"Phish aims to set the standard for ‘green' concert events"

In addition to cutting down on water bottles, most of the food booths are using recyclable napkins, plates, forks and bags.

The festival organizers also set up an eco-shuttle with bio-diesel powered vans and hybrids ferrying fans to and from Los Angeles and Palm Springs airports and area hotels.

About 300 sets of recycling bins have been placed around the grounds, three bins per set, Beerman said. Black is for trash going to landfills; green for organics, such as paper and food; and blue for plastics and other recyclables. And instead of one big sorting center for everything, the festival has three — one for the main performance area, two for the camping areas.

via YEMblog

In addition to a couple of jams, "Undermind," the forthcoming Party Time track "Liquid Time," and a Trey Anastasio Band song ("Gone"), Phish performed songs by MGMT ("Kids") and Yes ("Star Trooper") during their surprise Thursday soundcheck prior to Festival 8, suggesting that neither the former Oracular Spectacular nor the latter's The Yes Album during Saturday's Halloween-costume set. But who the hell knows? According to Benjy Eisen at Spinner, eight campgrounds at the site are named after the final eight albums left on the festival website: Hunky Dory (David Bowie), Kid A (Radiohead), Electric Ladyland (Jimi Hendrix Experience), Purple Rain (Prince), The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Genesis), Exile on Main Street (Rolling Stones), Larks' Tongues in Aspic (King Crimson), and Oracular Spectacular (MGMT). Stuck as I am in Brooklyn, my money's on Exile but my heart's in Lamb.

The Athens Theatre, host to countless shows by HeadCount-affiliated artists, burned down on June 19. Now the theater's owners have partnered with the Georgia Trust to establish a fund dedicated to restoring the historic theater. Tax-deductible donations to the Georgia Theatre Rehabilitation Fund may be made to the Georgia Trust.

Wilmot Green, the theater's owner, runs down what's at stake and what he needs to bring it back.

Unfortunately, insurance on the building covered replacement costs — which would mean replacing a building to 1930s code. To rebuild to current
building codes will cost much more — about $3 million total.

Despite the costs, we are working to rebuild the Theatre, because we can’t
imagine Athens without it. Anyone who has passed through in the last century
— like the more than 10,000 musical acts that have played its stage — has a
fond memory of the Georgia Theatre.

Clean up efforts are underway to remove the debris. Steel support beams are
now bracing the exterior walls. Restoration is about to begin.

"War Song" by O.A.R. from IAVA on Vimeo.

O.A.R. has long supported our men and women in the military. It’s a bit of a twist for a band wildly popular with the carefree college party crowd both literally and figuratively distant from the armed forces. The contrast in lifestyles and socioeconomic backgrounds, speaking generally, could not be starker.

So give the former Ohio State students some credit for stepping away from their comfort zone and making time for a USO tour, a visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, "An MTV Concert for the BRAVE," and a performance for troops at Fort Hood, Texas.

Today O.A.R. released a video for “War Song,” which the band wrote upon its return from a 2007 USO visit to Iraq and Kuwait, all of which was inspired by the band's partnership with the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America to create Open Up Your Arms. The campaign aims to engage and mobilize Americans by asking them to pledge support to our nation’s men and women in uniform. The campaign's original goal of 11,111 supporters was met in only a couple of days. The new goal is 111,111 signatures by Veteran’s Day, November 11.

“After meeting our injured troops at Walter Reed and later in Iraq we felt a very personal connection to the plight of the physically and emotionally injured warrior,” said O.A.R. lead singer Marc Roberge. “We believe it's time we opened up our doors, minds, and hearts to the men and women who need our support.”

You can sign the pledge and send messages of support through the interactive Open Up Your Arms website. You can also view video clips about the band and campaign, learn about issues facing our troops, veterans, and their families, and find out how to become involved with IAVA.

“This is just the beginning of an initiative that could literally transform our country,” said IAVA Founder and Executive Director Paul Rieckhoff. “We’re taking action, raising awareness, and using music as an instrument of change. We hope millions of Americans will stand with IAVA and O.A.R. and pledge to support our nation’s newest generation of heroes.”

