One of my friends recently attended the Treasure Island Music Festival in San Francisco and texted me about their awesome green initiatives. From the show. Yes, I’m sort of a nerd for this kind of thing.

We’re all about musicians lightening their footprints around here. According to the folks at Live Earth: “A single concert event can produce as little as 9,000 kilos (close 20,000 lbs) to as much as 90,000 kilos (197,000 lbs) of solid waste in a single day.” That’s a ridiculous amount of waste and doesn’t even take into account things like CO2 emissions from concertgoers driving to the venue or indirect emissions from the food and whatnot.

The folks at Treasure Island Fest set out to do things a little differently. Not only did they have a kickass lineup that’s making me more than a little bit jealous, they implemented all sorts of impressive green initiatives. Check our their greening and sustainability statement:

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When it comes to music, the Beatles—fueled by my parents’ large collection of vinyl—dominated most of my early life. The White Album is like my musical comfort food; it’s what I go back to when I need to feel rooted. But in terms of the music that has influenced and shaped much of my adult life, there is no band more important than Phish.

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The special premieres August 1 and airs throughout the month on most PBS stations. Check local listings for dates and times in your area at PBS.org.

“Through music we can get enlightenment.“

For all of us, “Going Green” means something different. Whether it is just changing the light bulbs in your house or going completely off the grid, every little bit helps. But for some people, changing the world is a full time job, and a full time job requires a company car.

Or a bus. Enter the Solar Bus.

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We love a good mix tape remix around here. Heck, some of us even knit with used cassettes. Seamstresses, don’t you fret! You can get in on the recycled cassette action, too…

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This summer you can show your support for your favorite farmers market, by helping it win a $5000 reward. Care2.com and Localharvest.org are sponsoring this great online contest. The $5000 top prize will be awarded to the farmer’s market that is voted the most popular by internet users like you.

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[Phish at Hampton Coliseum, 2009. Creative Commons photo by Bryan Sereny]

Portland, Maine-based Reverb is a non profit organization that helps bands reduce their tours’ impacts through education and action. They’ve worked on over 70 tours and 1000 events since their launch in 2004, saving 62,608 tons of CO2 and reaching over 8 million fans! They helped Phish reduce the impact of their Hampton Coliseum shows earlier this year, and now they’ve announced some exciting initiatives for the summer tour!

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Pete Seeger has been an incredibly important inspiration not only in my life, but also for countless others throughout the entire planet. He has accomplished so much and continues to be an unbelievably hopeful, powerful and influential activist and musician.

Democracy Now covers Seeger’s 90th birthday party concert in New York that benefited Clearwater, the environmental nonprofit that Pete and Toshi Seeger founded in 1969; the organization’s mission is to protect the Hudson River and to inspire the next generation of environmental leaders and activists. There is also a growing movement to nominate Pete Seeger for the Nobel Peace Prize, something that I wholeheartedly endorse.

TerraCycle

Soyeon is a classical concert pianist, with an impressive Julliard, Carnegie Hall performance history who may be the first to bring the eco-cause into the world of classical music. In her effort to bring classical music and environmental awareness together, she turned to husband and garbage-to-gold entrepreneur Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle to help design the new CD cover for Reinvented. As it turns out, he had just come home with a sample of new composite board made from - yup, you guessed it - tossed out Frito Lay bags!

They thus created the first garbage-inspired, Frito-Lay CD cover. I have one and you can even see the name Frito on one of the tiny shreds!

The music is beautiful, but the real inspiration is the marriage (pun intended) of eco-clever re-use of garbage and musical artistry.

If there were a contest for eco-power-couple of the next generation, I would vote for these two.

On Tuesday, the Sundance Channel quietly rolled out an effort to change that. Billed as “film, art, music, design and more as we see it - filtered through that space between the underground and the mainstream,” the new SUNfiltered blog provides an eclectic range of content… and, as with the company’s television programming, green is a part of the mix.

As a company with a sensitive finger on the cultural pulse, it’s no surprise that Sundance has made eco-consciousness a part of the new blog. Of course, you’d also expect them to hire a smart, savvy blogger with an eye for cutting-edge green developments to cover this beat, right?

You’d expect that. What you’ll get, however: me.

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Australian musician Ben Lee brilliantly weaves daunting issues such as the global water crisis, religious intolerance, consumerism, hunger, greed, renewable energy and global warming into this inescapably catchy pop song. Lee has also been nominated as one of PETA’s world’s sexiest vegetarians.

Sorry.  I gotta be honest with you: Not me. If you fancy yourself a sassy and hip parent, sometime the Raffi can be a little hard on the ears. And right about now, you may be planning the big family trips: what to listen to on the way to the campsite?

But I found the perfect sound, dubbed a “postmodern jug band” and “Hee-Haw for hipsters,”in Asylum Street Spankers,

You only love me for my lunchbox, baby.
You only love me ’cause it rules.
You only love me for my lunchbox, baby.
‘Cause it’s the coolest one in school!
Now all the other kids are standing in line
‘Cause they ain’t never seen a lunchbox so fine
And everything inside it tastes so divine!

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So get your thinking caps on, brush up on your upcycling and take that trash and turn it into treasure for the SMART Art ‘Trash into Treasure’ competition. Your sculpture, functional item, photograph, video or music could net you fame and fortune, or a winning cash prize, as long as you can show reuse.

