The Josh Innes Show - Great Radio Stories With Doug Podell

Episode Date: December 6, 2025

"The Doc Of Rock" Doug Podell is retiring today. He's a wonderful guy who has 50 years of incredible radio stories. He was Howard Stern's boss in Cleveland. He was the inspiration for the "Duke Of Rock" character in "Private Parts". He's amazing. This is from today's radio show. I'm going to keep sharing segments for you guys to consume. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

106.7 Detroit's Wheels, Josh, in his show, last day at the dock. So you were, what was your actual title in the Stern universe? You were the PD at the station in Cleveland, but what was your role in the Stern world? I was the operations manager of WNCX, and I was just an affiliate at that point. You know, that was all. And, you know, there were no other affiliates. We were the third. So there was no syndication, you know.

company at that point. It would have been New York. Philadelphia was the second L.A. Washington and then you guys? No. Washington came after. So you were. We were third. It was Philly, L.A. Us. Really? Yeah. Oh, so you're not counting New York. Okay. So I'm not counting New York. Okay. So that makes sense. Okay. So I'm not trying to argue semantics with you. I guess. Wait a second, Doug. I know you lived it, but I read private parts. Wait a second. I got the Wikipedia up right here. So anyway, you're in Cleveland. The Duke. of rock.

Yes. How did you feel about that portrayal of the... It's an amalgamation is what it is. It's like four people mashed into one from W-4. Yeah. So, you know, but I did use to call them Big Bird. So... But, you know, and apparently he didn't like it.

And the station was legitimately in a horrible part of town and you guys thought you were going to die every day you walked into the work. Well, we were on Jefferson Avenue, not too far from the rent since. So it wasn't too bad, but it was an old. house. When you pulled into the parking lot, the rats would scatter. So you had to watch out for that because they'd eat any food that was left over on the ground.

We got a similar vibe outside this studio now. Yeah, but now we have a robocop statue. Yes, that's true. You're keeping everybody protected. The portrayal of the general manager of W4 in the movie, how accurate was that? None of that was really accurate. That was just a character created for the movie. Yes.

That was a, you know, I mean, I remember. remember Howard saying, you know, you're going to be in the movie, but it's not going to be you, you know. So that was... Did they have to get your permission to include that character or not? No, that's why they didn't. Gotcha. Yeah. If they would have called them the doc of rock, then it would have been a totally different thing and I would have got paid.

Correct. They changed a lot of, at least some names. So I understood. It wasn't that they changed the name of those guys and something like that. Yeah. I mean, it was a, you know, I mean, it was a movie. Yeah. And it was a low budget movie. and, you know, at that point, we were all committed to helping Howard succeed.

Yeah. And, you know, he was great. I mean, to this day, I still believe he's probably the best broadcaster in America, maybe the world, really. And, you know, he delivered. He certainly delivered in Cleveland, no question about it. I mean, within six months, he was the number one morning show. Oh, as far as Rock was.

we beat MMS right out of the shoot, boom. The key to getting him to come in to do the funeral was getting the station to go to number one. Not just him. And by the time that happened, he had already done the funeral in Philadelphia and done an L.A. funeral. I think those were the only two funerals.

I think that it already happened. This is interesting, though. So for those who don't know, WMMS is like the riff of Cleveland. Like the heritage is like, that's the big station. It was America's rock station. They're like the Dallas. cowboys at the time. Gotcha. You know, everybody wanted to

work there. Everybody revered it. I used to go to Cleveland and vacation here. Just to listen? To buy, you know, stickers and T-shirts and listen. You know, so to go there and decimate them was a lot of fun. I bet. I mean, talk about rock war.

Well, you mean, you told us that you went up there possibly to get a job up there and then it didn't happen. Then you come back and beat them. That's got to be awesome. So the funeral. happens. You guys beat WMMS and you're number one in town. It's a big deal. You're in charge of all this. You're the PD, right? What is the responsible of Doug Podell when it comes to building this whole funeral in Cleveland for a stern funeral? Well, I had to go to the general manager and ask for $180,000 to erect a stage.

Let me just interrupt you really quick. Here, when I go and ask Casey for stickers. He says, look, I don't know if that's in the budget, but Doug's going. He can, he gets three grand to get to slash lap dances, and he gets 180 grand for a Stern funeral. All right, as you were. Well, he was different back then. Just getting Howard Stern, we had to go to New York. I went with the owner, and it cost a million bucks. Wow.

