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).

David Pataconi Video + Interview Are Up

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If you missed the interview The Blast’s Colin Cruz did with industrial artist David Pataconi, we have archived it on our new MeWe page for TheBlast.FM:   https://mewe.com/p/theblast.fm

And we have a video of him performing his hit song To Follow Our Own, here:  https://fb.watch/6rfyNlvwVa/

 

The Letter Black Interview Wednesday June 30th On The Blast / Concert Footage Link

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The Letter Black was the headliner Friday night at Kingdom Come Fest near Greentown, Indiana.  We have the video of them performing Rise here:  https://fb.watch/v/1dJudYn2o/

The Blast’s Colin Cruz talks to Sarah and Mark Anthony from The Letter Black on Wednesday June 30, 2021.  Time: TBA (sometime between 9 am and 3 pm USA/Canada Central Time).

Skillet Interview On The Blast Tuesday

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Tuesday, a look back at the conversation Colin Cruz had with John Cooper of Skillet, talking about when Cooper met one of his favorite childhood rock stars. And it was that rock star that wanted to meet Cooper.  Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 1 pm USA/Canada Central Time.

Kingdom Come Festival 2021: Even Bigger Than Last Year

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Kingdom Come Festival (Friday and Saturday, June 18th and 19th), 2021 is like two festivals in one, as (at least for now), KCF has absorbed the Capstone Music Festival and encapsulated into a side stage at the Kingdom Come Festival.  (See what we did there?) (Previously, it was two separate Christian rock festivals in Indiana, spaced two hours and a week apart).  The two fest are friendly with each other and working together as the body of Christ.

Well, this year…

KCF sees the the return of Disciple as a headliner and The Letter Black headlines as well.

Other Blast bands on the main stage include:  The Protest, Chaotic Resemblance, Awaken, Behold The Beloved, Relent, Amongst The Giants, Attaboy, Zahna, We Are Vessel, and TJ Harris of Decyfer Down. 

And on the Capstone Music stage:  Gold Frankincense and Myrrh, Grave Robber, The Persuaded, Theody and Firebrand.

The festival was a lot of fun last year and TheBlast.FM will be back again this year.  Stop by our Blastin’ booth and meet us, get some free glossy Blast Cards and stickers and buy a Blast t-shirt.

The festival is at the Howard County Vietnam Veterans Reunion Grounds near Greentown, Indiana.

 

TheBlast.FM New Console Helps Improve In-Studio DJ Sound

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Thanks to a generous one time monetary donation, TheBlast.FM was able to replace its aging (and failing) studio mixer with our first ever broadcast console.   It’s brand new, it’s small, simple, functional, and beautiful.  And it sounds fantastic.

It is made by Arrakis, which is a pillar in the broadcast industry.

The Colin Cruz radio show instantly sounds better.  The price tag was a bit over $700 with shipping and tax.  We are so grateful that as God guides, God provides.  And God is using you to help fund ministry as we reach people all over the globe with the Gospel of Jesus Christ through radical, aggressive Christian music!

We haven’t forgotten about the encoders we talked about.  We haven’t had time to implement that, as we are catching up on some other urgent projects, but those are still in the works.

If you feel led to donate to The Blast Ministries, Inc, you can go here:  https://www.theblast.fm/home/donations/

Thank you!

Book Review: The Kingstone Bible

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The pictures above, snapped with a cell phone camera, do not do justice to the incredible artistry in these volumes.

 

BOOK REVIEW:  The Kingstone Bible (Volume 1)

 

By Colin “Cruz” Strombeck TheBlast.FM Program Director

 

If you grew up on comic books and/or if you sometimes find yourself getting distracted by the cares of life while trying to read the Bible…Kingstone Comics has a Bible for you.

 

Here is a Bible that has pictures on every page to visually describe what you are reading about…which may be a big help for some readers to stay focused on the content…and for other readers, it may breathe fresh life into the text that they’ve read many times.

 

And not just any pictures.  Beautiful, amazing artistry.  Dark, when the scene calls for it, and always compelling and very descriptive.   This Bible adds that visual layer of context to what’s going on…in rich detail.

 

Published in 3 volumes, every book from Genesis to Revelation is covered.  Every major story of the Bible is covered…and in our brief time holding the volumes, everything looks to be Biblically accurate.  

 

This will make a great addition to the family library.  And to your church library.

 

This will be the first in a series of reviews we write about this 3-volume edition, as we are just getting started.