Doug and the crew put the show together each week, which aired on NBC Minneapolis each Saturday night.Ī year later, Doug was called back to Detroit to join WLLZ. In early 1980, there were few music videos to air, so the show ran for only 30 minutes. When they explained their idea, I said: ‘I know exactly what to do.’ We put together a show called Twin City Beat for NBC in Minneapolis.”
HOWARD STERN RONNIE JAMES DIO TV
“Two producers came into the station there and wanted to meet somebody about putting a TV show together. “I moved to Minnesota for a year, as music director at KQRS,” Doug continues. “A friend named Steve Sorter, who was in a band called the Mutants, had this crazy concept,” Doug says, “of videotaping bands from the Red Carpet Lounge, and showing them on public access TV.”īefore the concept was realized, the unimaginable happened: W4 went country. Ironically, many fans knew Doug Podell from television: the classic Detroit video show, The Beat. “Before he left, to move to Chicago, he said: ‘Doug, I’m going to hand you the sword – the sword to fight for local music in Detroit!’ The first record Sky handed me was by the Romantics, which was on this small, New York label called ‘Bomp!’”ĭoug took up that sword, and Detroit bands have had no greater advocate in local media. “He was very passionate about local music,” Doug recalls. Sky also passed an important mantle to Doug. “I found my personality after that, being the Doc,” Doug says. It was Daniels who christened Doug the “Doc of Rock”. and he worked alongside seasoned DJ, Sky Daniels. “He wasn’t the Howard Stern he later became,” Doug says, “but he was damned good – better than anyone we had, at the time.”
The musician onstage – wielding an electric guitar like Zeus wielded his lightning bolts – was none other than Jimi Hendrix.ĭoug’s time at W4 was transformative. “I went in, and of course, the ticket was for the very last row of the very top of Cobo Hall,” Doug says. The night of the concert, he took the bus to Cobo Hall. In 1968, at age 15, Doug scored his first concert ticket by doing a charity walk for the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC), for St. The British invasion was huge for me when I was growing up.” “To this day, it’s still my favourite album. “My very first album, my mother brought home to me was ‘Introducing The Beatles’,” Doug remembers. It was a slow, steady metamorphosis from wide-eyed audiophile to the Doc of Rock.
He studied broadcasting at Macomb Community College, before transferring to Wayne State University. My life was starting to move in the right direction.”īorn and raised in Detroit, Doug Podell grew up on the city’s east side. “Hey,” Jim said, “are you looking for a full-time job?” It was Jim Johnson, then program director at rock radio station WWWW (W4). The true beginning of Doug’s origin story occurred six months after joining WABX. The hallmark of Doug Podell’s storied, 40-year career in radio, is his unwavering willingness to take the next step – even when it looks like it might be right off a cliff. I had only done about eight shows at WAYN, and it was a lot to absorb that I was now on at WABX!” “I opened my show with an 18-minute song by Roy Harper,” Doug says, “to give myself time to just gather myself.
Those were the halcyon days when DJs chose the albums for their shows.