Filmmaker, journalist, podcast producer, record collector, and DJ Jackson Allers has lived an eclectic life. The native Houstonian has trotted the globe, playing music and reporting from war-torn areas.
You might not expect this from a guy who’s generally known for spinning records as “Brother” Jackson Allers. He DJs a monthly, two-hour set called Sounds of Solidarity, which plays on an online Palestinian station, Radio Alhara, as well as Ice House Radio, a Houston-based web radio station he co-founded in 2023. “I wanted to incorporate all my different musical interests, from punk to ambient to outlaw country to hip-hop, jazz, whatever,” said Allers, during an October Zoom call from his Spring Branch home. “I needed a show that reflected my radical political beliefs and my desire to link all these different, disparate musical elements under one umbrella.”
Allers has loved music and broadcasting since growing up in the suburbs of north Houston, when he listened to Pacifica Radio station KPFT with his dad and took in “the diversity of weirdness and informational programming that was on that radio station. … That was my first exposure to zydeco and Cajun, and I just was, from early on, a lover of [community] radio,” he said.
