Summer Camp on Memorial Day Weekend

For the second straight summer, RtE has sent a road crew out set up tables and booths at concerts and festivals across the country. Our main goals are to educate music lovers about our organization and the projects we are working on, to sign up new members, and to continue to network with artists and other professionals within the music industry.

We began our summer tour at Summer Camp in Chillicothe, IL, a Memorial Day holiday weekend festival hosted by the band moe.. The weekend featured three nights of music by moe., as well as energetic sets by such artists as Spearhead, Keller Williams, Umphrey's McGee, New Monsoon, Victor Wooten, Donna the Buffalo, and the Hot Buttered Rum String Band. Simultaneously, on the east coast, RtE also staffed a booth at the annual Strange Creek Festival in Massachusetts, featuring the music of Max Creek, Percy Hill, the Assembly of Dust, Brothers Past and the Zen Tricksters.

RtE at Appalachian Uprising

After Summer Camp, our road crew headed to the 4th Annual Appalachian Uprising, held at the Eden Valley Farm in Scottown, Ohio. Thanks to the continued effort by festival maestro Bob DeLong, this bluegrass-oriented festival continues to get bigger and draw better talent every year. This year's version featured Old School Freight Train, Shanti Groove, Hot Buttered Rum String Band, Yonder Mountain String Band, Sam Bush Band, John Cowan Band and Curtis Burch.

From Ohio, we reached into new territory by tabling the first of a series of shows by the outstanding band, Gov't Mule. Fronted by veteran guitarist Warren Haynes (Allman Brothers Band, the Dead, Phil Lesh & Friends), our RtE staff was pleasantly surprised as we broke the single show record for signing up new members. We are very excited about working additional shows with Gov't Mule in Chicago starting next week at the Navy Pier.

Last week, it was the largest festival in the country (Bonnaroo), at which we held successful meet and greet sessions with Ozomatli, Signal Path and ALO. (See photo below.)

With the sudden cancellation of the Zooma tour, we're still working out the rest of our summer, but rest assured you will find RtE Staff and Volunteers at festivals and concerts throughout the country all summer long, including the Big Summer Classic tour with String Cheese Incident, Keller Williams, Yonder Mountain String Band, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Umphrey's McGee, New Monsoon and Xavier Rudd. For our latest tour dates, visit our website regularly, and to follow our latest travels, please visit our on-line tour journal.

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Working Hard for Our Planet, One Show at a Time!

Rock the Earth is criss-crossing the country this summer to participate in a wide array of concerts and festivals, talking to musicians and music fans about the work we are doing to Defend the Planet One Beat at a Time! From the local Pickin' on the Poudre festival to the sensational Bonnaroo festival, our road crew and volunteers are working hard to excite and unify this passionate community.

Right now our touring crew is traveling throughout the east coast getting ready for Gov't Mule shows in Chicago, Cleveland, Atlantic City and Baltimore after working a string of festivals. One more festival on tap this month is the Clearwater Festival - Great Hudson River Revival, June 18-19 in Croton-on-Hudson, NY. This festival is a celebration of the Hudson River and is the oldest and largest festival of its kind. Started in the mid-1960's when the Hudson River's ecosystem was devastated by pollution, the folk festival became symbolic of the desire for a sustainable lifestyle. Today the festival continues to educate, inspire and advocate for the protection of the river. With headliners like the Indigo Girls, Assembly of Dust and a variety of blues, jazz and reggae, as well as socially and environmentally conscious vendors, this festival supports a vibrant river community as well as Clearwater, a non-profit environmental organization that produces the festival. Come out and say hi to our volunteers at this festival and support the health of this beautiful ecosystem!

Once again, we'll be at the High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, CA over July 4th weekend, the festival that kicked off our summer tour in 2004. This year the lineup includes Gov't Mule, Yonder Mountain String Band, Keller Williams and friends, ALO, Hot Buttered Rum String Band, New Monsoon, Tea Leaf Green and many, many more! Stop by our booth to say hi to our hard-working staff and volunteers, to talk about the issues we are working on and to sign up for membership!

