COURTS TELL FCC IT'S FULL OF S***
 The Federal Communications Commission has it easy. All they really have to do is privatize the public's airwaves as quickly as possible, make sure a
broadcast f-word never reaches our ears, and provide our domestic spying agencies with unlimited access to wiretaps. The good news is that the courts have handed the FCC three big hurts on incidental swearing,
carte blanche domestic snooping, and becoming the Internet's copyright police.
Regarding the f-word, a New York appeals court has called the
Commission's rules on incidental swearing, "... undefined, indiscernible, inconsistent, and consequently unconstitutionally vague." Leading the majority opinion, Judge Rosemary Pooler
added "divorced from reality" for good measure.
Mark Morford, writing in the Chronicle, nailed it. "[As] far as Bush's
God-spanked FCC is concerned, it is, always and forever, about protecting the children. Or, rather, it is about protecting some imaginary Christian
Everychild, some sort of perfect hyper-sheltered dovelike organism made of spun glass and delicate bunny hearts and little golden crucifixes -- a fragile,
blessed thing whose happy, unblemished life had been completely free of blood or spit or pain right up until he heard Bono say ["fucking brilliant"] at the Golden Globe awards." Www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/13/DDG3QQDKAT1.DTL &hw=mark+morford&sn=003&sc=844
The ruling only covers incidental use of swear words. Still, this is a blow to
the culture warriors. Programmers can still swear like sailors on cable and satellite radio. Will broadcast radio ever get there?
Oh, and that little carte blanche
domestic spying thing? An Associated Press article titled Judges Challenge Internet Wiretap Rules, finds yet another court, this one under U.S. Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards, calling
FCC arguments for Internet wiretapping "gobbledygook" and "nonsense."
  Www.usatoday.com/news/washing ton/2006-05-05-internetwiretaps_x. htm
is a tough read in the sense that it leaves one wondering how the Justice Department could even conceive of their instant access wiretapping plan as constitutional,
let alone why our FCC should play the henchman; but this is the price of too much deregulation, alas.
Back to more good news, the same Judge Edwards stopped the FCC earlier
in the year from supporting the music and movie industry plans for increasing the FCC's role in Internet copyright enforcement. Yes, citizens,
their plans did call for the FCC to underwrite the merchants' Internet enforcement efforts at taxpayer expense before Judge Eddy gave them a good scolding. Www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id =1000809995.
FAIRNESS DOCTRINE DOWN IN FLAMES
  The House sank the latest attempt to restore the Fairness Doctrine to the airwaves. Though it had been around since 1947, the Fairness Doctrine really came into it's
own in 1967 to require equal time for opposing points of view in broadcast editorials. While interesting in principle, the idea of stopping, or at least slowing, the broadcast
media's lockstep march from reporting to advocacy never really took root.
First, nobody could figure out what constituted an opposing point of view. Pro versus con
didn't work because of matters of degree. Take the private vs. public health care debate. What does a broadcaster do when a coalition
of anarchists, granola heads and Christian Scientists (who treat illness with prayer) show up with a separate, but related, issue demanding equal time for no health care?
The "matter of degree" problem soon limited rights of opinion to Republicans and Democrats. As far as the media was concerned, if neither of the two
parties thought about it, it couldn't be thought. Still, there were problems with two-voice fairness. Third parties could not claim legitimacy without
media support and their demands to be heard under fairness eventually lead the two parties to abandon fairness altogether.
The upshot has been advocacy by media for the media with Fox "News"
providing a point of reference. The House's thumbs down vote of 309-115 shows both parties in favor of blocking ideas that aren't theirs.  Democrats at least kept quiet about their monkey business, but conservatives like Rush Limbaugh
immediately ballyhooed the defeat of fairness as a win for, you might have guessed it, "freedom of speech." More at www.fair.org/index.php?page=2053. In the next breath, however, Limbaugh and the Dittonians were criticizing Michael Moore for not being "fair" in his health care documentary Sicko.
"Have you no shame, sir? Have you no shame?" |
DAVE GLEASON GETS TIGHT
 Dave Gleason
has made a career move by trimming-down the length of the songs on Just Fall to Pieces, the new Wasted Days CD. It isn't like this CD's honky-tonking sound
is unfamiliar territory since Gleason learned his chops from the usual twang suspects. But the music that has held most of his attention during the last decade has been the soaring '70s twang pioneered by the
Flying Burrito Brothers/Gram Parsons Axis of Good Guys. The band has two CDs of soaring to it's credit and a revamped line-up, so it's only natural to want to move on. Only
four tracks on the previous CD, Midnight, California, clocked in under four minutes. Now only four tracks on this CD clock in over four minutes, providing
more honky-tonk with no sacrifice to the guitar licks that he always keeps well-polished.
