Top 10 albums of 2009
6. JAY WEINBERG/THE ENERGY COMMISSION "10,000 Hours" (Persistence Records)
This Valparaiso singer/songwriter is an adventurous protest singer and troubadour with plenty to say about common folk being used as chattel by corporate powers.
Totally refreshing sound and approach; songs range from smooth ("Davy Jones Locker"), to ska-like ("Price Gouge'n"), to white boy rap ("Ode To Howard Beale").
Politically-charged with instrumental assistance by a bevy of regional talents, including the Schaffer-Murray brothers of Planetary Band (see #5 on this list). Weinberg sings what average Americans are thinking. He's got brass. Highlights: "Price Gouge'n," "You're So Vain," and "Mediaocracy (if it bleeds)." FYI: THEENERGYCOMMISSION.COM
The Energy Commission: PRESS
The Energy Commission "10,000 Hours"(Persistence)Take ska-inspired pop, add poetic Dylan-level complexity lyrics and you get this jolt of energy. Jay Weinberg is not just a poet, he's an activist, and these tunes take on Big Oil, Big Media, and a lot of other Bigs. But it never becomes tuneless or humorless like too much protest music, these bounce and jive and groove their messages. Maybe next record, though, he'll use a CFL bulb for his artwork.
Here's the first part of the interview from May 5th 2009.
AUDIO - CLICK THE LINKS
GregandDanMay5th (1)
Here's the 2nd part. Thanks a million to G & D!
GregandDanMay5th (2)
On singer/songwriter Jay Weinberg "He's Become a bit of a national folk hero of sorts... He's a man who thoroughly believes in his causes and puts his guitar where his mouth is!"
Of singer/songwriter Jay Weinberg "You are a new generation of protest singer-songwriter. The people of my generation LOVED the protests of Bob Dylan and Neil Young - they loved those songs - they made them into cultural icons... They look back FONDLY on those days - yet would sit here today and probably think you are off your wack. And from where I sit in the cheap seats - I'm glad that guys like you exist. You have a manner that is peaceful yet you're inspired by something and I would hope more of your aged folks get fired up about things like this."
By Emma Graves Fitzsimmons | Tribune reporter
6:06 PM CDT, May 11, 2008
Jay Weinberg struck a chord with drivers when he staged an unauthorized concert on the roof of a gas station in northwest Indiana to protest high fuel prices. Armed with a guitar and megaphone, he crooned about feeling pain at the pump before a growing crowd below.
Last week's stunt got him arrested, but his catchy tune caught fire and turned the musician into a local hero overnight for saying, or rather singing, what is on everyone's mind.
"The $4 mark is the breaking point," he said. "People are really upset."
Weinberg, 29, of Valparaiso has been strumming his ditty "Price Gouge'n" on Chicago radio stations, and the story has been picked up around the country and by The Times of India. (Yes, India, not Indiana.) The lyrics have been met with laughter and righteous head nods when he sings, "I can't afford it, I'm banging on my dashboard, I can't believe they think I'm a fool."
Protests are cropping up around the country as frustration over gas prices grows. A truck driver stood by a Louisville expressway with a sign objecting to diesel costs. The owner of a Milwaukee-area gas station closed for 24 hours to protest prices last month, and a lawn-care company in Tennessee organized a rally outside its business last week. Hundreds of truck drivers protested at the U.S. Capitol, and gas prices have become an issue in the presidential campaign.
That was part of the reason Weinberg took his protest song public May 5 at a convenience store in Valparaiso. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were in his area campaigning, and he wanted them to take notice.
A YouTube video of his protest shows cars honking as Weinberg asks from the megaphone, "Are you sick of these gas prices?" A woman holding a young girl stops to watch, and people hold up fists in the air in solidarity as they walk by with a dog.
Weinberg proclaimed he would not come down until prices came down, but that was not to be. He expected police would arrest him but knew they would have a difficult time reaching him atop the roof.
"I thought, 'What if I get on top of the canopy where they can't get to me? Then I've got a little bit of time to really say some stuff. They'd have to send firetrucks to get to me.' "
Turns out that is exactly what they did. They brought Weinberg down using a fire ladder, said Valparaiso Police Sgt. Mike Grennes.
"When we arrived, there was a crowd of about 40 people," Grennes said without a hint of amusement. "They were singing a song about the high price of gas."
Weinberg was charged with criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct by Porter County authorities and bonded out by a friend. He will appear in court in June.
