The Voice Of Energy Is On The Air

I didn’t have time to announce this because, well, I didn’t know it was going to happen, but I had my inaugural broadcast on Radio23 tonight. Haven’t done the radio thing in a while but it was fun to put a playlist together on the fly and have it come out sounding relatively sweet.

You can judge for yourself how it sounded by downloading the audio of it here. No talking, just music. If you download the file, it starts with the Tune-Yards track (see tracklist below). I’m still getting my feet wet in this process, so bear with me.

From this point until I can’t do it any longer, I’ll be on the air online from 8pm – 10pm Pacific time. Please tune in if you so desire.

Below is a playlist from my first broadcast. Questions/comments – leave them here please.

(title | artist | album)

Erosion of Time | The Advisory Circle | Other Channels

The Dignity of Labour, Part 1 (instrumental) | Human League | Reproduction

Lions | Tune-Yards | Bird-Brain

Jisaboke | The Balky Mule | The Length Of The Rail

Lullaby | Moondog | Moondog

Hot On The Heels Of Love | Throbbing Gristle | 20 Jazz-Funk Greats

Tearing, Pt. 1 | 23 Skidoo | The Gospel Comes To New Guinea

Evenings | Wreck Small Speakers on Expensive Stereos | A Child’s Guide To Wreck Small Speakers on Expensive Stereos

From The Diary of Hermann Doubt | This Kind Of Punishment | Live ‘85

Mani Malaikat | Arrington de Dionyso | Malaikat Dan Singa

Hypochristmutreefuzz | Eric Dolphy | Last Date

Lester Leaps In | Lester Young | Live At Birdland

Little Rootie Tootie | Esbjorn Svensson Trio | Plays Monk

What It’s All About | The Bran Flakes | I Have Hands

Don’t Worry Mr. Bach (Preludium 12) | Carlos Futura | Bach For Computer

Cheeky | Stock, Hausen & Walkman | Oh My BAG!

Behold A Republic | The Tape-Beatles | The Grand Delusion

No Core Punk | Boredoms | Onanie Bomb Meets the Sex Pistols

Marilyn Buck | The Dicks | Kill From The Heart

Pc 1984 | The Crisis | We Are All Jews And Germans

Exile In Lizville

I’m eternally fascinated at the ways musicians twist themselves into pretzels to appease major labels and corporations and consumers all for the sake of the almighty dollar. I’ve griped about it on here plenty, argued with myself and others on both sides of this divide, and still not come to any firm conclusions or peace in my spirit about those moments when I flip through the pages of a glossy publication and see The Dutchess And The Duke shilling for Verizon.

There’s no other artist who I think exemplifies the desperation that musicians feel about trying to pay their bills and trying to maintain relevance in the public eye than Liz Phair. Her debut album Exile In Guyville was a masterful piece of confrontational pop that sizzled with ribald language, sex appeal and crackling production courtesy of Brad Wood. It thrust her (pun fully intended) into the public consciousness for good reason. It’s what happened next that felt so weird and devastating. Each successive album was filled with cloying song after cloying song after cloying song that practically begged to be taken seriously or, if nothing else, just liked by someone…anyone. And when she tried to capture the dirty energy of her previous work, well…the less said, the better.

I bring all this up only because as the Internet is the cornucopia for music geeks, turning up any and everything that you might want to give a listen to, I happened upon this site which offers up mp3s of two of the early demo tapes that Liz Phair did during her days in Chicago. Listening to them just made my heart sink and sing at the same time. They are raw, sometimes stupid, and entirely too rough around the edges. But they also have that touch of hunger and brutal honesty that so many young, talented musicians, artists, filmmakers, etc. carry with them. It’s the rare few that hold on to it without it getting chipped off or washed away or just torn out completely. Take from this what you will, gripe if you want, write me off if you must. But listen to the Girlysound tapes and then try out the pap that Liz Phair has been doing over the last five years or so and you tell me which you would rather spend time with.

Look Out There’s A Monster Coming

Here at The Voice Of Energy HQ, we like to throw a little audio spook in to the young trick or treaters when they happen to ring on our doorbell. The good folks at Resident Advisor have added to this collection with their perfectly creepy mix put together by the perfectly creepy Fever Ray, featuring tracks by the likes of Bruce Haack and Mercury Rev. Chilling and charming stuff.

Our usual soundtrack for All Hallow’s Eve tends to sit with Silver Apples or the soundtrack to Eraserhead, but we could always use more suggestions. What are the albums that provide a soundtrack to your personal Halloween eve? Leave a comment with your recommendations.

Oregon Music News

As I mentioned before, I’m going to be busying myself as a writer/editor at Oregon Music News for the foreseeable future. I’m happy to announce that the site was launched today and can be found here. You can find all of my work under the Indie heading, a section that will be updated every week. I hope you think well of it and the writing that you’ll find on there.

End Of An Era

Well, folks, it has been fun pumping out the reviews, interviews, etc. on this site. But unfortunately this week will be the last that will feature said content as this is going to revert back to a regular blog starting next week.

The reason being the new position that I have been given as an editor at Oregon Music News, a new web venture cooked up by my friend and fellow music scribe Tom D’Antoni. The crux of the site is right in the name: to provide a one stop spot for news and interviews and reviews of Oregon-based artists. I am going to be handling the weekly Indie content but they will also highlight straight ahead rock, blues, jazz, classical and beyond. It’s going to be a lot of fun seeing this site flourish but a lot of work too. So I won’t have the time and (ahem) energy to devote to this site as much as I would like to.

I will still be posting here as regularly as I can but it will likely be the occasional bit of pith and snark and/or YouTube clip. And I will link you to the interesting stuff that I am working on.

So enjoy the last bits of original journalistic type posts up here and do check back when you think on it. And stop by Oregon Music News when you can. It’s going to be a lot of fun watching that site flourish.

New content returns next week…

Until then…enjoy this:

r.i.p. gordon waller

updates arriving soon

I wanted to let my loyal readership know that once the Innernette is finally installed at our new Seattle digs, regular updates will resume. That date is Wednesday so be prepared.

**UPDATE** Spoke too soon. Those knuckleheads at Comcast screwed up our order royally and, therefore, we’ve taken our business elsewhere. Although Innernette will not be up this week, I’m going to try and get some work done at home and post it from a cafe or using my work computer. Fingers don’t fail me now.

non-music related post

My sister is organizing a benefit run for DoveLewis Animal Hospital in August. Go to her blog to learn more about it and to be a part of the fun.

the voice of energy is moving north

As many of my regular readers (read: friends and family) no doubt already know, I recently found gainful employment in the fine city of Seattle. Unfortunately, this means moving from Portland to Seattle sometime in the next two weeks.

With all that goes into the moving process, this fine blog is going to go on hiatus for the time being. I don’t think I’m going to be hurting my readership too terribly by not posting anything new for a while. I might stop in occasionally to drop a note, but I will relegate that sort of thing to my Twitter account (@bob_ham). I will also use that to let people know when I will be back and updating the blog on a regular basis.

Until then, dear readers…