If you fancy yourself an “a-Phish-ionado,” or an expert on current events, you’ll have a chance to prove it at Festival 8. Just stop by the HeadCount tent and play “Reality Check,” our music and political trivia game show. The Grand Prize winner gets a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork by Phish poster artist Jim Pollock. Everyone also gets a coupon for a free scoop of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food Ice Cream just for playing “Reality Check” or for filling out HeadCount’s “What’s Your Issue?” survey.

Be prepared to answer questions like this:
- What body part of Floyd's body got “sliced”?
- What town does Trey Anastasio, John Popper of Blues Traveler and Chris Barron of the Spin Doctors all hale from?
- What Who album did Phish cover on Halloween 1995?

The HeadCount booth will be adjacent to the WaterWheel area (look for a giant WaterWheel sculpture) and across from the “House of Live Phish.”

“Reality Check” will pit you head-to-head with another competitor as a host quizzes you on Phish history, classic albums, the news and government. Plus, there will be a Family Feud-style “Survey Says!” question. Win three straight times and you can advance to the Tournament of Champions, held before Phish’s final set of the weekend on Sunday, Nov. 1.

The Grand Prize winner will receive an uncut sheet of four Pollock Halloween masks. These masks will be available at the WaterWheel table throughout Festival 8, which will house a Pollock gallery. To make the “Reality Check” prize one-of-a-kind, Jim is doing a special illustration on one uncut sheet – meaning the winner goes home with a true Pollock original. Other prizes include a Festival 8 merchandise pack and an autographed copy of the PhanArt book.

So stop by. See you at Indio!

Three thousand fifty-eight buildings of all shapes, sizes, designs, and purposes have have met the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards for environmentally sustainable construction since 1994. But the country's first live music venue – and bowling alley! – got the nod earlier this month when Brooklyn Bowl was LEED certified by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

The 600-person club, sixteen-lane bowling alley, and restaurant (serving food by Blue Ribbon) joins the Concord Hospital in New Hampshire, the Unity Village Hotel & Conference Center In Kansas City, Starbucks Center in Seattle, and the Montessori School of Maui in meeting this nationally accepted standard for the design, construction, and operation of green buildings. To qualify, a project must earn a minimum number of points from among these categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, innovation in design, and regional priority (i.e., localism). Brooklyn Bowl partners Peter Shapiro and Charley Ryan snagged their certification after three years' of planning and construction with the help of Pete Atkin, a senior associate at GreenOrder, the sustainability-strategy and managing consulting firm co-founded by HeadCount board member Peter Shapiro and his brother, Andrew.

The Brooklyn Bowl project was even an anomaly for GreenOrder, which in general works with corporate clients. Likewise, Marie Coleman of the USGBC hasn't quite seen its likes before. "I am aware of a nightclub in New York called Greenhouse that is going for certification," she says. "But it hasn't been certified, and it’s not really the same as Brooklyn Bowl."

A finely tuned, way Uptown version of New Orleans' legendary Rock n' Bowl, Brooklyn Bowl is in a category unto itself when it comes to music venues. Galactic, the Disco Biscuits, Chromeo, the Roots, Bob Weir's Scare the Children, LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, Toots and the Maytals, and Karl Denson's Tiny Universe have all played the club since its July opening. To everyone's surprise and delight, you cannot hear the proverbial pin drop from the bowling lanes – although bowlers often use the lanes as $50/hour luxury boxes for eight during shows.

Shapiro and Ryan's business relationship goes back to 1990s Manhattan and Wetlands – the dank, pulsing epicenter of the East Coast's jamcentric "granola circuit" – which Shapiro owned and Ryan operated. The Brooklyn Bowl concept came about during a couple of Wetlands-staff Christmas parties. "We took them to some bowling alleys that will go nameless," Ryan says, "and honestly, we just had this feeling that we could do everything about it better."

Wetlands closed in late 2001. After a long search, the pair discovered their fantasy building near Williamsburg, Brooklyn's waterfront in September 2006 and immediately started finessing the design, although they didn't sign a lease until June 2007. "I remember meeting with them at the space in the early days," recalls Atkin, who's worked at Green Order for four years. "It was literally an empty shell of this old abandoned foundry building. It was hard to imagine what it was going to look like at that point, but they had a pretty clear vision."

