Many of us at Progressive Wednesday are incredibly busy as Election Day gets nearer and nearer. While we don’t write directly about politicians on this site, we actually spend a lot of time working for politicians, political movements, ballot referendum and proposition drives, etc. Multiple PW-ers actually get paid to do this work; others do it out of altruism. So, between now and November 2, we’ll be posting sporadically during the week, but have no fear, we will be posting every Wednesday. Once the ballots have been cast, we’ll all be all yours.

Yours,

Matt & Eric

Corporate rock and radio dominate, and “the top four radio station owners have almost half of the listeners and the top ten owners have almost two-thirds of listeners.” Only twenty percent of U.S. public school students receive music education at least three times a week. Digital theft of songs is so commonplace we (us included) hardly notice it, rarely thinking of it as wrong. Progressive musicians are the exception, not the rule, and get ignored by the masses like they’re street-corner apocalyptic apologists. It’s time for change, daddy-o. As Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs wisely sing in “Wooly Bully,” let’s not be L7. Seriously, who are we to argue with Sam the Sham?

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Make Progress:

During the summer of ’99, I was asked to describe my one of my oddest and most interesting friends by a different group of friends, friends with whom I was about to form, what the kids call, a “rock and roll” band.

“So, my buddy John,” I whiskey-slurred, “he’s on some sort of kick where gets a new cartoon character tattoo every year, and he’s an accountant, and he works out all the damned time, you know, he’s totally Jack Diesel, man. It’s sick. No steroids, either. Au naturale.”

“Dude, that’s the name,” said Dave, our future lead singer and rhythm ax-slinger, exhaling a blooming puff of cigar smoke.

“Au naturale?” I asked, a bit stunned.

“No. Jack Diesel. That’s us.”

And it was. We played our tunes loud, loud, loud and sloppy as teens kiss, and we gigged and gigged and played on TV and at Baldwin-Wallace College and rocked with Sony-signed Howlin’ Maggie and made $290 bucks our first night, an amount never to be topped, because, my friends, we sucked. But we had a lot of damned fun. And for me, that’s all music’s ever been. And since my days in hard-rock Diesel, I’ve played the drums for (in order) the bands Nasty Aunt Francis, The Flood Plain, Lower Lights Burning, Furlough, and Cropchecker. And I’ve recorded albums. And I’ve played in front of thousands, at one time even. And I even got to play a gig with this delightfully insane outfit. But since fourth grade when I started playing, drumming was always a hobby, the greatest hobby I can imagine.

And during 2002, our very own photo editor James Robinson and I followed the band Wilco around the Midwest, catching nine shows in three months, until I finally met Jeff Tweedy, the lead singer. (I think it’s only a coincidence that he checked into rehab about a week later.)

And I love music, more than just about anything material of this world. And so I want to protect it. And so I want it to be shared with folks of all ages. And I think it can be an impetus for progress and can be progress itself. And so, here goes…

• Go and Give, Part I
• Buy
• Give, Part II

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Go and Give, Part I

We’re going to start things off with an interview with our very own Alyson Greenfield, who’s launching a music festival that’s going down this Sunday at SOUTHPAW in Brooklyn, New York. First a little about the festival…. In their own words:

TINDERBOX Music Festival aims to create more space for women musicians by bringing together and promoting established and emerging female artists. Rooted in the vibrant New York City music scene, TINDERBOX fosters community by providing opportunities to perform, collaborate, and connect. TINDERBOX donates 100% of net proceeds to organizations involved in giving rise to the next generation of women’s voices such as Girls Write Now and The Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls.

If you’re in the tri-state area, then please do check this event out (click this sentence to snag tickets). It won’t disappoint. If you can’t, but still want to support the event (they could use some seed money for next year since all net proceeds are going to charities), then click this sentence to learn how to donate.

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Progressive Wednesday: How did you get the idea to start your own music festival? It seems like a bold thing to do, one which I applaud, but bold nonetheless, gutsy.

