On a recent rainy Sunday afternoon, KALW DJs Marcus Rosario and Maria Yates met listener Marc Villa at Amoeba Music in San Francisco. Marc made a donation to the station during the December membership campaign, which automatically entered him into a sweepstakes to win a shopping spree with his favorite 25th Street DJ. “I didn’t even know I had entered until you got in touch with me that I’d won,” he beamed, wearing a Hardly Strictly Bluegrass shirt. “I thought I was just making a donation during an evening show.”
Marc is a huge music fan, who repeated the mantra “good music is good music” when asked about what he was looking to buy at the iconic record store. He picked Marcus and Maria because of their wide-ranging tastes and the mix of old and new gems on their shows you wouldn’t hear on other stations. Together they browsed the extensive stacks, chatting while flipping through the CDs in the jazz, folk, and world music sections. The DJs made recommendations and offered good strategies for discovering new music, like making note of the record label of an album you enjoy so you can look for other releases from the same label. In the end, Marc scored a huge pile of CDs (with some on sale!), which included albums by Rhiannon Giddens, Carole King, and a Bob Dylan covers compilation featuring The Staple Singers and others. Along with the $100 shopping spree, Marc also received some goodies from Amoeba, including a tote bag, t-shirt, and stickers. By the end, he had some money left over on his voucher for a future trip, and Marcus and Maria left happy that they got to interact with a KALW listener and member who makes what they do possible.
A special thanks to our friends at Amoeba San Francisco!