Shapiro and Ryan wanted Brooklyn Bowl to be green from the get-go. LEED certification, however, is a far more rigorous process than merely supplying biodegradeable toilet paper and recycling beer bottles. "It was a major consideration," Ryan says, "because by its very nature there a lot of bureaucracy, it's time consuming, you need consultants to help you through the entire project, and it costs a lot in every way – in energy, in hassle, and in money." LEED certification is all about documentation. So while the Brooklyn Bowl used reclaimed wood throughout the structure, they didn't score points due to the difficulty of documenting its original provenance.

"The biggest benefit of LEED certification," Atkin says, "is that it holds your project team accountable."

Some LEED points were easier to score than others. Being in New York, the venue automatically makes a smaller footprint by serving a high-density community with access to a mass-transit system (and provides bike racks). They went 40% beyond the standard baseline by installing highly efficient sinks, toilets, urinals, and showers. Shapiro and Ryan ended up rejecting many of their architects suggestions and instead struck out on their own in search of the latest and environmentally friendliest equipment.

"Our architect came up with a big HVAC [heating, ventilating, and air conditioning] design and we said, 'No, we don’t want to put up this huge thing on the roof.' So we, especially I, went back to 'school' to learn about CO2 sensors, variable-frequency drive motors, airside economizers, nonvillainous gases, and all that kind of stuff. We came up with a system less than half the size of his system that uses a lot less energy. It's augmented by four ten-foot Big Ass fans (the company's actual name) that circulate air throughout the place. I’m really happy we went through the trouble to figure that out."

The team also put a lot of effort into areas so unique to the venue they fall outside of LEED's system, such as LED stage lights that use 90% less energy than traditional versions. Likewise, the bowling alley's pin machines draw 75% less energy than most others. "It’s fundamentally different equipment," says Ryan. "It's made by QubicaAMF, one of the big manufacturers, but they hardly sell any of them because they're not what everybody expects. They're nearly maintenance free and don't take up as much space as usual. It's bowling's wave of the future." You could say the same about the big-ass video screens at the end of each lane that display Monday-night football to the accompaniment of DJ Logic each week.

A new business with a vintage vibe, Brooklyn Bowl is in large part a product of the past. Antique glass panels serve as dividers, bars are faced with centuries-old reclaimed wood, the stage floor was constructed entirely from recycled truck tires, and the bowlers lounge consists of reclaimed cork flooring. Most of the new wood, meanwhile, was sourced (and certifed) by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Basically," Ryan says, "almost everything in this place was bought from or crafted by local people." The Bowl has already gotten a lot of press from the fact that it uses only Brooklyn beers, but Ryan concedes that may not always be the case. "It's simply not necessary to truck beer across the country or float it across the ocean."

Ryan's a realist; no commercial facility can erase its footprint entirely. But Brooklyn Bowl probably comes closer than any other music venue of its size. It's also an educational experience. Musicians will receive information on how they can reduce their environmental impact as they travel around the country spreading the word, one hopes, about this environmentally friendly pleasure palace. The old-fashioned future of entertainment has certifiably arrived.

HeadCount is all about kick-ass grassroots democracy, so we're delighted to report two legislative victories pushed through by Farm Sanctuary, the nonprofit founded in 1986 to combat the abuses of factory farming.

This month California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill banning dairy-cow tail docking, thereby terminating this painful and unnecessary practice (Learn why tail docking messes up cows so badly here.) Meanwhile, Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm signed a bill phasing out the cruel close confinement of farm animals. It would ban veal crates for calves within three years and then battery cages for laying hens and gestation crates for breeding sows within ten. Michigan is the seventh state to ban gestation crates, the fifth to ban veal crates, and the second to ban hen battery cages.

Farm Sanctuary founder Gene Baur notes, "Cutting off cows’ tails and confining animals so tightly that they cannot even turn around or stretch their limbs is cruel and outside the bounds of acceptable conduct. We are now seeing growing momentum in our collective efforts to end the most egregious abuses of farm animals in this country."

