RADIO : Live Connections : KSCA has hosted over 100 performers playing an eclectic mix over the air during its first year.

The so-called “music hall” from which KSCA-FM (101.9) broadcasts its live performances is, in truth, a hallway outside the deejay’s booth. On this afternoon, John Doe and Exene Cervenka are pressed close to the rest of their band, X, waiting to play.

“You should have seen when Steel Pulse was here,” says Mike Morrison, program director for the radio station just outside Burbank. “A nine-piece band, including a horn section. They overflowed into the office next door.”

In such unlikely environs, microphones get nudged askew, papers ruffle, doors open and close loudly in the background. No matter. The half-hour shows are meant to sound raw.

“Here’s a great moment for you,” deejay Merilee Kelly recalls. “When Shawn Colvin was here, she started choking on a throat lozenge in the middle of a song. Mike is asking her, right on the air, ‘Are you all right?’ She says, ‘No.’ But she kept on picking. The whole time she never missed a beat.”

And when the time comes for X to play, the band belts out a rough and sizzling version of its classic “See How We Are.”

This month, such moments take on special meaning as KSCA celebrates its first anniversary. A year has passed since the station, formerly KLIT, changed from Easy Listening to Adult Album Alternative.

This increasingly popular format equates to a blend of pop and roots, electric and acoustic. Big-name artists such as R.E.M., Annie Lennox and Elvis Costello anchor a rotation that includes classic rock and lesser-known acts such as Nanci Griffith and Dada.

The response, so far, has been encouraging. KSCA attracts 1.3% of Los Angeles and Orange County listeners, according to winter 1995 ratings from the Arbitron Co. That translates into almost 400,000 listeners per week and represents roughly a 30% increase over previous ratings periods.

But that number still pales in comparison to the region’s top-rated FM stations. During the same months, January through March, KLVE drew a 5.2 share and KPWR drew 5.0. And, in regards to KSCA, some critics have taken a wait-and-see attitude.

“They’ll play Peter Gabriel and David Byrne but not the world music artists those pop stars have championed; they’ll play Eric Clapton but not the blues giants that inspired him,” pop music columnist Steve Hochman wrote in The Times. “The key for a station like KSCA to succeed is for listeners to never know what might be played next but be eager to find out.”

Along those lines, the station strives to bring an eclectic mix into the music hall. Pop star Sheryl Crow has been there. So has Massachusetts folk singer Dar Williams.

In all, more than 100 performers have played over the air in a year’s time. They have helped KSCA establish itself as a continual source of live music, a radio territory formerly dominated by public stations such as KCRW and KPFK.

“More and more radio stations are doing it now,” Morrison says. Adds Bill Ward, the station’s general manager: “It connects us with the audience.”

Kelly has more personal reasons for wanting to present live sets. The recently transplanted Boston disc jockey gets starry-eyed about some of the segments.

“Joni Mitchell will be standing three feet away and I’m saying, ‘Oh my God.’ ”

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When they launched the music hall, station officials suspected that young musicians and those traditionally overlooked by commercial radio would be hungry for the exposure. Top-name artists might prove less enthusiastic, they feared.

But the very first guest, David Byrne, played a warm and gracious set, and the segments have gone well ever since.

Emmylou Harris struck up an impromptu, on-air conversation before her segment. When the Iguanas played a loud set, workers from other offices in the large building where KSCA leases space crowded outside and clapped for more.

“That was our first encore,” Kelly says.

Still, when X shows up, Doe is cynical.

“Doing these things is part of the job,” he says, cringing at the song that KSCA broadcasts immediately before his band’s segment. “I would have killed myself long ago if I had known I would ever play after a Grateful Dead song. I hate them.”

But, like other bands before them, X is won over by the clean sound in what may be Los Angeles’ most acoustically friendly hallway. Doe feels appreciative enough to hang around after the set and give Kelly an on-air guitar lesson.

“That was fun,” says D.J. Bonebrake, the band’s drummer. “Just talking and playing. It brings us closer to the audience.”

Doe adds: “Yeah, this offers us a chance to make really big mistakes over the air, in front of a lot of people.”