And this is a little Cleveland station that was in 21st place. So they took a giant leap of faith, you know, to do this. And they believed in me to deliver it. Did you have to deliver like a sales pitch to Stern to get him? I mean, what was the pitch? How do you do it? We said at the conference room, freedom of speech. Mm-hmm.

I believed it. And you said, look, we're going to have to play 19 records in the morning, but you can say whatever you want in the 10 seconds between them. No, as a matter of fact, we weren't allowed to play any music. We weren't allowed to hit the dump button for any reason whatsoever. And there were, and we were not allowed to put any billboards up. So you mean to tell me you did not have anybody sitting back there like, oops, the F word slipped out? Like Al Lewis, Grandpa Munster said the F word. Well, that was handled there, but the F word never did slip out.

What was the reasoning behind the billboard thing? He just didn't believe in it. He didn't believe in it. He thought it was Radio Gaga, you know, radio hype. I did put billboards up. And I was chastised for it, and we had to take them down. But I still have little pictures. of them from the company.

I did hit the button one time, and I was chastised for it by not only Howard and the entire crew, but the entire city of Cleveland, although it was split. Half were with me and half were against me. But at the time, Howard had put a parody song together of one of the Cleveland Indians. His name was Steve Olson, who died in the boat, who died in the boat. He was decapitated, and it was to a song by Popeye the Sailor Man. And in Cleveland, the Indians at the time were the economy. Okay.

Yeah, they just got good again. They were the biggest thing in Ohio. And I'm driving in and I'm hearing this. And, you know, I understand it. I'm letting it go. I'm letting it go. I'm letting it go. And then it got to the point where I thought, you know what?

We're going to lose every damn advertiser we have. And salespeople were flipping out. Phone calls were coming in, positive and negative. And I went upstairs and I had a very good producer who was running the show. His name is Dave. And he was very diligent in, you know, communicating with the Howard Stern show. I said, Dave, move over. because I wasn't going to put that on him.

And I went and I pushed the dump button. And I proceeded, I did not play music. I proceeded to play 18 minutes of commercials. So this is in the middle of the parody song. Yes. So you get up the middle of the whole bit. The whole, and I'm sure they did it an hour-long bit about this guy having his head taken off on a boat. Two and a half hours, maybe.

So I now, I lift my figure. off the button and I hear listeners from Cleveland telling Howard that I'm holding the button. And, you know, everybody's flipping out, you know, especially

Howard. And as soon as I heard that, I pushed the button and ran another 15 minutes of commercials. And And by the time it was all over, you know, finally I took my finger off the button in, you know, and I let them continue to, you know, the moron PD, Doug Podell did this and the moron PD, Doug Podell did that.

But you realize how good that is for the station audience to build that kind of hatred for you. Like it's good, like it sucks for you, but it's good because that creates the content that causes a fever pitch with the audience and the people who love it are going to love it even more. And it's going to make news. What is he doing? And Howard knows that, by the way. He understands better than anybody, like, creating that kind of drama that's real but sort of fake with the PD and stuff. Like, that's huge for building your loyal army of people. Well, I know when I first put him on, that's what I was getting, you know.

And I called him up once and I said, Howard, you know, I thought we were friends, you know. He goes, Podell, you're part of the bit now. So get it, you know. So I got it. You know, but I used to take phone calls. My wife would hand me the phone. I'd be in the shower. I go, Howard, I'm naked right now.

Oh, that's perfect, Bodell. Yeah. Robin, he's naked, right? And then they would harass me, and especially with this funeral. Okay, so it calls me up. All right, so we need three treadmills. Right? We need, you know, chicken.

There's a funeral rider Yeah, the funeral rider was coming down the pike And it was all fake But I had no idea So I'm writing all this down You know Three treadmills

Oh my God Where am I going to get to him? He has to have specific chicken You know, for his diet or whatever Specific pop or soda And all these amenities You know Something for gary

and something for elephant boy and something for stuttering John and oh my God it was it was crazy that's awesome and we did the show from a strip club uh down in the flats from like a parking lot of the strip club but yeah so Howard was in the strip club and we were in this massive parking lot 20,000 people are out there I got there about midnight and people were already there and And it was an amazing concert with David Lee Roth, America. Heidi Fleiss was there. I mean, it was just, you know, it was just act after act, after crazy person, after nut job.