The arrangements are juicer too since the CD is well-stocked with guest talent. None other than the
Albert Lee is featured on the opening track, a energetic hard-to-believe-I-ever-loved-you song called "Look What You've Become." Jim Campilongo (Ten-Gallon Hats) adds some guitar, Richard Chon
(Saddle Cats) mixes in some fiddle, Michael Montalto (Red Meat) plays 12-string, piano and accordion, and Joe Goldmark lays it down on pedal steel. An honorable mention should go to
Johnny Dilks who doesn't appear on the CD but who leads Johnny Dilks and his Country Soul Brothers, a second band where Dave Gleason plays guitar. Johnny and Dave really are country soul
brothers so it's only natural, not to mention wise career planning, to go where their new muse beckons.
Catch the DGWD CD release party at Annie's Social Club on Friday, July 13th
with even more country soul brothers, the Plain High Drifters opening and blues rockers Ride the Blinds taking it home. On Saturday, July 14th they play the Amoeba in-store in SF.
Pat Johnson (Penelope Houston) has been on guitar for the past few years, so those who haven't seen the band in a while ought to catch up.
BELLE MONROE DISTILLS "BREWGLASS"
  "They don't like us," according to Belle Monroe commenting on a certain segment of the bluegrass community's feelings about Belle
Monroe and her Brewglass Boys. True, there could be some things to upset them like taking Saint Bill's name in vain, using the name of His blessed music as a beer pun, and particularly for failing to play
Bill Monroe's music the way it's supposed be played! (Funny how the very things that alienate them from the bluegrass community endear them to Hicks with Sticks.)
Bluegrass bands mainly cover songs written by others and some wags have even suggested that all bluegrass originals are covers too. Belle Monroe
distinguishes itself from the pack with the band's choice of material and with vocals that are more throaty than nasal. Ted Silverman (mandolin), Jordan Klein (banjo) and Rick Hendricks
(lap steel) boost the band's vocal horsepower by sharing leads and harmonizing. The CD kicks off with their version of 77 el Deora's "Fire on the Mountain" and soon gets into a torchy
bluegrass interpretation of Gillian Welch's "Tear My Still House Down". They cover "Baby Let Me Follow You Down," a song from the 1930s that was popularized later by Bob Dylan,
and carry on with rompin' numbers like "Johnson County."
Whether live or on CD, Belle Monroe and her Brewglass Boys are not just another
Bill Monroe camp meeting, and that's a good thing. A very good thing. Www.brewglassboys.com.
ALL THE NEWS THAT PRINTS IN FITS
Sonoma County's Rhythm Riders are the latest addition to the Great Twang Band Explosion of '07. Veteran Kevin Russell (Modern Hicks) has teamed up with
Dave Zirbel (Mother Truckers) and three others to form Kevin's twanging-est outfit yet. Their advance CD is a fine one. More when it's released.
And sorry, but K.R. gets bands together much faster than websites, so there's no link, but they debut at The Black Rose in Santa Rosa on July 6th, 8:30, and the next day at Sebastopol Plaza
6:30 to 8:00. Both shows are free... Train Wreck, the house band for the El Rio's open mike on 2nd Tuesdays, has changed its name to Los Train Wreck because there are too many bands,
including the Bay Area's Train Wreck Riders, who are wrecking trains... Misisipi Rider has put out a demo Live in the Living Room CD. This demo was
made at a living room rehearsal using a digital recorder and stereo microphone for a fast, cheap and easy way to get the demo job done. It has a lot of good songs
and their acoustic four-piece arrangements support them well. Ms. Stephanie MP3 handled the recording. Find her at live music shows. She's the one with the
twin microphones wearing the t-shirt with "Sure I'll Record You" in italic letters. Www.myspace.com/misisipiriders
... In a strange twist of life imitating art, some 7/11s have actually been renamed Kwik-E-Marts after the market in The Simpson's.
HWS remembers corporations going into a legal tizzy when bands like the Comsat Angles, the K-Tels and Negativland (with their U2 parody
song) stepped on their identities. Fox is going along with this culture grab. They've switched the Slurpies to Slushies too. |