Carl Cohen, a philosophy professor at the University of Michigan, said the mini-concert was an act of civil disobedience, a topic he wrote a book about during the Vietnam War. It's rare for such protests to target economic problems because the culprit is often vague, but in this case it was easy to lay blame on oil companies, he said.
"What is most interesting about this case, I would say, is the inventive way he devised to express the protest—singing from on high," Cohen said.
Weinberg is the first to admit the hoopla was a great way to get his name out as a recording artist. He spent 30 hours in the studio recording the tune, which can be downloaded online for 37 cents.
But he sees the spectacle as a form of civil disobedience in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi.
"I'm not saying what I'm doing is as important as those guys, but they talk about unjust laws. Well, this is pretty unjust," he said.
Weinberg took a break from his day job at a framing shop to hit the road for interviews about his arrest. Along the way, he saw the range of gas prices in Illinois and Indiana and had to top off the tank of his friend's Ford Taurus for $3.89 a gallon.
"I'm hoping this song can be an anthem," he said. "It's something I've felt personally. It's something resonating with people's minds and hearts, and most importantly in their wallets."
Gasoline song, protest goes viral
By Matthew Ralph
When 29-year-old Indiana resident Jay Weinberg climbed on the roof of a service station earlier this month to protest gas prices, a campaign that started with a guitar strumming rant on $2 gasoline two and a half years earlier went viral.
Sporting a uniform synonymous with blue-collar anguish – a Cubs hat and shirt – Weinberg, aka Epoch Apostle, shouted the words of his gas price lament “Price Gouge’n” through a megaphone, leading a crowd of friends and rubber-necking bystanders in the middle-finger-to-the-man chorus. The impromptu 15-minute concert and subsequent arrest went even better than expected.
Within days of the Valparaiso resident’s staged act of civil disobedience, a YouTube video was attracting thousands of hits and mainstream media from as far away as India had given Weinberg and his gasoline song ink.
“I didn’t think it was going to blow up this fast,” Weinberg said in a phone interview from his apartment in a week that included interviews with a Detroit radio station and a Chicago ABC affiliate. “It’s just been like wild-fire.”
Though he was known as the shy kid in high school, Weinberg said he’s made a name for himself in his local music community for not being afraid to speak out.
“Basically, for the past 10 years I’ve been doing this music and it’s been in my blood and it’s been in my consciousness that I’m going to do more than just complain like the average person would do,” he said. “I don’t think all the money should be going to these oil companies and these big conglomerates.”
From the day he launched gasolinesong.com, Weinberg said the protest was about more than just the price.
“It’s about the price we are paying, but it’s bringing certain issues to the forefront like environmental issues, political issues, all the way down to war,” he said.
For Weinberg, his wife Danielle and his legion of musical comrades and friends, it’s also a kind of guerilla style way of getting their music heard and art seen. In an age where publicity stunts and viral marketing are used to promote all manner of commercial endeavors, this point has rubbed some people the wrong way.
Scanning the comments in a Chicago Tribune article about the protest, it’s not hard to find critics questioning Weinberg’s motives. In a space where even Mother Theresa’s intentions would have likely been ridiculed, Weinberg was called a “greedy folk singer” by one poster, accused of “trying to make a buck” by another and ironically enough told he should be thrown in jail by a poster with poor grammar.
Weinberg, who said he was inspired in part by George Orwell’s “1984,” Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train” and the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car,” isn’t apologetic about his goals as a musician. Since his primary eve stunt (about 15 minutes from a rally Hillary Clinton was at that day), he hasn’t been called back in to work at a local frame shop. With little money in the coffers, he’s working every angle to get his music and message out there.
“Ghandi said to be the change you want to see in the world and that’s the kind of thing we’re going after,” he said.
As for the stunt itself, it was anything but a one-man show. Like an Improv Everywhere skit, Weinberg enlisted the help of friends to spot for police, capture photos and video and sing. It wasn’t quite “we shall overcome” but even critics have to acknowledge it took some guts.
“As far as courage goes, it’s hard to say,” he said. “I feel like the truth needs no defense in a sense and I feel like the truth is on our side with this whole thing. Getting up there and doing it? I felt like it was going to fall into accord and harmony with what needed to be done. So I wasn’t too nervous. But my mom, she was freaking out.”
To download the song for about $3.50 less than a gallon of gas and to check out other merchandise, visit gasolinesong.com.
posted [5.19.08]