And we had, you know, the, the logo of MMS was the buzzard. The buzzard, yeah. I had two mechanical buzzards on each end of the stage. that went back and forth and back and forth and when Howard came out they shot blood

into the audience that was like a Guar show Red die came you know out of the buzzard and the heads fell down oh yeah and you know we had we had killed the buzzard

this might have been what inspired Guar to do there might have been like this is a new addition to the Doug Podell lore he actually inspired Guar But, you know, the radio station, they were the kings of Rock War. That was, you know, but they had kind of met their match because I was, you know, that was my thing, too, in Detroit. So I wasn't afraid of war, and I kind of anticipated it.

So I had several plainclothes policemen roaming the area to make sure that nothing would happen because they'd had attacked me before. with t-shirts at our anniversary, bumper stickers, things like that. You know, flat in tires. But nothing like what you were about to get. Nothing like we were about to get, and I could have never imagined it. So there's a trailer attached, you know, right next to the building, and there's just a little thin copper wire. And that was the live broadcast wire.

And the engineer from WMMS comes, you know, strolling by with his army jacket on and just clips that wire and starts walking towards the river to pitch the, you know, the wire cutter. And within two steps, boom, he's taken down. But the show's off the air at this point. Shows off the air for about three minutes. How do you get it back on? Well, I had an engineer right there, ready to go.

Click the wire, boom, we're back. gun. So Howard was livid. But he's also loving it because he knows that this is like, this is amazing. He wants their license. He wants the name of the GM, the PD, everybody, you know.

And, and deservedly so. I mean, I said, it's a federal crime. I sat right next to him, went on the air and said, you know, what, I mean, they've taken it too far. Yeah. Okay. It used to be fun now. Now,

it's really become criminal. It's criminal. Yeah, criminal. So, you know, then they went on to really arrest the wrong person, run them through the mill, through the court system, almost put this person in prison. I had to call to kind of get my general manager to just stop the proceedings because we weren't going to get the license. because the PD and the general manager had, you know, found a way to... They can claim ignorance. Yes.

So it was all going down on the engineer and this poor woman. And I just couldn't let that happen. So we basically threw the case out, let it go. And that was kind of the end of it until my book comes up. Stay tuned. Why do you think I'm having Gary Graff in today? That is fascinating, though. Like, you've lived the life, man.

Did anything like that happen here? Like anything close to that and these rock wars here? Yes, yes. Really? Well, there was something, and it was with WLZ. And, you know, we had gone through several PDs. Nothing was really working. And they brought in the king of war.

The king of war. The king of rock war was Lee Arnold. This guy had every trick under the book. Okay. And when he arrived in Detroit, and he held a press conference that he put out the memo to the, you know, press conference to all of the newspapers and TV stations to meet him at the WRIF parking line, where he would announce what his plans were for WLLZ. the dude arrives in a helicopter and lands in the parking lot of W.I. Oh, that's great. And I said to myself, that's my hero.

That's a guy I can work for. And, boy, we did. We bonded. We actually had a consultancy for many years. And, you know, we've been talking maybe, you know, we may pick it back up. he still kept the company running. But, you know, we used to drive, driving crazy with getting the advance releases. I remember sitting, you know, you just played some aerosmith.

And I'm on the air. My shift was six to ten. I love that shift at night. And I've got the aerosmith pump album before anybody else. And I'm playing track after track. And the hotlines going off. The record guys bang. and on the door trying to get into the building to get us to stop playing this record.

Lee's going, I'm going, Lee, do you want me to stop? No, just keep playing that record. Don't, you know, when it's over, just flip it over and start playing it again. So the hotline goes off. I pick it up, and it's one of my heroes, Mark Perreno from WABX at the time. He's buddies with Aerosmith, right? And he's begging me. He's going, Doug, you know, you got to, you got to stop.

I go, Mark, if you were sitting. here right now. You'd be playing this damn record. You know, you're, I'm not going to stop. Next thing I hear is Doug, this is Joe Perry. I go, Joe,

you know, what can I tell you? My boss is telling me to play it. But not him, yeah. But yeah, you know, he kind of wound it down, finished the side. and that was it. But it was always like that.

It was like every other day. There was something going on. But to see him land, and at that time, WRIF was in a trailer at the Channel 7 studios. So we landed in this lot, you know, with the antennas and everything. I don't even know how he got these guys to do this. But, you know, he was my hero from then on out, you know, because. Because I learned so much war and, you know, how to get under the skin of your competitor from that guy. That's amazing.

