EDBZ Blog #12

Madame Maledicta Live is Monday-Thursday at 8am-11am PDT. Mondays she plays Witchhouse and Wave, music you could dance to, music that you can enjoy as background while you work or take care of business. Tuesdays is Rooted, where she puts together a scholarly treatise on a style of music, an instrument, a label or a band and puts it into an historical perspective. She includes interviews and news pieces. You'll learn a lot and hear some great tunes. Wednesday is #shoegazewednesday, focusing on new releases with plenty of Dream Pop, Shoegaze, Indie Rock and heavier tunes. Thursday is #postpunkthursday with three hours of Synthpop, Darkwave, Death Rock and Goth. You can reach Madame Maledicta on Twitter @mmemaledicta. Say hi, follow her and send a request!

This month I wanted to reach out to you fine listeners to ask a few questions and seek your knowledge and support.

How do you listen to Eardrum Buzz Radio? That's one of the things on my mind these days as I try to get more listeners to the station. The server I use only tracks the two operating systems for computers and iPhones and Android phones and then all notepads. But you might listen in your car, on your gaming console or on your television, or from a directory, along with many other ways I might not be familiar with.

I'd love to have Alexa and Echo be able to play Eardrum Buzz Radio. I'd love to have an app for your phone that would be like a mini-website and could also notify you when shows are playing.

So I reach out to you, the loyal listener and to those that are only just learning of Eardrum Buzz Radio. How do you listen to the station? What might I do to reach more listeners? Do you have a site you find podcasts on? Somewhere you go to listen to streaming stations? Help me out here, I'm not technologically advanced, I don't know all the ways you might find and listen to streaming services. Eardrum Buzz Radio is a station, not a jukebox, there are no algorithms telling you that if you like one band then you'd like another. This ain't Spotify where you pay a subscription. I buy most of the music and am lucky to get submissions from publicists and bands directly. I and the DJ's carefully curate their shows and most of those songs are in the library as well.

I want to keep alive the discovery of new music in a way that doesn't keep you in a bubble and doesn't have advertising every few songs. Eardrum Buzz Radio is made by humans for humans, by music fans for music fans. Not to rake in millions, but with a goal to at least pay for itself and have some form of a listener base.

So if you could let me know how and when you might tune into Eardrum Buzz Radio, how you could help spread the word on social media and to your friends and make this a meeting place for new music discovery, then I'd certainly appreciate your help and give you a shoutout on the station during our live shows or in a jingle to be played throughout the day where I mention your names.

If you'd like to support Eardrum Buzz Radio with your hard-earned money, you can do so on Paypal. Please include your names in the message so I can mention you on the station.

https://paypal.me/eardrumbuzzradio

Check the schedule page and the DJ Bio page to contact the DJ's directly. Send us a message in the chat box below the player on the main page. Request a song, give us your band's Bandcamp links.

If you'd like to send us a Station Identification to be played throughout the day please include the following information:

Your name

Your band name (If applicable)

What instrument you play (optional)

Where you're from

and say something along the lines of: "you're listening to Eardrum Buzz Radio on Eardrum Buzz Dot Net." You can also include your Bandcamp link or social link as well. Make this your own. You can hear examples throughout the day on the station or I can send you an example. Send your ID as an MP3 file to Bret@eardrumbuzz.net with the subject line: "Name or Band Name's Station ID"

I thank you for your continued listening to the station and I hope to see Eardrum Buzz Radio in posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and on Tik Tok if you're there too. Text and call your friends about the station, send them messages and posts at the Eardrum Buzz Radio Group page. Let's bring more excitement to new and classic music made by and for true music fans.

(Written by Bret Miller)

Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/eardrumbuzzradio

Links: https://linktr.ee/eardrumbuzz

LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/eardrumbuzz PayPal: https://paypal.me/eardrumbuzzradio

Written by Bret Miller Eardrum Buzz Radio www.eardrumbuzz.net

Follow Eardrum Buzz Radio: Instagram: @eardrumbuzzradio Twitter: @eardrum_buzz Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/EardrumBuzz

Send submissions to: bret@eardrumbuzz.net with "Submission" and your band name in the subject. Please only MP3 files, no WAV files, no Spotify links, just your awesome music!

EDBZ Blog #11

We surround ourselves with music and sounds for various reasons, but mainly it's because we love it. Musicians practice and learn and think about music and melodies and lyrics and arrangements and technology and other bands. Musicians are the biggest fans of music to my knowledge. Then there's the DJ's. Whether they're also musicians or can't clap their hands to the beat, DJ's are also huge music lovers. Walls of vinyl and CD's and cassettes, terabytes of files on their computers, weeks of listening time, posters and paraphernalia, memories galore of live concerts, hearing their favorite bands for the first time or having a song dedicated to a loved one, music is a huge part of many people's lives and fill their memories.