Alyson Greenfield: I had a blog called “Dear Lilith Fair 2010″ that was dedicated to trying to get a spot on the returning Lilith Fair tour.  That didn’t happen, but I got a lot of response from other women musicians telling me they really liked my blog and they would also like to play Lilith Fair too, but they knew they weren’t going to be able to.  Even though I thought it was great that Lilith Fair was returning, it seemed like even more space was needed to showcase awesome women musicians (especially emerging artists), so I decided to try and provide that space.

PW: How did you land such a fantastic line-up of musicians?

AG: We approached the headliners and were lucky that since they were in line with our mission they reduced their guarantee rates.  For the rest of the lineup we opened submissions to any female artist or female-fronted band.  We got about 50 submissions and had room for 19 artists (including the headliners we had already approached).  We were really lucky with the submissions we received and the headliners that agreed to play.  We wanted a diverse line up of strong, interesting musicians, and with our headliners and submitting artists who were selected to play I think we achieved our goal in that respect.

PW: How did you choose the organizations that would receive the proceeds from the festival? Did you already have a connection to them?

AG: I work with Girls Write Now and have seen first hand the absolutely amazing work they do. They truly empower young women, help them to find their own voices, and give them guidance, knowledge, information, and support about how to communicate what they want in the world through writing. Even though I have not worked first hand with Willie Mae Rock Camp, I know people who have and I know young women have amazing, empowering experiences there.  Plus I figured a lot of the girls who were playing Willie Mae might one day want to play Tinderbox, so it seemed like it could encourage a full circle type of relationship.  I really wanted to build and increase community with this event.  I want the community who supports the musicians to learn what these organizations are doing for young women, and conversely I want the people who support these organizations to find out about the exciting female musicians who support this kind of work too.

PW: What have been the hardest parts of putting this event together?

AG: Probably the fact that it is my first time doing such a large scale event and there are more details involved than I could have ever known at the outset.  But since this is my first time doing something like this, it has also really exciting.  Everything I’m learning is new and even though sometimes things are difficult or not as I expected, I really appreciate the process.  I am learning so much as I go along and am lucky to have people in many areas who I can come to with questions, who are willing to give me advice and encourage me as I move along.  Another difficult thing is sometimes balancing the rest of my life with the demands of running an event like this, but I’m learning!

PW: What have been the most rewarding aspects of putting this event together?

AG: Seeing the ideas that started out in my head really take shape, building a community, bringing other communities together, and especially seeing how excited people are about the event.  I had no idea how much it would mean to so many people!

PW: In what ways do you see this festival as an act of progressivism?

AG: The most progressive thing about it to me is showing that you don’t have to wait for someone to decide you can do something or put you on a big tour.  You can make things happen for yourself and for others all while building an internal community, and also giving back to a local community to see change right in front of you.  I feel like I’m helping to prove that you don’t have to be a famous musician, have a business degree, high level connections, or money to make things really happen.  You CAN believe in yourself and your community (and the community you don’t know yet but believe will come into place) and make things happen, which is very empowering.  I hope an event like this will encourage others who have big ideas but are not sure they have the means to make them happen, that it is possible!

Photo of Alyson Greenfield taken by Mikhael Agafonov.

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Buy:

One of the best ways to support music is to (drumroll please…) pay for it. So, we urge you to lay down a little dinero in the name of the artists you love. Here’s how…

• Tickets:

Okay, take a break from the Internet: stop looking at this computer screen and go see a rock, jazz, punk, country, or folk show at a bar or pub or coffee shop. Or go listen to your nearest city’s philharmonic orchestra. Or go witness the beauty of children or teens learning to make music at a school performance (just check the weekend section of your local paper or call up the schools). If you do one of these things before the next Wednesday, we’re convinced you’ll get hooked. We’d dig hearing brief reviews of what you saw. We’ll publish some with your permission.

