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EDBZ BLOG #43

    I’m looking for guest DJ’s to do a one or two hour show for Eardrum Buzz Radio’s Sixth Anniversary weekend in early July. Play what you want, talk about it and have fun! Please email bret@eardrumbuzz.net with the subject: Guest DJ and I’ll send you the info you need. The sooner you reply and get a show in, the better your time placement will be.


    And we’re actually getting a few listeners tuning in through the week. Right now, at 10:20am PDT we have listeners from Brewster in New York State, Perry Hall, northeast of Baltimore and San Francisco.

    DJ Wednesday is promoting a show at The Six this April!

    SIX BEATS UNDER PRESENTS: SOLARA OBSCURA, BLACK MAGDALENE, boredom & Romance and DJ Wednesday spinning between sets.

    3341 SE Belmont St, PDX

    TIX $15 830PM


    Also in April is a Dreamgaze Presents show in April at Swan Dive: Guest Directors are celebrating the release of their new record on vinyl,  Ten Million Lights (also releasing their new record on vinyl), Risley, and shoegaze newcomers As Above, plus DJ Wednesday.



    Facebook Event:



    I’m working on the upcoming Friday I’m In Love with lots of classic Shoegaze bands and some newer bands, who I think deserve more attention. I’m glad I have an outlet to let you hear bands you might not know about, whether they’ve been around for years, are defunct or still going strong, or even newer bands that have solid releases and have only been around for a few years. Bands like Airiel, Levitation, Six By Seven, Joetsu Shore, Mo Dotti, Blushing, Whimsical, Doves. Bands that have found a place in my soul. You can hear Friday I’m In Love on the second and fourth Fridays at 6pm Pacific time and afterwards on Patreon and Podbean. But I’d rather chat with you live when the show is happening! It makes me feel like a proper radio DJ, like they used to take calls on the air or take requests. That human interaction is fun!


    Right now I’m taking a much-needed day off from work. The Santa Ana winds kicked up this past weekend and did a number on my energy levels. For the past several days I’ve been out of it, a day ahead of myself, brain fog, aches and pains. After many years of just working through it, I’ve decided it’s better to actually not work when I’m feeling crappy. Besides, I can always use my Paid Time Off.


    So here I am, adding shows to Podbean, posting on Patreon and enjoying not being on my feet in a noisy grocery store, kids crying, people asking me where things are while I’m shelving stuff.


    I’m really looking forward to seeing Chapterhouse at Slide Away in May. They’re playing their debut album Whirlpool at shows in the UK and in the States. Chapterhouse posted from their Facebook page a live rendition of Pearl from just this month of March! Thanks to Vapour Trail host Greg Peters-Lefty for the message! https://www.facebook.com/reel/1284306540221135 


    Rob Levy even played Pearl on his latest Comforts of Madness. Look for it on Podbean. https://eardrumbuzzradio.podbean.com/e/the-comforts-of-madness-3726/


    We had rain, we had wind, we had heat, now it’s nice and cool and overcast and quiet. No dog across the street barking. Just listening to unreleased music from Sonder, chatting with a few people, hoping to hear new music from Damian Frood, (Get it at: https://thefailedbluedot.bandcamp.com/album/venus) and I’m about to see the movie The Bride. (Edit: The Bride was excellent. If you love old gangster and Universal monster movies, go see it!)


    Contact me about doing a guest show, it doesn’t have to be for the sixth anniversary. Email me at bret@eardrumbuzz.net


    Listen: eardrumbuzz.net 

    Eardrum Buzz Radio Patreon page: patreon.com/eardrumbuzzradio

    Follow Eardrum Buzz Radio: Instagram: @eardrumbuzzradio 

    Send submissions to: bret@eardrumbuzz.net with "Submission" and your band name in the subject. Include your band name, song titles, album title, track numbers and artwork in your metadata. Please no Country, Modern Pop, Blues, Rap or Americana. Please make the song/album link easy to find in the email. Please only MP3 files, no WAV files, no Spotify links, just your awesome music!