No question. So before you get out of here, Doc, we do have the audio that you mentioned a while about Gene Simmons. So the setup for the story is that you interviewed Kiss at one point in L.A. The Gene has called you the doctor of Dr. Detroit. Right. And now you're getting them on the phone again years later. and you're about to bring up the fact that, hey, I'm Dr. Detroit, basically. Okay, so here we go.

How are you, my friend? It's Doug Podell, WCSX, Detroit. Well, I'm deliriously happy, and here we are. Another day above ground. That ain't so bad. You know, you gave me the name Dr. Detroit when we did the psycho circus live worldwide broadcast. And I was so proud for it. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah, you guys flew me in for that. You remember that? And A's Fraley was two hours late? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Of course not. It's been 44 years and millions, millions of people and signed autographs and all that stuff.

Oh, yeah. I could lie to you. I could lie to you. Oh, yeah, three o'clock in the afternoon when we went and got a hamburger and you said, isn't it a nice date? No. No, but Ace. I didn't even know what date is today. Ace was two hours late.

You were pretty mad. You weren't. You weren't happy. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Ace was late All right Well, Gene So tell me this

While we're just hanging out So Do you So the Eagles Obviously Glenn Fry is from here Right So you've got Glenn Fry Were you tight

Did you know Glenn Fry You buddies I did know Glenn And surprisingly I knew Glenn better When I was in Cleveland Because he knew Michael Stanley Yeah that makes sense

And he was a jock for you as well Yeah Michael Stanley was a jock for me. Yeah. So, um, but when you were at WLZ, the, the Eagles were already dead because they, they broke up in 80 after, uh, the long run and they were shut down for 14 years. We still played their music. Well, sure, but you, but what I was going for here is, so that means you were there, like Glenn Fry needed you to play, you belong to the city and he needed you to play. The Heat is on and all that. And they had Don Henley's solo album. So they came in, Timothy Schmidt came in.

Um, I used to do a lot of interviews in the six o'clock hour. And, uh, with, uh, you know, whoever, including Metallica, who Metallica came in, and that was the Kill'em All album, new bass player, Newsom, Justin, Jason. Jason? Jason Newsom. And it's like, you know, 6.30 in the evening, still bright out summertime.

And James is just dropping F-bombs left and right. And, you know, on the PD, on top of being the DJ, and, you know, I'm pretty, you know, loose. But at one point, I said, you know, James, I mean, you got to stop with the F-bombs. You know, after the unwritten rule was after three, you'd better pull the plug because then you could really be fined. Yeah, yeah. So we're up to about nine now. And, you know, I said, you know, and so they continue to.

to drop F-bombs. And we went to spots, and I said, listen, any more F-bombs, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. We come back, you know, I mean, within three words, it was, you know, F-bomb. And I had to throw Metallica out of the studio. I said, you know, I stood up. I said, you know, I've been pretty good about this, but BS, man. I said, get that hell of it. Well, after that, they really loved me.

Yeah. I would, we would go back and see Metallica, Doug, what's up, buddy, you know. I think they respected that a little bit. I don't know if they were playing with me or what. Sometimes, you know, sometimes people are just pushing your buttons to see what they can get away with. I mean, they became like my family. They loved my daughter. I mean, she was like 10, and we would go backstage, hey, Lauren, what's happening?

And, you know, and they remember my family, my kids, you know, everything. So it turned out okay. But at the time, I was a little nervous. You go, God, what's going to happen tomorrow? So obviously, you made the decisions on a lot of music, right? Like, you had to decide if this is a hit or this isn't a hit. And I think I've asked you this before, but tell me a song that you were convinced was a giant hit that wasn't a hit.

And tell me a song, the opposite. That was, you were like, this is a stiff, this is terrible, and it becomes huge. okay turn me loose from lover boy would be one you didn't like turn me loose no i didn't like you don't seem like a lover boy guy no i love lover boy i i looked at that band as an assault on rock music now you know why josh loves for someone exactly and that was the same album as the weekend i think yeah we're working for the weekend but the first song they you know they always gave you the crappy song first to see if they can get that going and then come back with the next one, and then the third one was going to be

the one that paid off. Well, I used to go through the records and go for the third one first. You know, I'm not waiting around six months to play the third single, you know. So I broke that rule right away. But the other one was a rambling man from the Alman Brothers. That was not my version of the Alman Brothers that I was very, you know, high on. But the consultants forced me to play it, you know, so. But that one obviously became arguably their most iconic song.

