ABOUT

And the eternal question: what the hell is this?

To the Children of the Revolution,

I am a digital content creator who has been working in various forms of media since the very early 1980’s. Podcasting and web development came years after I attended college. I had been privately creating programs for four years on my main (design/training/outreach/social action) website as a means to fill in major holes in programming by mainstream media.

This is the man responsible for this mess. I mean honestly, doesn’t his name just sound slightly bourgeois and almost made up?

This is an audio anthology series to allow visitors to discover new genres, artists, their importance on society (i.e. minority populations) and access where access does not exist, such as rural areas. It will not always be music.

Make no mistake: this isn’t a hobby.

This isn’t something I do to kill time and hope that people give me hearts and smiley faces on social media platforms. It has one goal: to educate listeners on something outside of their worldview and give credit to creatives, many of whom never would have an opportunity to be recognized for their achievements anywhere else.

This show is created using a $200 cell phone, a $300 laptop, headphones, eight year old software and a library card. The desk I use was found in the trash.

Your host

“What You’re Not Listening To” is created on the corner of my bed on a table I was given as a gift after it was left in the hallway trash my late mother-in-law’s apartment building. $200 cellphone, $300 laptop and eight year-old software. Baby Boy brought the table home on public transit from across town.

It is a “big tent” show, and meant not to be simply another greatest hits set or use an algorithm as a means of populating content. Each program is designed to illustrate the many facets of an artists career or use audio to illustrate a particular time, place or social happening.

Half of the programs will feature persons from marginalized populations.

Some shows will even be focused on health and wellness. Others will even take on fighting stigma that affects dispossessed populations.

I accept no money, advertising or any other promotional consideration currently to produce this program (which also creates a very level playing field), but would love the opportunity to work with businesses to help maximize exposure, generate revenue for the creators of the work and give the listener options on how to bring these works into their collection.

The Ace of Spades PDX “studio” is nothing more than common items and old stuff. This is DIY to the core.

You are not going to like every program, at least initially. That isn’t the purpose of the series. The goal is to bring something of value to your life that you didn’t even know was missing.

If you haven’t heard it here, that just means you haven’t heard it here yet…and if you’re still reading this, you were hoping to find out why Ace of Spades. That is a question you can only ask me in person.

I also take requests.

Lastly, this must be said: Without Papa bear Travis, baby Boy Ron and Gypsy Girl, none of this would have been possible.

Love to you all.

Your host, writer, engineer, researcher, webmaster and producer,
Ben “Daddy Ben Bear” Brown Jr.