    EDBZ BLOG #42

      Last April and May I was having trouble getting my car to pass the smog check. There was something with the catalytic converter that caused it not to work correctly. I learned that because I hadn’t been driving it that much, just to work and to San Diego a few times a year, that it needed to be “reset”. I found the process online and it came down to warming up the engine and driving it at around 55 for a short distance and then coming to a stop, then getting back up to 55 for a few more minutes, then bringing it to a stop. I had to do this until the converter was reset. I was nearing the time to have to get my registration and I ended up doing this driving test on the freeway, going east on the 134 freeway, then north up the 2 freeway, driving at 55, stopping, and repeating on the 2, several times. I did this at 6am, then began doing it even earlier, at 5:30am. As the sun was rising, I’d be driving onto the shoulder and hoping my car could slow to a stop before getting to the next onramp and getting in the way of other drivers. One thing I noticed was that even at this early time of the day, people were driving at over 65mph on their way, likely to work. Everyone was in a rush. Doing these drives was very stressful. I finally passed the smog check with only a few days to spare!


      We’re so constantly on the go, getting ready for work, taking the kids to school, getting home, eating dinner, only to get up the next day to do the same thing, five or more days a week. I wonder who has the time to slow down and enjoy the small moments, interactions with their families, loved ones, cooking meals, holding hands, walking down the street and seeing flowers, smelling smells, noticing things like hopscotch squares drawn on the sidewalk in colored chalk, reading a book, just noticing and appreciating the world. Being highly sensitive and an introvert, along with having tinnitus, I tend to not want to be around crowds, noise, people talking, traffic, lots of stimulus tires me. I already work in a noisy environment and usually am happy to be alone or with a friend, talking about things that interest us, deep conversations about philosophy or history or just about movies and comics. But one thing that is always there with me is music. I can listen while reading or playing Baldur’s Gate 3. I usually spend several hours a week listening to music sent to me by publicists, labels and bands and watch great people play music on Twitch and chat with them and their viewers. creators of my favorite music to this day. 

      I have people from all over the world drinking from our mugs, carrying stuff in our totes and even wearing our shirts while on vacation (see above picture of Sean F. Schultz, aka Sonder). Buy Sean’s music at: https://sondersounds.bandcamp.com.  It warms my heart to be doing my twice monthly show Friday I’m In Love on the second and fourth Fridays at 6pm Pacific, when others come around and interact with me while I’m live.  I find out what our dedicated listeners are doing, whether traveling or mowing the lawn or listening at work or having a meal or just having a beer on a Friday night or the middle of Saturday on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.


      Get your own Superhero Logo shirt at: https://eardrum-buzz-radio.printify.me

      Eardrum Buzz Radio is always on, always playing new and old music and you too can listen to it while cooking, holding hands, reading and talking with friends and loved ones, or simply when you’re curled up on the couch with your cat or dog, maybe being warmed by a fire. It doesn’t take much effort to go to the website, press play on the play button and learning about bands you never knew existed or hearing songs from your favorite bands from the 70’s on.  What would be really great is if you all could share your love of music and Eardrum Buzz Radio and spread the word and get us more listeners! I want to grow our fan base and meet new people around the world and share my station with them too. Let’s stop keeping my passion a secret to be kept to a small group of people and make our family bigger. I appreciate you all and hope to chat with you on Instagram or Bluesky or Facebook. Links are below.


      And to whoever took it upon themselves to contact over 80 people to join our group page on Friday, the 13th of February, while I was doing my Valentine’s Day show, thank you! I got a few new posts about their projects and release and a few new followers and hopefully some new fans of Eardrum Buzz Radio, who will actually listen in to my and our many DJ’s shows.


      Listen: eardrumbuzz.net 

      Eardrum Buzz Radio Patreon page: patreon.com/eardrumbuzzradio

      Follow Eardrum Buzz Radio: Instagram: @eardrumbuzzradio 

      Twitter: @eardrum_buzz 

      Send submissions to: bret@eardrumbuzz.net with "Submission" and your band name in the subject. Include your band name, song titles, album title, track numbers and artwork in your metadata. Please no Country, Modern Pop, Blues, Rap or Americana. Please make the song/album link easy to find in the email. Please only MP3 files, no WAV files, no Spotify links, just your awesome music!

