Some of you may have noticed recently some changes in the schedule and staff. Most of you could care less and are just here for the music. For those of you who are interested in the mountains of drama that go hand in hand with internet radio,...
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Some of you may have noticed recently some changes in the schedule and staff. Most of you could care less and are just here for the music. For those of you who are interested in the mountains of drama that go hand in hand with internet radio, here is the latest episode of “The Days Of Our MDR Lives”.
It all started with the Eric Sadorf drama that happened last year when we fired him due to right wing hate speech full of racism and for promoting violence on FB and using our platform to share his ideas with the public without our knowledge. After this, it became evident to us how politically charged the landscape has gotten to include within our inner circle of long time DJ's and staff members. In fact, we had some staff members such as Carl MacIsaac who were harassing myself and my wife for being Bernie Sanders supporters. While we do not promote a particular political stance via our radio station, we do reserve our right to freedom of speech and the right to our own political views. We have always embraced people at Metal Devastation Radio regardless of different political mindsets. It became clear to us, however, that our Trump supporting DJ's and staff members were unable to cope with the fact that they were working under the same roof with “snowflakes”. We were being targeted because of political posts we were posting on our personal pages on social media which had nothing to do with the radio station. When my wife and I got to the point when we were tired of being targeted by members of our own staff, shit hit the fan!
One member of our staff, Carl MacIsaac was constantly messaging us, making comments, making passive aggressive posts on his page against us and trying to give us ultimatums based on our political views, we had had enough and were forced to let him go. This is when Carl MacIsaac let loose with a long string of abusive posts and lies about my wife and our station. We had to ban him from everything related to MDR because of his vicious and vindictive tactics.
Shortly after that it became apparent that someone within our inner circle of trusted staff members was feeding Carl MacIsaac insider information via screenshots from our private FB group. My wife made a post within the group condemning the behavior for not only continuing to stir the drama pot, but for betrayal of trust among staff members. At that point one of our other long term DJ's and friend, Amunet, had some sort of meltdown about the post and started going off on my wife for making the post. The exchanges on the thread became very heated and shortly after that Amunet quit abruptly and the insider information that was being sent to Carl MacIsaac also stopped magically at the same time. While we do not have definitive proof that Amunet was sharing insider information, we believe that her responses to the post about it, her abrupt resignation, and no further insider information being shared, all point to Amunet having been the “mole”.
All of this was very difficult for us to wrap our heads around and to get passed, especially given that Carl MacIsaac was a close friend, and that just weeks before, Amunet was laughing and talking with my wife and even offering to give her some sacred items she was getting rid of and wanting to give to a good home. I guess friendship is fickle.
We moved passed it and regrouped and were doing fine when all of a sudden we got an email from Steve Buz Bright, who is another person I have been friends with for well over ten years. Buz was also a person that had issues with our political views. In the email he stated that he had other issues going on in his life and that he no longer had the time to be an active part of MDR. He stated that he still wanted to be friends, and that he would still support MDR. Right after sending me this email, he unfriended my wife, unfriended other DJ's, removed his profile from the MDR website and stopped his monthly donations to MDR. Right after this, we got another email from another longtime friend and DJ, Spencer Streeter.
Spencer Streeter, as many of you know, has been my partner in crime since day one when we created MDR. Spencer along with Amunet, Buz, and a few others, were all from the first station (Metal Head Radio) I started working at as a DJ, which was owned by a man who in my opinion, was very verbally abusive, insulting, and controlling. His name was Rob Wallace. At one point when Rob was being horribly controlling and abusive to Spencer, my wife jumped in and defended Spencer, making herself and I a target for Rob’s wrath. It was at this time in 2013 that MDR was born, and was meant from the very beginning to be a place where all people from all walks of life could DJ and be themselves without fear of being targeted and verbally abused. We still stand by this and always will. So, imagine our shock when we got the message from Spencer stating that he was leaving us to restart a former station that had gone out of business. The former station I am referring to is “Rock Addict Radio”, another station that Spencer tried to help back when MDR was being created. At the time we also attempted to help Rock Addict Radio and we were 100% ok with the fact that Spencer was DJing on both stations. We even had a link on MDR going to Rock Addict Radio. We have always tried to network with other stations in a respectful and inclusive way when able. However, the owner at Rock Addict Radio, Renee Boyer, did not want to show us the same respect. She removed any links for MDR from her site, and then started bullying Spencer because of his involvement with us (according to what Spencer told us). This is when Spencer decided to join MDR exclusively and has been a part of MDR ever since. He has been a very trusted friend and ally, and someone we could always depend on. So, needless to say we were very saddened and shocked to hear the news that Spencer was leaving us and MDR to go back and restart Rock Addict Radio with Renee.
