Telethon Stories, or One Good Thing About Metallica
Today was the final day of the WRUW annual telethon. I spent a substantial chunk of this weekend doing data entry on the paper forms from callers. The station overall has done pretty well, but my show once again didn't do terribly well. It's almost as if changing the name of the show, the genre of the show, and the co-hosts of the show on a regular basis isn't conducive to building a regular loyal audience. Last year I hit $290 and this year I only got to $225, and in both of those I donated a substantial amount of that money. The only time I did particular well was way back in the day when one of my co-hosts really opened up his wallet, which I think got us over $500. If you want to contribute after the fact this link should work for while.
The telethon itself is mostly unchanged from year to year. Honestly, I could take most of this blurb and reuse it, and it's 12 years old. I don't even have any particularly good stories of my own, but I do have one from another show from back in 2009 when Metallica was inducted into the Rock Hall. That year's induction was in Cleveland proper (they often aren't, because apparently Cleveland isn't cool enough for celebrities) and overlapped telethon. Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted was in town to perform a one-off during the ceremonies.
As it happens, back then WRUW had a show called Forte which was hosted by a long time hard rock / heavy metal fan. He'd done a bunch of interviews with bands going back to the 1980s and when he joined WRUW he played both classic interviews he'd done and talked to current bands. The host (whose name I frankly can't remember) had interviewed Metallica many times as well as talking to Newsted about his other projects, and he somehow got Newsted to come down on the show during telethon to talk about the importance of college radio.
Jason Newsted delivered. He sung the praises of WRUW in particular and independent radio in general. He said that independent radio was playing Metallica when nobody else would and would probably be playing them after everyone else stopped. He offered to match all listener donations during the show up to some high amount (I think $1000) and he came through. We sent him the requisite WRUW gear, and he later posted pictures where he was wearing it.
Metallica is kind of a popular target so shit on given their anti-MP3 stance back in the late 1990s and general negative reputation. I don't pretend to know the truth of that or have an opinion one way or the other, but I will say that Jason Newsted is an upright guy who did us a solid back then, and I salute him for it.
The telethon itself is mostly unchanged from year to year. Honestly, I could take most of this blurb and reuse it, and it's 12 years old. I don't even have any particularly good stories of my own, but I do have one from another show from back in 2009 when Metallica was inducted into the Rock Hall. That year's induction was in Cleveland proper (they often aren't, because apparently Cleveland isn't cool enough for celebrities) and overlapped telethon. Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted was in town to perform a one-off during the ceremonies.
As it happens, back then WRUW had a show called Forte which was hosted by a long time hard rock / heavy metal fan. He'd done a bunch of interviews with bands going back to the 1980s and when he joined WRUW he played both classic interviews he'd done and talked to current bands. The host (whose name I frankly can't remember) had interviewed Metallica many times as well as talking to Newsted about his other projects, and he somehow got Newsted to come down on the show during telethon to talk about the importance of college radio.
Jason Newsted delivered. He sung the praises of WRUW in particular and independent radio in general. He said that independent radio was playing Metallica when nobody else would and would probably be playing them after everyone else stopped. He offered to match all listener donations during the show up to some high amount (I think $1000) and he came through. We sent him the requisite WRUW gear, and he later posted pictures where he was wearing it.
Metallica is kind of a popular target so shit on given their anti-MP3 stance back in the late 1990s and general negative reputation. I don't pretend to know the truth of that or have an opinion one way or the other, but I will say that Jason Newsted is an upright guy who did us a solid back then, and I salute him for it.