Meet the MUSICAL GUESTS
Ziggy Marley
Ziggy Marley has given his backing to environmental campaign groups like Extinction Rebellion, a socio-political movement to protest against climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and the risk of social and ecological collapse.
The reggae singer says politicians and businesses are not listening to the public’s concerns about climate change and pollution.
Marley’s latest album, 2018’s Rebellion Rising, features songs with titles such as The Storm is Coming and World Revolution.
Recently, the singer asked his tour management to replace disposable water bottles with reusable ones, after hearing about the damage caused to sea life by plastic waste.
Donovan and Linda
Donovan Phillips Leitch, known mononymously as Donovan, is a Irish/Scottish musician, songwriter, and record producer. He developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelic rock and world music. Donovan has been a lifelong environmental and peace activist and recently recorded an album called eco-song which was a tribute to Greta Thunberg.
Xavier Rudd
Xavier Rudd is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Australia. From To Let, his debut album in 2002, he combined a deep love for the environment, humanity, and surfing with an obsession for blues and international roots music from Africa, the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, and the tropics. He often performs solo, surrounded by three didgeridoos in front, a guitar on his lap, a stomp box under his bare feet, and an assortment of drums, percussion instruments, banjos, harmonicas, bells, and a bass all rest nearby. He released Solace, a studio offering, in 2004. Between 2005's Food in the Belly and 2010's Koonyum Sun, his albums appeared on the North American Anti- label. He employed electronic textures and backdrops on 2012's Spirit Bird. 2015's Nanna was performed by his international nonet the United Nations, and mixed by legendary reggae engineer Errol Brown; 2017's Storm Boy for Nettwerk, marked a return to his folk-roots sound. In 2022, he issued the double-length Jan Juc Moon for Salt X/Virgin.
Starling Arrow
Starling Arrow is an all-star cast of spirit-folk songstresses featuring Leah Song and Chloe Smith of Rising Appalachia, Tina Malia, Ayla Nereo, and Marya Stark. The members of the female-fronted super-group Starling Arrow share a common devotion for the love of songwriting, which they elegantly captured in their debut album, Cradle, coming out in January 2023. These artists are brought together by a deep mutual love of beauty, the power of music as a sanctuary, and the deep joy of encountering the muse. Powerhouse songwriters in their own right, and innovative leaders within the industry, this joining is a potent gift of synergy.
The String Cheese Incident
The String Cheese Incident (SCI) is an American jam band from Crested Butte and Telluride, Colorado, formed in 1993. The band is composed of Michael Kang (acoustic/electric mandolin, electric guitar, and violin), Michael Travis (drums and percussion), Bill Nershi (acoustic guitar, lap steel guitar, and electric slide guitar), Kyle Hollingsworth (piano, organ, Rhodes, and accordion), and Keith Moseley (bass guitar), and, since 2004, Jason Hann (auxiliary percussion).
Their music has elements of bluegrass sounds, as well as rock, electronica, calypso, country, funk, jazz, Latin, progressive rock, reggae, and psychedelia. All members write original compositions and sing.
Heilung
Heilung is an experimental folk music band made up of members from Denmark, Norway, and Germany. Their music is based on texts and runic inscriptions from Germanic peoples of the Iron Age, and Viking Age. Heilung describe their music as "amplified history from early medieval northern Europe"
For Earth Day Heilung will share a message on “the green rider”, a friendly nudge towards musical artists shifting towards sustainability in all aspects of touring.
STS9
Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9) is an instrumental band whose sound is based heavily on instrumental rock and electronic music, funk, jazz, drum and bass, psychedelia, and hip hop, originating in Georgia, United States. Self-described as "post-rock dance music," the band mixes standard live rock instrumentation with electronics, favoring group rhythm over individual solos.
Beginning in the fall of 2006, as part of their Live as Time Changes tour, STS9 traveled across the country in a carbon neutral tour bus and powered their live concerts using renewable energy. The band aimed to offset 100%, or about 138,000 pounds, of their carbon dioxide emissions from their tour by donations of Renewable Energy Credits from their partnership with environment-friendly companies
East Forest
East Forest has a natural talent for creating soundscapes that speak to the heart. Lush and emotional, they are designed to engender deep spiritual experiences. But it would be a mistake to think of East Forest as just a musical project.