So I was wrong. Yeah. But for various reasons. I knew it was a good song. I just didn't like that Dickie Betts had taken over the Alvin. Do you recall ever, like you said Joe Perry called, but he said, Doc, what do you do it? Do you recall having any knockdown dragouts on the phone with an actual artist about the songs? Like, hey, why aren't you playing the song type of deal?

Or what can I do, Doc? Well, not from an artist, no. Never, like, Bob Seeger, like, Glenn Fry doesn't pick up the phone. And he's like, oh, don't make you tell that story. Well, wait a minute. Now, look, Rob Brand is banging on the door, but I'm like, listen, Rob Brandon. Rob Brand, he's like, I got to get in here. And I'm like, well, no, Doc is about to tell some story about Bob Seeger.

And he just rubbed his face when he did it. So there's something here. So. Do tell, Doug. Like, here we are, this is interesting. People are glued to the radios for this. I can't remember what song it was. Shakedown.

Well, it was after that. Shame on the moon. It was after that. Chances are. That was a country song he did with Martina McBride. Now I'm running out of it. Like a rock. It was rocker.

But I had just got to riff. And the mantra was, is we're moving on. from all of this. And by this you mean what? Like the 80s, 70s, 80s rock stuff? And it's what we were talking about earlier. We're moving the grunge. You know, we're playing Nirvana now.

We're playing House and Chains. You know, we've got these new bands like 7 Mary 3 and all this stuff. So the new Bob Seeger came out and I didn't put it on right away. Okay. And for WRIF, that was a mortal sin because up until this point, they had always gotten an ad. And it wasn't that I didn't like Bob or didn't like the song. I was trying to reinvent the radio station with a different sound. Was the song called Lock and Load?

There it is. Okay. There we go. Lock and load. From the album, It's a Mystery, is the name of the album. There we go. Thank you, Internet. So I get a call to go upstairs and GM's there, consultant's there, and Bob's manager is there.

And, you know, so we had to, I had to explain myself as to why we weren't playing that song first week out. I told them that I had planned on getting to it, but that, you know, I hadn't got to it. right away. I was trying to show the industry that we were a little different now. You know, that our expectations were a little different.

The music that we were going to be focusing on was going to be a little different. And not everything was automatic. And my general manager respected that. Tom Bender. He was a great, great, great general manager.

But Punch did not. But, you know, we reasonably had a good conversation. We, you know, hashed it out. And I did. I went back and we added the record. Did Bob ever call you? No.

No, no, Bob didn't call. No. But, you know, I mean, I wasn't trying to be a dick about it. You know, I was trying to, like I said, reinvent the radio station. and that was just kind of a hiccough, I guess, along the way. I probably, in hindsight, should you just put it in and shut my mouth. You know what I mean? You can't do that.

We ended up playing. No, you're right. Because if you ever talk to Doug off the air about things, you'll see that Doug is a firebrand whenever you talk with him off the air. Don't be fooled by his docile demeanor on the air. Did you see at the party? People are talking about how this is the next. you kinder, gentler done Podell.

Working against him for a competitor, everybody feared the man. So, like, I would sit in meetings where label reps would come in, and we'd be like, hey, we want to present some on the show. You know, and they'd be like, we can't. Like, Podell won't play our record if we do anything special for you guys.

So, no. I can be arrested for that now, I think. I'd be sued. Yeah, it's a little different these days. But, Bob, if I've never said it, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't play it right away, but we did play it. And it wasn't his biggest hit.

No, it wasn't. Got to number 22 on the Rock Charts, so you weren't wrong, Doug. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the great Doc of Rock. That is Doug Podell, and this is his last day on the radio until he comes back to do a weekend shift on Tuesday or whatever. Maybe this should have just been my last shift. Yeah, you realize you have a whole, another eight hours ahead of you. Jesus Christ, you know, 6 o'clock tonight, I got no sleep. I'm hungover from a Toys for Tots party.

That is, I don't know that anyone has ever actually uttered that sentence before. I'm hungover from the Toys for Tots. What kind of toys are they collected at this Toys for Tots party? Welcome to Detroit. Yeah, the open bar there at the Toys for Tots. Oh, boy. All right. So Doug will be on at 2 o'clock this afternoon, and all the girls he's loved before will be there, including Lita Ford, and maybe Stevie Nix will call.