We'll also be rockin' Red Rocks once again in Morrison, CO over the July 4th weekend with moe./Gov't Mule on July 1st, and the kick-off of the BIG Summer Classic with our friends The String Cheese Incident, New Monsoon, Keller Williams, Yonder Mountain String Band and more on July 2nd and 3rd! Look for us at BIG Summer Classic shows throughout the summer.

How do we do it all, you ask? Our dedicated staff and volunteers work amazingly hard to let the music community know how important it is to get active and involved in organizations and issues that help to protect our planet. Thanks so much to our Volunteer Staff and other volunteers nationwide who are helping to spread the word about RtE! Your contribution is critical to ensuring the health of our planet and sustainability of our natural resources. If you're interested in getting involved we sure would love your help! Just email us at Membership@RockTheEarth.net for information about shows near you, or other opportunities to help Rock the Earth!

Don't forget about your membership benefits! Your RtE membership not only helps you give back to the environment, but will also get you some great perks! Discounted tickets are still available for the 10,000 Lakes Music Festival in Detroit Lakes, MN, only $100 for a 4-day pass ($30 off the current ticket price), the All Good Music Festival in Masontown, WV for only $79 ($30 off the current ticket price) and just added - the Gathering of the Vibes in Mariaville, NY for only $75 ($20 off the current ticket price). There are more membership benefits to come, such as free e-music downloads, more great merchandise sales and so much more! To sign up for membership go to www.rocktheearth.org/get-involved/contribute.ws.

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Making your own Biodiesel
By William Odegard

As gas prices and people's dependence on petroleum continue to increase more and more, people are becoming interested in using biodiesel and vegetable oil as a fuel. Truth be told, the process of making your own biodiesel is easier then you may think. If you are interested in doing this, there is a good bit of technical information you should have, but don't be intimidated-- chemistry is just glorified cooking. I like to think of it as "molecular carpentry."

photo from www.greasel.com

A great place to start is by purchasing or borrowing the book From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank by Joshua Tickell (Joshua Tickell Publication, New Orleans, LA 2003, ISBN 0970722702). The book provides a comprehensive overview to using straight vegetable oil (SVO) and biodiesel as a fuel source, and can be an excellent reference for the biodiesel enthusiast. It describes how to use straight vegetable oil as a fuel, and what modifications must be made to any vehicle so that it can run using the SVO. Additional information on using SVO as a fuel can be found at www.greasel.com.

Another option is to turn the vegetable oil into biodiesel. This involves some chemistry and uses some rather nasty substances, but is not particularly difficult. From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank gives a complete description of how you can do this, and what equipment and supplies you will need. You can also find good information on making biodiesel at www.journeytoforever.org.

To give you some idea of whether or not making biodiesel is for you, here is a very simple description of what you need and the basic procedure. If you decide to make your own biodiesel you should definitely check out the references mentioned below to ensure your safety and the production of quality fuel.

Vegetable oil is converted into biodiesel by mixing it with lye (drain cleaner) and methanol (wood alcohol). The lye of choice for homebrewers is "Red Devil" lye available at most hardware stores. Methanol is sold as a racing fuel and is available from some racing shops, fuel suppliers and chemical supply vendors; the internet is a great place to look as well. Remember that methanol is very flammable, lye is caustic and both are toxic so make sure you handle them carefully. However, while these ingredients are nasty to work with they are easily neutralized or broken down in the environment. When mixed with the vegetable oil, the lye-methanol mixture causes a transesterification (def: a reversible reaction in which one ester is converted into another--as by interchange of ester groups with an alcohol in the presence of a base) reaction separating fatty acids from the glycerin in vegetable oil. After the reaction is complete, the glycerin will then settle to the bottom and can be removed.

