In this interview memoir, Tyler shares his story of growing up in the church, landing in Las Vegas with his band, and eventually working alongside Tony during the Downtown...
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Talk to Tony
Burner Podcast
Anthony Bondi refuses to let Las Vegas’s arts history disappear For over two decades, Anthony Bondi has been a living archive of Las Vegas’ arts and counterculture movements. From his large-scale tactile installations at Burning Man to his massive independent archive, Las Vegas Arts in Print Media, 1990–2015, Tony has tirelessly documented the ephemeral and forgotten corners of creative expression in Sin City. In this conversation, Tony and Arash explore the nature of cultural memory and the role of artists and storytellers. Tony guides Arash through an experiential journey into the...
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The Dispatch | With Music Producer Joman
Burner Podcast
Burner Podcast Presents The Dispatch Joseph Mancuso, better known as Joman, is the producer behind the Burner Podcast theme song, a remix of America’s “Horse With No Name.” In this Dispatch, Arash and Joman catch up about dance music culture, his move from Denver to Austin, and his latest evolution as a video content creator. From viral bootlegs to Beatport charts, Joman’s journey weaves through Denver’s underground, Burning Man, and beyond. 🎧 Featured Tracks: 🔗 More from Joman: | |
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The Dispatch with Rat Lady of Mobility Camp
Burner Podcast
The Dispatch – Episode 002: Rat Lady Guest: Rat Lady Recorded on: 2/28/25 Arash hops on a call with Rat Lady of Mobility Camp to discuss practical ways we can all practice Radical Inclusion by making our Burns more accessible for participants with disabilities—and how to bring that mindset into the default world. Fun takeaway: No one gets to be a sparkle pony, not even at Mobility Camp! We don't have to be perfect but a little effort goes a long way. mobilitycamp.org About Burner Podcast Presents: The Dispatch Quick-bite conversations with Burners around the...
info_outlineAn Ego Can’t Build a Temple
Glitter Kitty embraces community and shadow work in her vision for Burning Man 2024’s Temple of Together
Lebanese-bred and Brazil-born Caroline Ghosn learned to place a high value on deep connections from an early life lived in a larger variety of cities than your average childhood. The “activist entrepreneur” became Glitter Kitty in 2015 and has brought to the playa the sculptures Do Not Cross and Disturb My Slumber, paving the way for arguably her greatest feat, Burning Man’s 2024 Temple of Together.
Arash interviews Caroline in April 2024, just as the temple team begins their transition from individual fundraising to the next phase of their efforts. Their conversation explores multi-generational trauma, the spiritual compulsion that is art-making, and multiple geek-outs about Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.
Chapter One: Highly Sensitive
Chapter Two: When You’re in Hell, Keep Walking
Chapter Three: Tiny Cute little Human Ego
Chapter Four: Why Temple
Chapter Five: The Gardner and the Architect
Chapter Six: Gratitude
Links:
https://www.instagram.com/carolineghosn
https://journal.burningman.org/2024/01/black-rock-city/building-brc/introducing-the-2024-temple/
Recorded at Robot Heart Residency chill space at all The Loom makerspace in Oakland, California, on April 20, 2024. (theloom.net)
https://robotheart.secretparty.io
https://www.instagram.com/robotheartfoundation
Additional recording at Dome Asylum in Ramona, CA
hipcamp.com/en-US/land/california-dome-asylum-hippie-homestead
tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g32937-d16645997-Reviews-Dome_Asylum-Ramona_California
instagram.com/domeasylumramona
This episode was produced by Kelly Smith (kellysmithcassidy.com)
Executive Producer Patrick Dylan Riley (ra.co/dj/patrickdylan)
About Burner Podcast:
Independently produced by a revolving team of volunteers and hosted by founder ‘Mister Arash’, Burner Podcast is the longest running traditional podcast in the global Burning Man community. Focused on year-round Burner consciousness and topics of intracultural interest, explore a decade’s worth of conversations at burnerpodcast.com/previous-episodes.
DJ sets featured on Burner Podcast can be found here: soundcloud.com/burnerpodcast/sets/burner-podcast-closing-sets
Follow instagram.com/BurnerPodcast and facebook.com/burnerpodcast for wildly irregular updates.
Burner Podcast host Arash Afshar is an Iranian-American SoCal-based(ish) professional photographer, writer and community building addict. Send him love or hate mail directly at mrarash.com/hello and follow his writing on Substack at yesterdayiwasclever.com, where he publishes new pieces on culture, Art and identity every Friday.
For bookings and inquiries, contact Arash’s management at properconcept.us/contact-us