If you buy tickets for a rock show at a larger venue, see if the band or artist sells tickets through a different agency than the all-but-monopoly that is Ticket Master, such as Music Today or Front Gate Tickets or right from the venue, which likely will save you some of the service fees.

• Albums:

We recommend taking advantage of CDBaby.com or CDUniverse.com. In a nutshell (we like pistachios), CD Baby is an independent company selling independent music, and CD Universe is an independent company selling more mainstream music. Might we suggest, Loose Fur’s Born Again in the USA, Ani DiFranco’s Living in Clip, or our very own Alyson Greenfield’s Tuscaloosa, which is, in all honesty, one of my favorite albums — trust me when I say that it’s stunning..

Buying albums helps support the work of musicians, whose creativity should be rewarded. We think that the folks, the ones who make your daily commutes tolerable or your sex mix-tapes sexy, deserve some cash-money.

Better yet, find a small music store near you. That extra buck or two you pay helps someone keep a roof over their head.

• Songs:

As in, don’t just buy single songs off iTunes. iTunes might be good for independent musicians, but the quality of the sound files, to put it politely as we can, sucks. To quote an excellent piece by Thom Hogan:

iTunes AAC files don’t sound as good as CDs. AAC is a “lossy” compression format: it shrinks the sound file by throwing away subtle nuance and texture that a computer program thinks you won’t be able to hear. The thing is, you can hear it. You might not notice listening to your iPod…but if you … listen to your new iTunes album on a real stereo, it won’t have the same nuance, punch, and presence that a CD has.

• Cut Loose:

Okay, this one’s gonna be tough, but this is a biggie: lose the peer-to-peer file-sharing of MP3s. Here’s what we’re asking: delete the software that you use. If you don’t, it’ll be like keeping a carton of Marlboros in your closet while you’re trying to kick the habit. File-sharing might actually help independent artists gain notoriety and increase attendance at shows, but it doesn’t seem fair to us to rampantly transmit music that the band doesn’t want transmitted for free. And file-sharing can hurt small businesses.

Many bands seem to offer free MP3s or video from their pages. Maybe try those. Or check out 3hive, a great resource for free MP3 from indie bands. If nothing else, maybe cut back to one pack a day.

(Note: we’re not suggesting an end to making CDs to give to your friends. When our pals give us CDs, we’ve noticed that we either don’t listen to the songs we don’t dig, or we buy albums by the artists we do. Odds are you do the same.)

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Give, Part II:

It’s difficult to know where to even start explaining how important music education is for children and teens. A good place to start might be the National Education Association. But allow us to elucidate a bit for you with some specifics from solid authorities:

1. Music education improves math skills and increase IQs.
2. Music education makes your brain larger.
3. Music education reduces the use of booze, tobacco, and illegal drugs.
4. Music education keeps kids in school.
5. Music education boosts self-esteem.
6. Music education actually heals.

What’s the upshot of all this? Not only does music education help children and teens directly, music education helps the culture as a whole, by producing a more intelligent, thoughtful, confident, and healthy populace. Plus, I’m always waiting for the next great rock band, and that ain’t gonna happen without music education.

For a great example of the power of music in the lives and children and the beauty they can create, check out The Langley Schools Music Project. From the website, you can listen to clips of recordings of rock and pop songs made twenty years ago by children from rural Canada as taught to them by Hans Fenger. We both own this album and completely adore these delightful tunes recorded in a wonderfully simplistic way.

But its not just parents, scientists, nonprofits, teachers, and us touting the importance of music to children and teens. According to federal law, arts education (which includes music) is considered a “core academic subject.” To clarify, the feds have said that core academic subjects also include “English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, history, and geography.” You can read it in the No Child Left Behind Act for yourself. (That’s Title IX, Part A, Sec. 9101 (11).)