Maybe some men he's loved before. He loves Billy Squire, from what I understand. You know, I used to have pretty good, you know, rock relationship, no relationship. But Patty Smythe from Scandal. That feels up your alley. So how did you think Scandal rocked, but you didn't think, like, lover boy rocked? It's all the same 80s poppy rock stuff. Well, she was way better looking than Mike Reno.

That's fair. Love the Warrior. What was that? Goodbye to You. Yeah, The Warrior. And Goodbye to You was the other Scandal song. Let's play that. You know what?

Tell Casey to get that for my show, The Warrior. I will play Scandal. Patty Smyth and Scandal. I will tell you, I say, you're listening, Casey? What do you have to lose? You don't care. You literally could shut the door like a Shawshank and play whatever you want. Well, he told me I couldn't.

I said, you know, I'm not really, I don't care, Casey. I don't need to. It's okay. I don't want to wreck the ratings. Listen, I'll be honest with you, Doug. You can't wreck them any worse than they already are, my friends. Oh, come on. This is Doug's jam right here.

A little scandal. So you like that, but you don't like Loverboy. Listen to that rock guitar right there. It's a good jam. I'm not trying to bang on Patty Smyth here, but. That is a good tune. Goodbye to you is a good tune. How did you find that so fast?

Well, here's the thing. I know a trick. So there's a trick I have. First of all, it's called being on the radio live. I have the ability to grab these things pretty fast. Not a lot of people are doing that. But I found the I heart thing that goes across the country. So I have access to every song.

I know, right? That's what I do. I have a gift. I type fast and good. Can we play? I want to be your. dog by the Stooges? Well, let's hold on.

Oh boy, we should have started. I should have came in at six. Let me see. Now, there may not be everything possible, but I mean, there's most songs. See, no, dog is going to need you to sit in with him so you can bring up all this music that he wants to play that Casey doesn't have program.

You might be bored up today. Okay, so I'll see. It operates slow. This is good. Before Casey's back there right now going, oh God. Think about Casey. Think about poor Rob Brand.

He's so angry right now. He's not on yet, yeah, it is. Well, I mean, it's, no, not yet, because I'm still here. But anyway, so. All right, let me do this. Okay, hold on. Thank you, guys, really quick. If I name a band or an artist, you tell me your favorite song of theirs, okay?

I'm going to put you on the spot. I know your brain's not going to work because you're hung over from the Toys for Tots event. Totally get it. We all been there before, right? We've all in that. All in that. All, Eagles, go. I take it easy.

All right. Bob Seeger. Hollywood Nights. Alice Cooper. The Ballad of Dwight Frye. Sponge. Wax of Static. Shoot, man, man, look, a lot of people, it takes them time to think of these things, but you, you know.

Who is your favorite band? Ronnie James Dio. What is your favorite Dio song? Last in line. Last in line. So you're a much harder rocker than, like, you, like, Dio goes hard. Like, you're not a pop rock guy. I love Ronnie James Dio.

He was the greatest guy, too. I mean, he was just so friendly. Remembered everything you talked about from the year before. You know, I asked about your family. I mean, just a joy to be around backstage. There was none of this. Don't look at him. Don't talk to him.

Don't touch him. Don't breathe. You know, he was just great. How about stones? Well, believe it or not, satisfaction is still one of my favorites. All good. What about the doors? When the music's over.

Are you a doors guy? Is that in your own wheelhouse too? You like the doors? All right. Let's see here. Let's go with the almonds. In memory of Elizabeth Reed. See, you go getting in there.

You're getting in the crevices. See, that's good. I'm a peripheral guy. Like, I'm like, you know what I like? I like Amanda. You know what else I like? I like the new radicals. See, I know you brought this up the other day, but you were like, there was some song.

What about the, there's one new radical song. Like, no one knows any other new radical song. You know, I met that guy. He was the local guy, was he? Greg Alexander. This is a pretty heartfelt story because it really touched me. I'm at an Eddie Money concert at the... What's the best Eddie Money song?

You feel like you. Yours would be like, give me some water. That was it. And I figured, I figured I could get that. That's a good one. I like, I enjoy the, I want to go back. Rock and roll, something. I like sell out like 80s with the Ronettes.