But in this time of music as background, as a commodity, as a way for a few business-types to make money off the efforts of actual musicians, why do they do it? For the love. Because life without music would be a mistake. Because music gives purpose to so many, gives joy, gives a reason to wake up. To connect with humanity, to see smiles and hear or read the enthusiasm of fans around the world. Music inspires and entertains. It challenges us to think differently, to fill in our own experiences between the poetic and sometimes vague lyrics.

Djing gives us the opportunity to connect with others too. From making mixtapes pre-digital age, recording off the radio, spinning vinyl and playing cassettes, watching live performances on TV, from word of mouth and digging through records at the local music store, music has always been a social activity. But when you're awkward and don't know how to connect with people in other ways, handing someone a tape of your favorite songs or talking about the new video or trading files or sharing links, music brings us together.

I've only met two of the DJ's on Eardrum Buzz Radio in person: Danny Gellis of Serious Spinach at the recent Film School show as well as my Vapour Trail Live cohost Meagan Massingill as she lives only a few hundred miles from me in San Diego where I visit regularly. I expect to meet Charles Motorbike soon, probably to go see Stereolab in San Diego in September. But when we chat online or call on the phone, it's usually about music, a new video or a new release. We're all excited about the new single from Bauhaus. I'm personally excited to see Letting Up Despite Great Faults play with Blushing and Slow Crush with Deserta in late April, the many bands at the Cruel World Festival and Steely Dan at the Hollywood Bowl in May.

And doing Vapour Trail Live with Greg Peters and Meagan Masingill on the second and fourth Fridays as well as my irregular live sets has brought together people from Japan, Russia, Philippines , UK, Australia, Norway and the US to share our enthusiasm about newly bought tunes, requests or something we just played. We often come up with themes or bands to play for the three hours. It's great fun! Come join us if you can.

LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/eardrumbuzz PayPal: https://paypal.me/eardrumbuzzradio

Written by Bret Miller Eardrum Buzz Radio www.eardrumbuzz.net

Follow Eardrum Buzz Radio: Instagram: @eardrumbuzzradio Twitter: @eardrum_buzz Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/EardrumBuzz

Send submissions to: bret@eardrumbuzz.net with "Submission" and your band name in the subject. Please only MP3 files, no WAV files, no Spotify links, just your awesome music!

EDBZ Blog #10

It's a cloudy/sunny Monday in February, I'm in a light jacket and shorts. Yes, it's that kind of day in Burbank. I'm at the local bookstore doing Eardrum Buzz Radio stuff, getting ready for a live show tonight, chatting with people, making fliers, loading songs. I've got a window table, my noise-canceling headphones on, my tinnitus ringing within the music heard during the new release block The Current Buzz from 11am-2pm PST weekdays, between Madame Maledicta Live from 8-11am and the Shore Dive Records Hour at 2pm. I've purchased and been submitted so much great music lately that I've expanded the time for The Current Buzz from one hour to three. I still have about 30 more minutes each day I can fill for this week.

I don't get a paycheck from doing this station, I keep my boring day job. I occasionally get a few dollars here and there from listeners, which goes right back into the latest purchases on Bandcamp. Danny Gellis, the enthusiastic and energetic host of Serious Spinach, heard weekly on Sundays at 11am and 9pm PST has some contacts and ideas for a fundraiser and to create a logo to be displayed on shirts. As long as there's a 2XLT shirt or two for me, I look forward to it, whenever we get around to it. An influential online station just celebrated its 10th anniversary and I hope to continue at least that long. I'm not getting any younger but my enthusiasm is still strong after 18 months doing this. The station continues to gain more listeners, some staying on for hours at a time, listening during their work hours, or maybe keeping us on at the house in the background. So, whether we're your soundtrack for your day, while stuck at work or simply something to keep your dogs and cats company while you're out, I thank you for tuning in to Eardrum Buzz Radio at Eardrumbuzz.net and hope that you continue to do so for years to come.

Madame Maledicta has changed her schedule. She will be on Monday through Thursday now, still from 8am-11am PST. Monday is EDM and Witch House; Tuesday is her "Roots" show, documenting a sound, a band or a theme; Wednesday remains #shoegazewednesday, now including heavier "doomgaze" bands and Thursday is now #postpunkthursday, playing Goth, Post-Punk and Darkwave. You can reach Madame Maledicta on Twitter @mmemaledicta. I know she'll be happy to interact with you and take requests for her show!

LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/eardrumbuzz PayPal: https://paypal.me/eardrumbuzzradio

Written by Bret Miller Eardrum Buzz Radio www.eardrumbuzz.net

Follow Eardrum Buzz Radio: Instagram: @eardrumbuzzradio Twitter: @eardrum_buzz Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/EardrumBuzz

Send submissions to: bret@eardrumbuzz.net with "Submission" and your band name in the subject.