TheBlast.FM’s Colin Cruz Interviews Skillet’s John Cooper Friday Sept 24 2021 + Next Week

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TheBlast.FM founder and Program Director Colin “Cruz” Strombeck and John Cooper met in 1999 during Skillet’s Hey You, I Love Your Soul tour.  That was Skillet’s second album.  Colin Cruz, then known as Colin Cruise, was the music director and an on air personality on what was at the time, an Albuquerque FM Christian Hot CHR radio station called K-LYT.

Colin was an early adopter of Skillet music on the radio…he played songs from their first album at his previous Christian rock radio shows before moving to Albuquerque and under Colin’s direction, K-LYT played so much Skillet music that the band took notice and thanked Colin Cruise on their 3rd and 4th albums in the liner notes.

TheBlast.FM equally believes in Skillet.   Skillet has always been a core band here and it is always a pleasure to talk to Cooper.    We are airing the first three segments of our recent interview we recorded with him, on Friday September 24th in the 2 pm hour, USA/Canada Central Time, with more segments airing next week.

The Colin Cruz Skillet John Cooper Barren Cross Mike Lee Gale Force Connection

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“Huh?” most of you are thinking, after reading the subject line of this article.   “What’s that all about?!” Well, you’ll find out in Colin Cruz’s interview with Michael Drive (fka: Mike Lee), lead singer of the band Gale Force, which airs Wednesday September 15th in the 11 AM hour and Thursday September 16th, 2021 in the 2 pm hour (USA/Canada Central Time).

The interview is in 6 segments, some will air on Wednesday and the rest will air on Thursday.

Pictured above is Michael Drive sporting the Gale Force Subhuman t-shirt.

The Protest Interview On The Blast Wed Thru Fri Sept 1-3, 2021

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The Protest just released its new 6-song EP called Death Stare via Rockfest Records, featuring the #1 smash hit Greater and the new follow-up single which we also Blast (of course): Show Up To The Showdown.

While some radio stations have just suddenly discovered this is a good band, they are no strangers to TheBlast.FM, as we have played The Protest since 2012, when they were called Protest For Pluto!

If you think that name is comical, wait until you hear what this band was called in middle school!

Colin Cruz interviews the band in 5 segments, spread across three episodes of the Colin Cruz Radio Show: Wednesday at 12 Noon; Thursday at 1 PM; and Friday at 12 Noon.  All times, USA/Canada Central Time.

Disciple Interview This Week On TheBlast.FM

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The Blast’s Colin Cruz interviews Disciple this week on TheBlast.FM.  The first 3 segments of the interview are Wednesday August 18, 2021 in the 1 PM hour.*

Oh, and…we’ll have a surprise special guest from another band in segment 2 Wednesday.  Hint D +DD= D3.

On Thursday the second set of interview segments will air in the  12 Noon hour.*

On Friday, the third set of interview segments will air in the 2 PM hour.*

*All times= USA/Canada Central Time.

TheBlast.FM Is On Telegram, Gab, Gettr, Rumble and MeWe

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TheBlast.FM believes in free speech!

So, look for TheBlast.FM on some new social media channels.

The Blast Dot FM on Telegram;  TheBlastdotFM on Gettr; TheBlastdotFM on Rumble; TheBlastFM on MeWe;  On Gab, find our group: https://gab.com/groups/48340

*Gab is supplanting Facebook.

*Rumble is where we are now uploading all of our videos.

*MeWe is where we are uploading archives of audio programming (mainly artist interviews).

*Gettr and Telegram supplant Twitter.

Also, if you want to funnel your giving through a platform that IS a Christian ministry, you may want to switch your giving over to the MyWell giving platform: https://www.mywell.org/give/theblastfm/

Options are coming soon for non-USA citizens to give through MyWell, and in the meantime…

You can also donate via cryptocurrency via Engiven:  https://platform.engiven.com/give/432/widget/295

 

 

Relent Interview Wednesday August 11, 2021 On TheBlast.FM

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The Blast’s Colin Cruz caught up with Relent at TheBlast.FM booth at the Kingdom Come Festival recently.  On Wednesday in the 12 Noon hour (USA/Canada Central Time), we will air that interview.

Internet Outage At San Diego Datacenter: Cause Of Dead Air-Alternate Stream

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A car accident near the San Diego data center where our main streams are hosted caused a block-wide power outage, knocking our main streams off the air.

Use this stream address in Winamp or VLC Media Player to get Blasted in the meantime:

http://208.85.240.212:80/128

This stream is now in our Android, iOS, and Roku apps in the third position, notated as 128k!!!

So the others may have dead air, but this is hosted on the other side of the USA and has live streaming audio.

Paypal Merchant Fees Increase August 1, 2021: Switch To MyWell

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Paypal is effectively increasing its merchant fees that it will be charging us, starting on August 1, 2021.

If we can get the remaining 48% of our monthly automatic Paypal donors to switch over to the MyWell giving portal*, we will save nearly $200 a year in fees.

Here is a chart showing amounts donors are still giving through Paypal monthly:

PAYPAL CURRENT FEES, AUGUST 1, 2021 NEW FEES VS. SWITCHING TO MYWELL GIVING PORTAL
Current New Paypal Paypal MyWell donation Amount saved (per donor at
Gift Amount Calculation Calculation Current Fee New Fee via elec. check each month this gift rate)
$100 2.2% +.30 1.99% +.49 $2.29 $2.48 $0.30 $2.18
$35 2.2% +.30 1.99% +.49 $1.07 $1.19 $0.30 $0.89
$25 2.2% +.30 1.99% +.49 $0.85 $0.99 $0.30 $0.69
$20 2.2% +.30 1.99% +.49 $0.74 $0.89 $0.30 $0.59
$10 2.2% +.30 1.99% +.49 $0.52 $0.69 $0.30 $0.39
$5 2.2% +.30 1.99% +.49 $0.41 $0.59 $0.30 $0.29

Notable: for those donating $100 a month, this takes our fee from $2.48 to 30 cents!

For those donating $5, how do you feel about the fact that Paypal takes over 1/10 of that starting next month?

  https://www.theblast.fm/home/donations/

To switch over to MyWell, click on the button that looks like the above picture, found in the lower right corner of our website.   (Or click on the handy link next to it).

*Assuming everyone gives via electronic check, with the exceptions of: if your gift amount is $7.50 or less or if you are outside the USA, please donate with a debit card on the MyWell portal, as the fees will be even less than $0.30.

Thank you for helping to maximize your contributions to The Blast Ministries, Inc.!

The Letter Black Interview Part 3 on Friday July 2, 2021

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On Friday July 2, 2021, Colin Cruz (pictured here with Sarah Anthony and Mark Anthony) of The Letter Black, airs part 3 of his interview with this band.  It will be on TheBlast.FM in the 9 AM and 10 AM hours (USA/Canada Central Time).

If you missed the first several segments of the interview, those are archived on TheBlast.FM MeWe page:  https://mewe.com/p/theblastfm

 

The Letter Black Interview On The Blast, Wednesday Through Friday With Colin Cruz

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Colin Cruz sat down with Mark and Sarah Anthony of The Letter Black at Kingdom Come Festival.  It was an eventful, fun, and entertaining 17 minutes, and we are breaking it up into multiple parts that will be on The Blast Wednesday through Friday (June 30-July 2, 2021).

The first segments will air Wednesday in the 11 AM hour (USA/Canada Central Time).