“There is a glue that unifies everything I do,” says the producer, teacher, and multidisciplinary artist. “My podcast, talks, retreats, writings, events, and the music I make are all about inviting introspection. It’s a form of trusting an individual’s inherent wisdom as they dive into their inner world and learn to make their own decisions. And for myself, this project has allowed me to stay sane. I want to share the experiences, tools and sounds that I have learned for other people to get closer to their own essence.”
This is exactly what East Forest has been doing since he began to experiment with music and the combination of meditation, technology, and psychotropic substances as a pathway for spiritual growth. “I’m really interested in forging a modern pathway that can act as an antidote to living in our hyper-speed world — to bridge the tools of our past with our rapidly advancing future.”
Brother
Chances are you’ve seen BROTHER on NBC’s ‘ER’, maybe heard their music on the classic ‘Baraka’ soundtrack or UPN’s ‘ Twilight Zone.’ The band has shared stages with Joe Walsh, John Entwhistle, Linkin Park, and Alicia Keys and are the only independent band to have played the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Fusing signature vocals and guitar with the deep pulse of the didgeridoo, the soaring highs of the bagpipes, and tribal percussion, BROTHER is wholly original. The band’s powerhouse live performances are an energetic celebration, captivating and engaging the audience from the first song to the last.
Simrit
SIMRIT is creating waves with packed theaters and concert halls, chart-topping albums, and raving fans… all powering a palpable musical movement. Transcending genres, the SIMRIT experience centers around lead singer – songwriter, Simrit Kaur, who is of Greek and Egyptian origin.
Born in Athens, Greece, adopted by Greek-Americans into South Carolina as a toddler, she comes from a long line of Greek matriarchal singers that span from her birth mother to her great grandmother, Tula Demetriou, who was a famous Greek singer and actress. At only 16 years old, Simrit’s birth mother was forced by her family to give Simrit for adoption. Over time, growing up steeped in the rich musical traditions of many cultures… Simrit’s own musical sensibilities emerged from a multiplicity of diverse influences starting with the dark, heavy, and mystical chanting of the Greek Orthodox church choir, in which she sang starting at age five. During this same time period, Simrit began studying piano (where her piano teacher simultaneously instructed her in snare drum). Later, she studied West African drumming, and toured with the Odunde Drumming Company during her education at College of Charleston in South Carolina.
Roots Reggae, R&B, The Grateful Dead, Motown, Led Zeppelin, among many others including traditional Greek music, proved deeply influential as Simrit emerged her unique sound. Her studies in traditional Greek dance from grade school through the end of high school…proved to be just as influential, as Simrit studied and danced a variety of different time signatures and rhythms that the traditional Greek dances were performed in, while also learning to sing those songs.
Decades of study and experimentation with Kundalini yoga deepened Simrit’s relationship to the quantum technology of Naad Yoga - the ancient science of using sound to impact the brain’s neural pathways and chemicals, eliciting altered states of reality, the effects of which also influence her music. Simrit is known for her voice reverberating a sound that is simultaneously ancient and fresh and deeply healing.
https://simritkaurmusic.com/
https://www.instagram.com/simritkaur/?hl=en
https://www.facebook.com/simritmusic/
Marya Stark
Marya Stark is a vocalist, composer, performer, and multi-instrumentalist. She is a discoverer of archetypes, storyteller, bard, and muse.
As a multi-media enchantress, she creates the way she breathes; without choice or hesitation. She is a carrier of myth, mystery, and medicine songs with which she embarks to create a ceremony of the human experience, taking her audience on lucid journey's through the caverns of the soul.
Casey Neill
The music of Casey Neill & The Norway Rats combines high energy rock rave-ups and haunting lush acoustic reveries built around melodic narrative songwriting. The Norway Rats are a collective of Portland indie all star players whose credits include The Decemberists, Eels, Viva Voce and more. Neill has been touring with the band and solo throughout the USA, Japan, and Europe for more than a decade, performing his songs at venues such as Town Hall in New York, San Francisco's Great American Music Hall, and the Newport Folk Festival. Neill was also infamously beloved as an artist in the underground music community of the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s, releasing two early cassette releases and then his first CD, Rifraff, in 1995. Two songs from that album, Rifraff and Dancing on The Ruins of Multinational Corporations, became the de facto soundtracks for many Earth First! and other logging protests during the 1990s, a time of growing tension between environmentalists and the logging communities of the Pacific Northwest. Dancing on the Ruins of Multinational Corporations is still sung by protest communities around the world.