You know, those are my type of jams. Walk on water and, and what's the, I want to go back. Oh, that's a good one. I love I want to go back. But anyway, sorry. So I'm at Selfridge Air Base, and there's an Eddie Money concert that we're sponsoring. And on the emcee, blah, blah, blah. And this guy comes up to me and I'm behind a fence and he wants to meet me and I walk over and I go, yeah, I'm Doug and he goes, I'm Greg, Greg Alexander.

He goes, I got this new record, you know, and this band and I go, man, I've heard it. I go, I love it, but I can't play it. And he goes, that's all right, man. He goes, I just wanted to meet you. And it was the only time I ever met him. You know, he understood that we really weren't going to be able to play his song. And it was kind of sad because it was a really good song. Oh, it's a great.

Yeah, you only get what you give. Yeah. It's a great song. I love that song. Yeah. But it didn't fit us, you know. Oh, yeah. For the riff and stuff?

Right. That was more of an alternative type of track. Yeah. So, but I just, you know, I just, you know, we said, well, come around this side of the fence. And, you know, so we hung out and watched Eddie Money and had a. few beers and I never saw him again and then I saw that he won all these Grammys when he went to LA and I you know I had always kind of wished that you know I could have pulled the trigger for him because you know he's a Detroiter right so you I think a gross pointer if I'm that mistaken yeah

I think after our conversation the last time about him I started doing some research and I was like wow I didn't realize he was from that's where I grew up so you know I always wanted to help the the hometown I own guys, you know, as much as I can. It was a big part of my entire career was working on those songs. There's your jam. Every time my wife and daughter, hear me

play this, they can't believe this is like my song. It's a great song. It's an awesome, awesome song. A girl I dated, her dad loved the song. Yeah, and she hated it. I'm like, this is a jam, man. It's in the, you should be this last song you played today. Well, I thought about that a few times. Trust me. I've, I've vacillated over what my last song is going to be.

I don't want to spoil it, because I'm sure you've thought of this. I mean, they're an obvious one. Like, who's fade to black? Unless you're going to play fade to black. No, I'm going to be playing a much more sad, sappy song. Oh, right up of Josh's alley. Yeah, good. We're going to be playing The Living Years by Mike and the Mechanics in the Doug Podell show.

Something sad here, like me and Little Andy. Well, you know, before they called me the Docker Rock for a while, Drew and Mike used to call me Dancing Doug. Oh, really? I'd always be bringing in these songs, you know, these little poppy songs, and I used to host Wild Woody's. So it was like New Year's Eve every Wednesday, and we would do the homemade bikini contest. Oh, yeah. The hot-ass contest.

You don't want to do that on this station, I don't think. I don't think you could do that anywhere in the city. Talk about being arrested. I just don't think physics would work for doing that on this show. There's not a club in town that would do this anymore. Aerodynamics wouldn't work on this station. Those homemade bikini contest This one girl wore

Fruit loops Oh, wow Now I'm excited Those strips, fruit strips Okay You know And they started to melt Oh, I'm excited

Dude, tell me more of God Yeah, you'd love You would have loved it I'm all into that Thank you very much But anyway So Doc's got his last show His last song

Hey I appreciate you guys Oh, thank you. I'm going to miss you so much up here because now it's just me, him, and Casey. And all he talked about is, oh, God, I'm going to miss Doug. That's all I keep saying. Oh, God, I'm going to miss Doug. I can't believe he's only got two days left. And now it's over. I'm like, I'm still going to be here. No, you're fine.

But I'm going to miss Doug. You guys are doing great, by the way. He's certifiable and you're an enabler. I'm like, okay, what's he doing? Okay, I'm willing to do it. Back him up. I finally realized you're an enabler. He's like, I got an idea.

I'm like, oh, that's a real bad idea. Let's do it. Let's do it. How can I help? So anyway, that is the great Doug Podell, everybody. I'll see you later. By the way, Doug's like forever turned down podcasts and everything. You've never wanted to do interviews.

Like even when this guy did the whole history of riff, you were not interviewed on that. We just talked to you for like two hours and just now about an hour straight without anything. So basically, we've done the first podcast, really ever with Doug Podell today. Like the history of Doug Podell. I wouldn't do it. I, well, I had issues. Beef would be the issues. You know, I'm starting to let those go now, though, see.

I know. My Zen is coming. Well, Rob Brant's got a knife, so we got to go. Yeah, he's probably p-oed. We love you, now. He'll get over. Thank you. Thank you so much. We'll be seeing you this afternoon and listening this afternoon.

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