When I asked him why he was leaving, he stated that he had lost his passion for DJing and saw this as an opportunity to go do something new, exciting, and challenging. After a lengthy discussion, I had to accept that he was leaving, wished him luck and told him i would see him on the battle field (making a joke reference to the fact that internet radio is like war). He insisted that we would still be friends and that he would still support MDR. The next day, Norman Ingram and Carol Gleason, two other DJ's at MDR, resigned and went to Rock Addict Radio to join Spencer. When I confronted Spencer about this, he assured me that he did not talk them into it and that they did so on their own. Two days later, a long-term fan and PR person, Megan Marie Michaels, resigned in order to go to Rock Addict Radio as well. It also became apparent that the two long term DJ's mentioned previously (Amunet and Buz), were also now supporting Rock Addict Radio. It became clear to us that Spencer had taken much of what he had learned at MDR, and was using our same formula to reboot Rock Addict Radio. So, in essence, Spencer and the previous ( some current) DJ’s, had been working on this plan behind my back, all while gathering insider information that they planned to use at the new station.
At this same time, Carl, who had been begging to come back to MDR, issued a public apology to my wife and I on social media, and we all attempted to mend fences and move forward. He was brought back in as a staff member of MDR and he started promoting us again on his Metal Mask page on FB.
A few days ago, Carl reached out to inform me that he had been approached by Spencer to do some graphics for Spencer’s new station and help them with PR. This is when I explained to Carl the situation with Spencer and told him how hurt and betrayed that I felt by everything that had recently happened. His response was to tell me in a nutshell that this was all because of politics and that I had alienated all the Trump supporters from MDR because of my own political personal beliefs, which I rarely ever talk about on my show or the station. This is when I told Carl that I felt it would not be a good idea for him to work with them at the same time as MDR because they had just betrayed us, taken our information, taken our DJ’s, and were now trying to directly compete with us. So, I felt like it would be a conflict of interest. Carl kept harassing me about it, so I finally told him to just do whatever he wanted and that we could remain friends and support each other but he would no longer be a part of our staff so that he could not leak private information. It bothered him that I did not care and was trying to move forward and it became apparent that he was just trolling and trying to stir more drama.
We confronted Spencer about Carl and he told us that he did not take internet radio serious like we do and did not treat it like a business. The truth is when you first start out in internet radio, it can be a hobby and treated as such but when you reach the point that MDR has, with millions of views and listens from all over the world and insane amounts of bandwidth are used, software upgrades, licenses, hosting, etc. It becomes a business and when you have a vested interest in something you take it very serious.
I have now blocked and banned Carl MacIsaac, Spencer Streeter, Steve Buz Bright, Amunet, Carol Gleason, Norman Ingram, and Megan Marie Michaels from any involvement with MDR. Not only did these people betray us and throw away years of friendship, but they took what they learned from being privy to insider information, and are now attempting to use it against us. So much for starting a brand new challenge from scratch when all you have to do is steal and copy from another huh?
Our blog on MDR still supports hundreds of podcasts, interviews, radio shows, webzines, PR companies, and more from all over the net, and are always happy to do so as long as we have mutual respect. We are not affiliated in anyway with Metal Mask or Rock Addict Radio, or any of the DJ’s mentioned above.
I sincerely hope that this post clears up any questions or concerns that anyone may have had in the last few weeks. MDR is continuing to grow and we will remain committed to our mission of supporting the underground and metal as we always have. We still have over 30 something different DJ’s and staff members from all over the world and we are broadcasting 24 7 around the clock. Onward and upward and thank you for your continued support. - Zach Moonshine
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