Radio-Free Carmela & The Transmitters

Pronounced Karma - la Voted "Best Americana Band" by Sarasota Creative Loafing Magazine- October 2006 A guitar player since age 12 and a Floridian by birth, Carmela began writing songs as a young adult in the late 80s. She became truly obsessed with songwriting in the late 1990s while part of the neo-folk group Thread. Her most recent achievement has been a collaboration with her band, The Transmitters and writer Tomara Kafka.

Voted "Best Americana Band" by Sarasota Creative Loafing Magazine- October 2006

A guitar player since age 12 and a Floridian by birth, Carmela began writing songs as a young adult in the late 80s. She became truly obsessed with songwriting in the late 1990s while part of the neo-folk group Thread. Her most recent achievement has been a collaboration with her band, The Transmitters and writer Tomara Kafka. In October 2007 Radio-Free Carmela and the Transmitters finished recording and mixing the songs penned by Kafka (a true relative of Franz) as well as their own material. The result is a CD titled "Americana Tourister" which also includes several guest musicians.

Carmela is a long time veteran of live music performance, dating back to her teens when she was playing at a patio bar of a local rock club she was not old enough to be in. Sometime in the early 90's Carmela was rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist in the art/grunge rock band Turning Wheel. After they split up she returned to performing solo, armed with only her Guild Dreadnaught plugged into a Roland Jazz Chorus amp. But playing in a band had an irresistable appeal to Carmela and in 1999 she formed Thread, along with female songwriter Tanya Radtke. But collective trouble ensued for Thread and they disbanned before achieving the goals they had set for themselves.

It was 2002 when Carmela first assembled the Transmitters to perform a monthly gig at JR's Old Packinghouse Cafe, the local staple for live music from blues to bluegrass. It was also in 2002 that she was dubbed "radio-free" by the band due in part to her gabby nature. Since then RFC & the Ts have graced venues and stages from Apopka to Miami. They've done benefit concerts for Community Radio Stations WMNF 88.5 FM (Tampa) and WSLR 96.5 LPFM (Sarasota). The Transmitters were even Michigan singer/songwriter Wally Pleasant's backup band on his 2005 tour of Florida. Radio-Free Carmela and the Transmitters continue to uphold their reputation for putting on truly engaging live performances. According to Sarasota's Creative Loafing, RFC & the T shows "are not a varient of bloodless folk that dominates coffee shops but full on Americana"