This is Part 2 of our series on how musicians and music fans can save the world by reducing our impact on it. This installment is all about transportation - how we get to concerts, gigs, band practice, the record store and everywhere else we go to enjoy music, plus how our music gets to us. Part 3 will focus on music products, from albums to iPods, rechargeable batteries to recycling.
There are resources at the end of this article for more information on everything described. ([More →])

This is an extensive guide for musicians and music fans on how to reduce our impact on the planet. It describes a few of the most harmful activities we participate in and how to make them more eco-friendly. That way, we can indulge our passion for music while treading lightly on the earth. You don’t have to digest all of this right now. There’s so much information here, it would be a good idea to bookmark it and keep coming back to it. Implement one thing at a time into your life before trying the next one. I’d like to add even more items to the list as time goes on, so that’s another good reason to bookmark it and come back to it. This article is part of Blog Action Day which we have been promoting here on HearingTest since August, but we post articles about the environment regularly here. If you like this one, dig through our culture archives to see more about what musicians and music lovers are doing to benefit Planet Earth. ([More →])

HearingTest has enjoyed a very productive weekend!! We have a new Front Page with a little bit of featured content, a space for event flyers, and a layout that makes it easy to see everything new in the Music News and Culture categories all at once. Now that the Front Page is sorted out, we put all the new posts on the News page where they belong. As always, we have the individual channels for those of you that prefer to surf the music by genre. But now you can also subscribe to each channel individually too! You can mix and match to get all the content you want and none that you don’t. Check out the Subscribe page for all the Feed details. But wait, it gets oh so much better… ([More →])

Environmental campaigns seem to go hand-in-hand with music events. Live Earth is a fine example. Many bands are using their tours as platforms for environmental education and recycling programs, like Linkin Park, Cheryl Crow and the Beastie Boys. But nothing sings about environmental doom and destruction like a carefully chosen documentary soundtrack. Finally, someone has matched planetary doom with the perfect soundtrack of doom metal and dark ambient electronica! I feel I have finally found a single category of music to describe many of my favorite bands - a class of music that I haven’t been able to summarize with a single name until today - Music For Environmental Doom! It’s perfect! What other category could so perfectly link Khanate with Gas, Brian Eno with Arve Henriksen, and Mogwai with Sigur Ros or Lamb? I’d love to own a soundtrack with this music, especially if it were on gatefold double vinyl! ([More →])

How do all-organic, fair-trade speakers sound? I have yet to try, but this has got to be the next best thing - HEMP speakers for your home stereo, your hemp guitar, or your dub soundsystem. Check these beauties out! Hemp board cabinet construction, with a bamboo outer shell. Fully-loaded with hemp cones in the drivers. Who would turn such a concept into reality and then offer Hand-Dyed One-of-a-KIND Speaker Grills to go with? Hard Truckers does.

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Hahaha, it’s getting too easy to report band’s good deeds these days. Do-gooding is spreading like wildfire since the concept of Live Earth first started to buzz. I do my best to weed out the deeds that are done merely for publicity and hype, so the ones I report I feel are the genuine article. Today’s featured Band-With-A-Social-Conscious is one of our all-time favorite bands - one that can do no wrong in our book! It’s The Beastie Boys! ([More →])

Linkin Park, heroes of the environment? Well, not too surprising I guess. A few years ago, the band started their own non-profit called Music for Relief in order to channel some funds from the music community into environmental relief campaigns. They just played Live Earth of course, and now are about to head off on the Projekt Revolution tour. Linkin Park vocalist, Bennington, answered questions at a press conference last week, telling reporters that environmental education would be a focus of this tour. ([More →])

Those of you in the NYC area this weekend are hopefully excited about the FREE Citysol Party. You didn’t forget did you? Well, just in case you did, here’s a reminder…

The clean energy, interactive art and music festival opened tonight at 6pm with performances that included bicycle-powered turntablism by DJ Mistakes! Wow! The wheels of the bike turn the wheels of wax? Too cool! But, wait - you haven’t missed out, the festival runs all weekend long and there is great stuff happening Friday, Saturday and Sunday too! ([More →])

Just days ago, Live Earth organizers announced the addition of Shanghai to the concert roster, thereby bringing the total number of cities that will host Live Earth Concerts to nine! But today, sadly, that number is back to eight, as Istanbul canceled the concert for their city. Official statements say that local businesses did not want to get involved with the high profile event out of fear of environmental organizations. I guess local Turkish industry is a big contributor to global warming and did not want to end up under the microscope by mis-aligning its brands. The lack of local sponsorship led to the cancellation of a live event, however, the Live Earth organizers will still set up 8 giant screens in Istanbul (one for each concert) to project live footage from other concerts around the globe. Wow! Is that going to be like 8 big drive-in movies? That would be wicked! I think this says a lot about the power and influence that has been achieved by environmental NGO’s in the last decade.