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[Creative Commons photo by Joe Goldberg]

OK, I’ll admit it. On top of being a composting, rainwater harvesting, organic gardening hippie, I am also a huge Phish fan. You can imagine my delight when I got this in my email:

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Make that musical instrument a Fair Trade, natural toy, and you have a great green gift!

The Suling Flute from Down to Earth Toys, a site featuring great natural toys, is beautiful and easy to play.  Made from bamboo with a clever reed design, this flute plays all the notes on the scale.  My family’s experience with the flute match Down to Earth’s product description (only we had two sets of hands vying for a turn):

When we pulled this flute out of the box, we were amazed at the beautiful rich sound it produced (not like the sound of the recorders we used to play in grade school).  My husband could not put it down, and our son reached up to try to pull it out of our hands (of course he got a turn too).

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Music fan Owen Louis was so concerned about the amount of energy used up by his iPod, that he figured out a way of charging it up … with nothing more than an onion.

Louis, 21, from Portsmouth in the UK, makes two holes in an onion, before soaking it in an everyday energy drink and connecting it to his MP3 via a standard USB cable. Incredibly, the technique (video) enables him to charge his iPod for a full hour. According to Louis, “A friend showed me the experiment as a laugh but I thought it was the greatest thing I have ever seen, and do it religiously every day.”

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And being on the receiving end of a treasured mix tape, you knew that your love would last forever. That is until he started to make a tape for that girl in second period math class.

Ah young, fickle love.

Taking cassettes to the next level, these crafters have taken old tapes and remade them, or remixed them, into some pretty nifty items:

• Over at Craftster, freepepper has created this wonderful wallet (pictured) out of a cassette tape. Instructables has a good tutorial on how to make one of your own.

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The ROTHBURY Music Festival held at the idyllic Double JJ Ranch near the eastern shore of Lake Michigan attracted about 40,000 music lovers from all 50 U.S. states and 15 countries. And while the four-day festival attracted musical acts as diverse as Widespread Panic, Trey Anastasio, Snoop Dogg, Modest Mouse, and Primus, politically-engaged attendees were also invited to participate in a dozen “think tank” events with the theme: “Finding Energy Independence.”

To curate ROTHBURY’S series of think tank events, Festival organizers brought in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate scientist and Stanford University professor, Dr. Stephen Schneider. Schneider helped kick-off the Think Tank series of events with a live taping of the national radio show E-Town. Joining Schneider was former Green Party Vice-Presidential candidate Winona LaDuke. The pair discussed how we might move forward with political solutions to climate change and they both put particular emphasis on the tremendous importance of the upcoming 2008 election.

“This is the fusion of information and emotion,” Schneider said of the dual roles of speakers and musicians. “The message will spread way beyond ROTHBURY.”

Think Tank events were scattered throughout the four-day festival and to keep things fresh, they were also scattered throughout the Double JJ Ranch, to give the events as broad exposure as possible.

With panel discussion names like: “The Path to Energy Independence and a New American Revolution;” “How America’s Youth are Driving the Energy Revolution;” How Do We Motivate the Masses to be Part of the Energy Revolution?” And “The Energy Revolution will not be Televised - Demanding Change from our Political Leaders and the Media,” this ecopolitical geek was in heaven. But catching all of the great panel discussions would have been a Herculean task for anyone, let alone a devoted music junkie like myself.

The ones that I did catch (besides the ones at the larger stages), were attended by a very thoughtful and interested cadre of folks, spanning the spectrum of environmentalism from committed enviros to the “green curious.” But what may have been the most special aspect of the Think Tanks themselves was seeing and hearing some real big names in music talk about what they do as individuals or as a band to lessen the environmental impact of their touring.

Speaking with particular candor about this very matter was one member of the band Sound Tribe Sector Nine who noted that they were more than a little aware of the ecological footprint of their touring the country with large coaches, tractor-trailers to haul the gear, and electricity-sucking light shows and sound systems. And even though they took steps to mitigate that impact (at one point the band used to claim carbon-neutral tours) the large footprint still tugged at him a little bit.

Festival organizers Madison House and AEG Live spoke openly about raising the bar for music other music festivals, both in terms of the actual sustainability of such a large undertaking, but also in terms of harnessing the energy from that large undertaking and focusing it on a larger social cause.  And while they succeeded at raising that bar, I’m guessing they see room for improvement and will come back with an even more impressive festival experience next year and for years to come.

Other Posts About ROTHBURY:

• “ROTHBURY: Festival Also Sets Sights on Food and Waste”
• “Win ROTHBURY Tickets”
• “Winner Announced: What is Right/What is Wrong with the Environmental Movement Today?”

Photos: 1. Mike Gordon and Trey Anastasio of Phish - Michael Weintraub; 2. John Bell of Widespread Panic - Tim Hurst; 3. Sherwood Forest by Day - C. Taylor Crothers; 4. Sherwood Forest by Night - C. Taylor Crothers.

We’ve all experienced them somehow, from a well meaning friend or a grandparent. And for me, there is something truly offensive about cheery, annoying, repetitive music before 8am. It makes me drink coffee. Fast.

But it is shockingly not all about me, no. My daughters love music and love to dance, and of course I want to encourage this. I’m also eager to encourage in them a love of other cultures, language and musical heritage. I want their taste in music to be open and diverse, not always expecting the same kind of forced glee or silly lyrics found in many of today’s kid’s music.

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