So we’re rather humbly asking that you make a small donation to one of these three organizations (in alphabetical order):

1. Little Kids Rock
2. Music Friends
3. VH 1′s Save the Music Foundation

What do we mean by small? Well, we make $5-$25 donations to each organization we recommend as a charity needing additional support. We’re telling you this, not to seem holy, but rather to emphasize two things: 1. We try our best to practice what we suggest; 2. Every single dollar helps. So please, help.

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Please note: here are our notes….

1. “Music and Mathematics: Modest Support for the Oft-Claimed Relationship,” Journal of Aesthetic Education, Fall 2000, 34 (3-4):149-166
2. Catterall, James S., Richard Chapleau, and John Iwanaga. “Involvement in the Arts and Human Development: General Involvement and Intensive Involvement in Music and Theater Arts.– Los Angeles, CA: The Imagination Project atUCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, 1999.
3. Shaw, Rauscher, Levine, Wright, Dennis and Newcomb, “Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial-temporal reasoning,” Neurological Research, Vol. 19, February 1997
4. Graziano, Amy, Matthew Peterson, and Gordon Shaw, “Enhanced learning of proportional math through music training and spatial-temporal training.” Neurological Research 21 (March 1999).
5. Schellenberg, E.G. (2004). Music lessons enhance IQ. Psychological Science, 15, 511-514.
6. Rauscher, F.H., Shaw, G.L., Levine, L.J., Wright, E.L., Dennis, W.R., and Newcomb, R. (1997) Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial temporal reasoning. Neurological Research, 19, 1-8.
7. Schlaug, G., Jancke, L., Huang, Y., and Steinmetz, H. (1994). In vivo morphometry of interhem ispheric assymetry and connectivity in musicians. In I. Deliege (Ed.), Proceedings of the 3d international conference for music perception and cognition (pp. 417-418). Liege, Belgium.
8. “Texas Commission on Drug and Alcohol Abuse Report.” Reported in Houston Chronicle, January 1998
9. “The Role of the Fine and Performing Arts in High School Dropout Prevention,” N. Barry, J. Taylor, & K. Walls, Center for Music Research, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, 1990
10. “The Effects of Musical Performance, Rational Emotive Therapy and Vicarious Experience on the Self-Efficacy and Self-Esteem of Juvenile Delinquents and Disadvantaged Children,” Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Music and Dance, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 1998
11. National Arts Education Research Center, New York University, 1990.
12. Michael E. DeBakey, M.D., Leading Heart Surgeon, Baylor College of Music.
13. Dr. Frederick Tims, reported in AMC Music News, June 2, 1999.

Just wanted to apologize for being MIA of late. We’re going to be back tomorrow for sure. We’re just putting the final touches on the Wednesday.

We’ve both been under the weather and we’ve been revamping some stuff on the site behind-the-scenes. All is almost done, and we’ll be ready to progressively rock tomorrow.

Yours,

Matt & Eric

We are taking a respite, a pause for relaxation. You should, too. Have one of the beers you read about this Wednesday. Can’t find one of those brews near you? Shoot us a line through our Contact page, and we’ll point you in even more progressive directions.

Got news, tips, ideas, photos, suggestions, etc.? Shoot us a line by clicking this sentence.

In the meantime, enjoy this photo of our beautiful world.

Yours,

Matt & Eric

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Starting on January 5, 2011,  customers will face a one dollar surcharge for any transaction involving plastic bags. This will be the case mainly at convenience stores and groceries. Places like cleaners, drug stores, and small hardware stores will not be included in the additional fee.

In Washington, D.C., the surcharge per bag is five centers. Makes the Brownsville law sound harsh? The results in D.C. are impressive. This meager nickel charge reduced the number of plastic bags used by about 50 percent. Imagine what a buck will do.

There’s an even larger upside to Brownsville’s new law: money raised from the surcharges will go to the city for clean up and environmental projects.

Now here’s the part we adore: Brownsville is actually going to start giving away free reusable bags to residents at area grocery stores.

To read more about the Brownsville law, click this sentence. To read more about the D.C. law, click this sentence.

Photo clicked by this fine photographer.