      EDBZ BLOG #41

        A few weeks ago I went online and searched out some of my old articles on Tripod. Tripod was at the beginning of the century, before Highwire Daze’s Editor Ken Morton created Highwire Daze Online at www.highwiredaze.com. We each had our own Tripod page where we put up articles, photos, interviews, live and album reviews and our own editorial pages. I found so many great articles from my page, but didn’t read them. I did plan to go back and include those links for all of you kind readers to digest, to see that I’ve been a music fan for quite a long time and I was a decent and thoughtful writer. But come the beginning of this January, all of the links were broken. No Tripod! But now, as I’m about to send the blog to webmistress Dani, they are back up! I’ve included some page links below.


        I still do have many articles up on the Highwire Daze website, so thanks to Ken Morton for keeping my past writing around. So, while listening to Eardrum Buzz Radio at www.eardrumbuzz.net, please check out www.highwiredaze.com. Search “Bret Miller” and read some fantastic reviews and thoughts on some of my favorite musicians of the time I had with the long-running Los Angeles fanzine. 


        I’m really proud of all that went into my time with Highwire Daze magazine: The late nights and early morning hours putting together the layout pages, the arriving early before shows to do interviews, helping putting on sponsored events, the long drives to venues outside of Los Angeles, the long hours of distributing the print issues to record stores and venues and Canters and Amoeba. The interacting with musicians and music fans at the shows, the appreciation from the bands I talked with as well as their passion for getting out on the road and driving the highways and freeways across the country, or flying into the States from around the world to present their passion. For being able to meet some of my heroes like Jaz Coleman and Alex Patterson and Dave Mustaine and Brendan Perry and Supersuckers and Adam Franklin and all the creators of my favorite music to this day. 

        Start here for Tripod:


        And here are most of them from www.highwiredaze.com:

        Beyond the Beaten Tracks is now new on the second Sunday of the month at 9am & 7pm Pacific time. Greg Fuhs and John Clarke continue to dig up music that one or both of them haven’t heard before, especially when they have guests on with them. They each pick a handful of songs and discuss what they’ve heard. Their most recent show had the younger generation, one of their sons and a couple friends talk about some underrated bands. BTBT is the throughline for me of the thoughtful long-form album or song reviews I used to read in the magazines I’d get from the cool record shops when I was younger. Along with hearing the shows on Eardrum Buzz Radio, you can catch older episodes on our Podbean page. 


        Echodrone bassist and host of Souvlaki Bass Station and live bootleg show You Are There is taking a break while getting ready for a tour with the band. You’ll still hear older episodes of the shows at their regular times on Sundays at 1pm & 9pm Pacific. Maybe he’ll play something you like or something new? Regardless, the songs will have memorable bass playing!


        A few months back I streamlined the station’s song rotations. While I use genre tags for each band and song, sometimes a few at once, I only use these tags as shorthand ways to label their sound. But if you grew up listening to the likes of Siouxsie & The Banshees, New Order, The Cure, The Police, The Church, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Depeche Mode, Bauhaus/Tones On Tail/Love & Rockets, all the great synthesizer-based bands of the 80’s, the College/Indie Rock of the 90’s, the twee pop, the punky side of music, PiL, Dead Can Dance, the soundtrack to your glorious youth, fun times and breakups, Eardrum Buzz Radio should be your soundtrack now. I add new music weekly and showcase as many current and deserving bands as I can, while I and all the excellent DJ’s also play the classics along with the new tunes as they see fit. Whether the bands have been around for decades or recently started their first band or do it all themselves, I’m excited to present to you passionate and emotional music all year-round.


        Listen: eardrumbuzz.net 

        Eardrum Buzz Radio Patreon page: patreon.com/eardrumbuzzradio

        Follow Eardrum Buzz Radio: Instagram: @eardrumbuzzradio 

        Twitter: @eardrum_buzz 

        Send submissions to: bret@eardrumbuzz.net with "Submission" and your band name in the subject. Include your band name, song titles, album title, track numbers and artwork in your metadata. Please no Country, Modern Pop, Blues, Rap or Americana. Please make the song/album link easy to find in the email. Please only MP3 files, no WAV files, no Spotify links, just your awesome music!

        © 2025 EardrumBuzz Radio

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