You can make biodiesel in small quantities in a kitchen blender, but you won't be able to use the blender for food again. If you want to make large quantities (20-40 gallons or more) you will need some sort of processor. A typical processor consists of a premix tank where the methanol and lye are mixed, a reaction tank where the premix and vegetable oil are mixed, a pump and an arrangement of valves for the addition, mixing, transfer and draining of reactants and products. Information about various home made processors are given in From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank and can be found on the internet at www.journeytoforever.org. A decent commercially available processor, which comes with instructions and some supplies, is available from www.biodieselsolutions.com.
You will also need to find a source of vegetable oil. Virgin (unused) oil costs about $4.00 a gallon and is cost prohibitive unless you find a source of non-food grade oil. Most biodiesel homebrewers and small commercial producers use recycled frying oil. This is more in line with environmental concerns and is a cheaper (often free) and readily available source of feedstock for home biodiesel production. Check with your local restaurants about collecting their used frying oil.

Used frying oil is just that, used. As a result of being heated, it contains free fatty acids that break off the oil molecules. These free fatty acids (FFAs) can "steal" some of the lye in the reaction so extra lye must be added when using recycled frying oil. A titration is used to determine how much extra lye you need and this is well described in From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank. In general you want oil that requires less than 3 grams per liter (a liter is a little more than a quart) of extra lye. I have used oils from several restaurants and found them to require anywhere from 1.5 (Mmmm) to 8 (Yuck) additional grams of catalyst. I now titrate each batch of oil from my sources to make sure they are below 3 before adding them to my preheat drum.

Finally, it is a good idea to wash and filter your biodiesel to remove soap and other impurities. There are several methods washing your fuel, but the Bubble method given by www.journeytoforever.org seems to work best. After washing, biodiesel should be filtered through a water blocking 10 micron filter before it is put into a vehicle's fuel tank.

Resources:
» www.biodiesel.org
» www.biodieselcouncel.org
» www.biodieselsolutions.com
» www.greasel.com
» www.journeytoforever.org
» www.nbb.org
» www.survivalunlimited.com
» www.veggievan.org
» www.ybiofuels.org

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Cyril Neville Rocks the Earth!

Cyril Neville, of Neville Brothers fame, is The Vice-President of The White Buffalo Children's Foundation. Cyril is known for his passionate songs about social, indigenous and environmental awareness.

RtE: What environmental issue(s) do you consider to be the most critical at this time?

Wetlands here in Louisiana, our coastline is disappearing. Flooding has made erosion worse along the coastline. I've been working on a record with Dr. John, George Porter, Anders Osborne, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Goat Carson, Johnny Vidocovich and Tad Benoit, who is the voice of the wetlands and is heading up the project. Funds from record sales will go to help Louisiana wetlands. There's a song on it I wrote with Rusty Kershaw called, "Louisiana Sunshine." The album is with Telarc Records, and is due out this fall.

RtE: What has inspired you to combine environmental activism with your music?

The need to breathe [laughs], havin' children, lovin' my family. Life don't have to be so cluttered and movin' so fast for people to have some peace of mind. It's got to get so that everybody wants for everybody else's children what they want for their own. You can put
messages in music so that larger numbers of people can get that message through music. Music is a gift to put things right in the universe; it should be used like that.

RtE: Where is your favorite place in nature to go to find solace or inspiration?

Arizona; first and foremost for me is to be in the company of my best friend, my wife.

The White Buffalo Children's Foundation is sponsored by The New Orleans Backstreet Cultural Museum and the Living Folklore. It was founded by Rev. Goat Carson and is being carried forward with a blessing from Lakota Chief Arvol Lookinghorse, who is a 19th Generation Keeper of The White Buffalo Calf Pipe and a board member.

The mission of The White Buffalo Day Children's Foundation is to inspire children to embrace and contribute to their cultural heritage, as well as gain a deeper understanding and respect for other cultures. This kind of mutual respect across cultural boundaries discourages the trend of street violence, drugs and other kinds of abuse, aggression and self degradation. It is the foundation's goal to produce and manage long-term educational
programs and projects that employ a cultural exchange between inner city youth in New Orleans, and the youth of indigenous nations living on reservations across The United States. Many youth are disconnected from their communities, families, history, and the land, The White Buffalo Day Children's Foundation seeks to reconnect, restore and bring healing to these children.

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Ozomatli Rockin' the Earth: Photo

Ozomatli visits the Rock the Earth booth at Bonnaroo last weekend.

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