Farm Sanctuary will celebrate these animal-rights victories at Frankapalooza: Rockin' Out for Farm Animals II, an NYC benefit concert this Thursday, October 29, at Kenny's Castaways. Stop by to meet Gene Baur...and say hello to me! I'm playing an acoustic set at 7, followed by HERE at 7:30 and Athena Reich at 8.

Pianist-bandleader Bruce Hornsby is the only Grammy-winning pop musician to also serve as the Grateful Dead's utility keyboardist. Hornsby's last few albums testify to his relentless musical exploration and comfort-zone avoidance. In 2007 he released Camp Meeting with jazz drummer Jack Dejohnette and bassist Christian McBride. Last year he released Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby with the country/bluegrass star. And last month he released Levitate, an ambitious and thoroughly enjoyable rock album with his latest band, the Noisemakers, with whom he's touring.

We caught up with Hornsby by phone from Florida, where he was checking in on a pet project.

What's going on in Miami?

Bruce Hornsby: I was at my old school this week: the University of Miami, "Suntan U." I started the Bruce Hornsby Creative American Music Program there a couple of years ago. You can now go into the halls of academia and study Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, Jimmy Rogers, Gilman Rowe, Stephen Foster, and the folk music that influenced and informed American songwriting. It’s basically a songwriters program. I just gave them a big endowment and said, "Here’s what I want to do." They were really excited about the idea, which broadens their range of offerings like crazy. I thought there was a big hole in college music curriculums, so I thought I’d try to fill it in at least my school.

What other nonprofit organizations do you support? Are you on any boards?

Hornsby: I’ve been on the National Fair Housing Alliance board for several years. I’ve been involved on a giving level with the Southern Poverty Law Center for more than twenty-five years. I’ve been involved with the Innocence Project. I actually tried to help the Project plead cases to governors who owed me favors because I played benefits and raised money for them. Yes, I have played the grim, tainted political-fundraising game.

I understand that some of the songs on Levitate are part of a musical you’re working on?

Hornsby: Eight out of the twelve songs are from the musical. That’s not quite accurate, though, because the musical people liked a couple of the songs so much they decided to try to shoehorn them into the musical. "The Black Rats of London" was written for the record, not the musical, but now it’s in the musical so it’s included in those eight songs. "Prairie Dog Town," "Cyclones," "Space Is the Place," and "Levitate" aren't part of it.

What's the musical called?

Hornsby: SCKBSTD, all capital letters.

It sounds like a vaguely obscene license plate

Hornsby: That's astute of you because the poster for the play is that title on a Virginia license plate. I don’t have great expectations. The streets are littered with fantastic songwriters who have stiffed on Broadway. But I like where this has led me on a songwriting level, both musically and lyrically. It's freed me to write more dissonant and chromatic twentieth- and twenty-first-century harmonies as I did in songs like "Paperboy" and "Michael Raphael." So I'm headed in a more dissonant and chromatic direction, much to the chagrin of the part of my audience that's unadventurous.

What's SCKBSTD about?

Hornsby: That’s top secret, under wraps.

Some of the songs on Levitate have a political bent, others not so much. What sort of balance were you going for?

Hornsby: "Black Rats of London is certainly political, in a semifrivolous sense. We're poking holes in the exaltation of American history, the isn't-our-country-so-great mindset, which isn't necessarily American in its origin.

"Cyclone," on the other hand, is a very personal song. How did you end up writing it with Robert Hunter?

Hornsby: I’ve always loved Hunter’s lyrics and it’s always sort of been in the air that he was open to the idea of writing with me. So I got in touch with him and said, "Hey, how about it?" And he said, "Please send me a track." Maybe that’s how he likes to work; he likes to work with a track. So I sent him this track that to me had a classic Hunter-Garcia feeling. I sort of scatted the melody I heard over the track and sent it to him, and two weeks later he sent me back these finished lyrics that speak very clearly to the melody I had sung over the track. So it was a very simple process.

You don't take any solos on Levitate. Was it hard to restrain yourself?

Hornsby: No, not at all. I had no real interest. Frankly, soloing would’ve felt stuck on. Like an afterthought. Like, "Oh, I'd better do this because that’s what people expect."

