Ear Candy Update for Nov. 1, 2009

New and unheard jams for your tragically neglected ear drums.

Dedicated to Mr. L.

"The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool."

Stream online here:

Download for iTunes here:
Ear Candy Update for Nov. 1, 2009.mp3

The Ear Candy Update is going to start firing guerilla warfare shots at the skeezicks at the Federal Communications Commission. We begin with an opening salvo from Duke's father, Reuben Wibury.

The Federal Communications Commission has become a symbol of the corrosive effects of corporate money perverting a democracy to its own ends. Rather than serving the public interest, our democracy has been slowly and systematically sold to corporate and Wall Street interests over the last forty years. One can point to so many examples of this in our society but nowhere is this more evident than the homogenized drivel so prevalent on our public airwaves.

In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, FM radio exploded upon the American public with a free form expression, which created an entirely new market, which gave individual disc jockeys the creative right to play whatever they wanted. Let me repeat that: WHATEVER THEY WANTED. Play lists were a performance, created with the same spirit of musicians jamming on stage. It was all new and just like the music it embraced, done with love and passion. Times have changed. The number crunching drones and well-paid lobbyists of corporate America have helped to not only dilute the music on our airwaves but have also literally convinced our elected officials that choice is something to which the American public no longer has a right.

FUCK THAT!

In the second paragraph of our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote the words that so aptly describe where the true power of government derives its authority: “…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

It is time for the FCC to understand this principle – WE DO NOT CONSENT.
We do not consent to the monopolization of the public airwaves.
We do not consent to Clear Channel being able to buy every station in every market.
We do not consent to the FCC preventing low-power stations from being able to broadcast to their local communities.
We do not consent to the stifling of our free speech over the very airwaves that belong to us.

There’s a reason the founding fathers included Freedom of Speech in the first amendment. It’s the very foundation of a functioning democracy. Nothing else is possible without it.

I’m not calling for violent revolution but I am calling for revolution. It needs to start in the manner of all lasting revolutions: From the ground up. We the people need to write to our elected officials, and write, and write, and write until our voices drown out the flow of money that swamps our nation’s capitol. Clear Channel may have the cash but we have the numbers. It won’t be easy, it won’t be simple, but it will be necessary. We have to start somewhere folks because in so many ways that are too numerous to list in this rant, our government no longer serves the people.

In the meantime, we can listen to sources that help to feed our collective musical jones. The Ear Candy Update is one of many venues new technologies provide us. Satellite radio is another. Anyone who has listened to Bob Dylan’s Radio Theme Hour or Little Steven’s Underground Garage knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Now you may ask, if we have these other sources that are available to us, why should we care what happens on the FM dial? Principle, people, principle. The airwaves belong to us, not Clear Channel, no matter how much money they may have bribed our elected officials with. Yes, I said bribed. If I give an elected official 100K to his reelection campaign, then I damn well expect to get something in return for my investment. As I said earlier, our government no longer serves the overwhelming majority of its people. It’s time to take it back.

Yours,
-Reuben Wilbury

If you'd like to email Clear Channel's sister-fucking greed head executives and tell them exactly how badly they've screwed the pooch you can do that right here:
Founder LLowryMays@clearchannel.com
CEO MarkPMays@clearchannel.com
CFO & President RandallTMays@clearchannel.com

At the Ear Candy Update we abide by the Duke Ellington Axiom: There are two types of music, good and bad. As a rule, we only play the good.

The tracks:
3am Spanish - Hockey
Should Have Taken Acid With You - Neon Indian
Last Dance - The Raveonettes
I Wonder Who We Are - The Clientele
Cities Burning Down - Howling Bells
Like Lazenby - Sondre Lerche
Summers - Loney Dear
True Stories - Datarock
Transparence - Asobi Seksu
The Boys Are Leaving Town - Japandroids
Red Light Love - Those Darlins
I Know What I Am - Bank of Skulls

If you have any suggestions, bitches, gripes, complaints or praise, email the Duke right here: Dukewilbury@yahoo.com

Click on the album cover to go to band's site.




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