Live Earth website

On the bright side, Shakira and Enrique Iglesias have signed on to perform at the concert in Hamburg. That brings the full Hamburg lineup to this:

CHRIS CORNELL
ENRIQUE IGLESIAS
JAN DELAY
JULI
KATIE MELUA
LOTTO KING KARL
MANÁ
MANDO DIAO
MARIA MENA
MIA
MICHAEL MITTERMEIER
REAMONN
ROGER CICERO
SAMY DELUXE
SASHA
SHAKIRA
SILBERMOND
SNOOP DOGG
STEFAN GWILDIS

Shakira video for “No”:

German portal for Live Earth online

Info about Shakira and Iglesias from the Live Earth press release:

Shakira is a two-time Grammy Award-winning and eight-time Latin Grammy Award-winning Colombian singer, songwriter and producer and has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide. Her 2001 English language breakthrough, LAUNDRY SERVICE, sold more than 20 million albums and made her a global sensation. In early 2005, Shakira released the Oral Fixation project: Fijación Oral Vol. 1 and Oral Fixation Vol. 2 have sold a combined 15 million copies worldwide to date and earned five Latin Grammys, including Album of the Year, six Latin Billboard Awards, two Almas Awards, and numerous other awards around the world. She also just completed her Oral Fixation Tour around the world that included 120 sold-out dates. In 1995, Shakira created the Pies Descalso Foundation aimed at helping Colombian children who are victims of violence. She was also instrumental in the creation of Alas, an orgaLEarthnization of the Latin world’s biggest stars who are working to bring awareness to the social and economic conditions of children in Latin America.

Enrique Iglesias, the Madrid-born, Miami-raised singer, has sold more than 40 million albums and has topped the charts and gone platinum with both English and Spanish language works. Iglesias won the Grammy for Best Latin Performer in 1997 and the Latin Grammy for Best Male Pop Album in 2003. His new album, Insomniac, was released last week, and the single “Do You Know? (The Ping Pong Song)” has jumped to the top of the US, UK, Mexico, Sweden, Netherlands and other charts. Iglesias is the most successful Spanish-language singer in the world with 17 #1 Billboard Latin hits, more than any other artist in history. His albums have gone gold or platinum in more than 30 countries.

Perhaps you recall, waaaaaaay back at the beginning of April, I reported that Solar One and Brooklyn Vegan had teamed up to organize an FREE weekend-long event for NYC. At the time, they were still looking for volunteers, including bands, to help out. The people of NYC responded and the result is an awareness raising, green energy, arts, and music festival that will be completely powered by solar power and bio-diesel generators! Today Brooklyn Vegan announced the lineup and other goodies one can participate in during the weekend of July13-15th. For example, you can bring your energy bill to the event and switch on the spot to a green plan with ConEdison. In return you receive credit for free beer at the concert! Or, simply bring a mug and get $1 off beer! These folks know the right language to speak when talking about improving the environment!
Here is the digs from Brooklyn Vegan:

Brooklyn Vegan & Solar One present Citysol:

A FREE SHOW on SATURDAY JULY 14 (1pm-10pm) in NYC w/
LES SAVY FAV (!!)
Land Of Talk (previously announced)
O’Death (yeah)
The Besnard Lakes (previously announced)
These Are Powers (ex-Liars)
The Budos Band (funky)
Frankpollis (starring Jackson)
plus a very special performance from OCDJ
(Dance Party until the solar goes out!)

@ Solar One at Stuyvesant Cove Park - located along the East River between 18th and 23rd Streets. Solar One sits in the north end of the park, near the 23rd Street entrance and the Gulf Gas station.

Righteous! There is so much excellent information to discover, it would be difficult to reproduce all of it here, so go over to the BV and check it out:

Brooklyn Vegan Presents Citysol 2007
The Citysol page on the Solar One website