BY MIKEY MIGO
Twenty nine years ago, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day as an environmental observance day. While the guy may have been stuck with a shitty name, his mark has been made on the world, many of its citizens, and even some of today's musicians.
I'm not going to give you a history on environmental awareness. If you look around you can find out everything you wanted to know and probably a lot of stuff you didn't. I'm not even going to get preachy with you and telling you to save a tree by canceling your subscriptions to all of your magazines and just pay attention to 411mania.com more. (Not a bad idea, really.) What I'm looking at today is the influence on "going green" has had in the music world.
Rockstars have a great life. They get to make music, tour, and live a pretty free lifestyle compared to everyone else and on top of that, they get paid VERY well to do it. To do all of this, they have to tour in huge gas guzzling buses, use crazy amounts of energy to power their shows, destroy tons of trees for their album booklets, and plenty more acts of eco-murder.
But there are plenty of bands and musicians out there who are working to help the environment as much as they can. There's a few ways to look at it. You can be cynical and think "They're just trying to look good for the media". You could be all "That's sooo cool! They're giving back!" But, really, they're just human. They have the same choice and freedoms as everyone else. They don't HAVE to do anything, but they choose to. I don't think really any of the eco-friendly bands are sacrificing anything or really changing how they live. It's just little alterations to how things are that is making a huge difference.
Let's take a look at some of the people who made that choice:
Willie Nelson
We all know Willie Nelson supports "green causes", but I'm not talking about THAT cause. That would have been a column for this past Monday. Willie was one of the first to get on the eco-friendly tour bus. In fact, it's his bus that was his first step towards eco-nirvana. He was one of the first to fuel his bus with biodiesel and actually started his own Willie Nelson Biodiesel company. Right now it's in mostly southern states in the US, but is expanding all the time.
Bonnaroo
This isn't a band for those who are scratching their head thinking "but how is.."? Yeah, it's the festival in Tennessee that's becoming the US's biggest and most acclaimed show of the year. The ticket prices might be pretty high and camping in the rain doesn't sound that appealing, but at least this super show is doing it's part. The Bonnaroo festival has a company handle all trash and recycling for the event. The company has actually recycled 56% of the waste at the past five festivals. Not to mention, the stage that's ran ENTIRELY by solar power.
Incubus
Incubus is eco-friendly, but also capitalizing on the cause and making some major eco-bucks with their merchandise. Incubus sells eco-friendly swag that includes organic T-Shirts and posters made of recycled paper and soy ink. On the other end you could look at it as they aren't profiting on waste, but rather items that won't harm the government.
U2
Say what you want about Bono or not liking their music(MORONS!), which is completely subjective to (BAD!) taste, but U2 does do a lot for a lot of causes. What you think their motive is aside, you can't argue with the numbers. Besides playing Live Earth, U2 has the environment on their list of causes they kick ass for. Mr. popular and always loved by EVERYONE, Bono has an organic fashion line out there. I wonder if it's called "Even better than the real thing". Sorry. It's late.
The Beastie Boys
They're so eco-friendly they don't even play instruments or use hair dye! Apparently cell phones are a huge threat and a mess to deal with when in landfills. The batteries are made up of toxic elements that can be found in our water supplies. So the band has stations at their concerts set up to trade in your cell phone for free Beastie swag. Get rid of old phones, get some free stuff, and do your part to keep our drinking water clean. Not a bad deal.
Jack Johnson
Jack Johnson recycles more than the same guitar riff and songs over and over again. Jack has the coolest story of being eco-friendly. The dude has a SOLAR POWERED RECORDING STUDIO. That's pretty awesome on it's own, but he also uses recyclable CD packaging and energy saving air conditioners.
Dave Matthews Band
They follow Willie Nelson's plan for a green tour as they use a tour bus that's fueled by biodiesel and take "the green route". When they get there, their work doesn't stop. They give out bicycles to use instead of automobiles for the members to use to get around.
Anyone else I'm forgetting?
Again, I'm not getting preachy and saying "SAVE THE WORLD". It's all your choice. I just think we should appreciate what we have.
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