Do you consider yourself a politically engaged musician?

Hornsby: As I get older, to be honest, I get more disillusioned with how nasty and political politics has become. It seems that American culture – both popular culture and the whole American discourse – has become coarsened and just nasty. So it’s hard to not become disillusioned with the whole tone of the debate, whatever it is. I hate to say that. I am of course hopeful about the Obama administration. But I wish he'd take tougher stances in some cases and not be such a middle-of-the-roader. I'm a fan but hope he'll become tougher. Read more »

Pearl Jam, R.E.M., and the Roots are among a coalition of musical headliners pressing the government to find out if their music was used to coerce or punish prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to published news reports.

"The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me," said Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello in a statement, according to The Washington Post. "We need to end torture and close Guantanamo now."

The artists have endorsed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests, filed Thursday morning, asking the U.S. government to disclose which songs were used on detainees at military detention centers.

The National Security Archive filed the request on behalf of the multimillion-dollar national grassroots campaign, Close Gitmo Now.

"We have spent the past 30 years supporting causes related to peace and justice. To now learn that some of our friends' music may have been used as part of the torture tactics without their consent or knowledge is horrific," the American rock band R.E.M. said in a statement posted on Close Gitmo Now's website. "It's anti-American, period."

Click here for a list of bands and songs allegedly used on U.S. military suspects.

There's an old bumper sticker that says, "Who are the Grateful Dead and why do they keep following me?"  Someone should stick one on the presidential motorcade, because it seems that Barack Obama and Bob Weir are constantly under the same roof.

Bob has visited the White House twice this year, played the inauguration, and -- on Tuesday -- he played a RatDog show literally on top of the President.

This time, it was pure coincidence.  Bobby and RatDog were playing the second of two shows at New York's Grand Ballroom, a gorgeous 1,200 person venue that sits seven floors above the ground and right on top of the better know Hammerstein Ballroom.  It so happened that the Democratic National Committee rented out the Hammerstein on the same night for a fundraiser at which the Prez gave another impassioned speech about health care reform.

Imagine the look on the face of each head when they showed up and saw literally the most thorough concert security ever deployed at a RatDog show.   Snipers on the roof, metal detectors at the doors and the actual secret service making everyone empty their pockets on the way in.  I heard that a few fans were passing around a joint on the ticket holders' line and an NYPD officer--probably showing off for the higher authorities--slapped cuffs on one poor guy and sent him to central booking.

This night also happened to be when HeadCount was hosting a private pre-show party for some of our friends and supporters.  We do these from time to time and it has become one of the more enjoyable aspects of the otherwise not-so-fun task called "fundraising".  We've met a great group of people over the years who enjoy the Dead, like to get styled out, believe in what we're going and have the means to help us keep doing it.

So we hosted a group of 60 of these new friends in a back room before the show, serving up an open bar, autographed photos of Bob and a nice dose of socializing with like-minded people.  A good time was had by all, but probably no one had a night quite like Barclay Shaw, a visual artist from Cape Cod, MA.  He drove down with a vintage Guild Starfire III, the same make and model that Jerry Garcia played during the early years of the Grateful Dead.  Barclay came with the intention of having Bob sign the guitar, which Bob did.  But Bob did more than sign it--he took one look at it and decided to play it, on stage, that night.  Sure enough, during "Walkin' Blues" in the first set, Weir strapped on the old axe and took it for a ride.  Backstage after the show, he told Barclay that he also briefly played a Guild Starfire III, more than 40 years ago, at the Dead's first-ever New York City shows.  The neck on his Gibson was broken in half by airline baggage handlers on the way to the East Coast, and he used one of Jerry's spares.

October 20th, 2009 will go down as another memorable night for HeadCount (it was also the 25th anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah, which really has no relevance to this story).  We wish to thank everyone--Bob, his management, the folks at the Grand Ballroom and Bowery Presents, and most of all our guests and benefactors.  The Democratic Party raised tons of cash downstairs.  But we had the best party in the house.

To hear Bob Weir & RatDog play "Walkin' Blues" on the Guild Starfire III, visit Archives.org.

Photo credit: Allison Murphy