LOS ANGELES — Max Maslansky’s talk show on KCHUNG radio is called “Riffin’ ” for a reason. When he invited the artist Danielle Adair to the station’s studio on the edge of Chinatown here, above a sewing-machine-repair shop and an herbalist, they touched on diverse subjects like cherry farming in Michigan and her work in progress: an experimental opera called “Caution Bomb” inspired by the radical educator Rudolf Steiner.

At one point, Mr. Maslansky and Ms. Adair were earnestly discussing social experiments in the village of Geel, Belgium, where the residents for years have taken mentally ill patients into their homes. The next they were laughing about their alma mater, CalArts, calling it “a mental health ward” that encourages artists’ narcissism. His dog, a “schnoodle” named Belvedere, slept on the floor through most of it.

But before hitting its rhythm, the show got off to a rocky start, with Josh Mannis, the evening’s co-host, speaking into a microphone that wasn’t live. Nobody at the station figured it out for a few minutes.