What can the music industry do to reduce its carbon footprint?

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What can the music industry do to reduce its carbon footprint?

The carbon impact of all those gigs and gatherings is up for debate more now than ever, big acts such as ColdPlay and Massive Attack have cancelled gigs until they can measure the impact on the environment.

But not all artists are in a financial position to cancel all their gigs and many artists rely on touring for an income. Let's be real most musicians and performers can not afford an environmental consciousness.

Today on Radio 4 Tom Heap asks what the music industry can do to reduce its carbon footprint. Tom spoke to various different artists and also interviewed the founders of Music Declares Emergency - No Music On A Dead Planet https://www.musicdeclares.net/.

The main three areas for discussion included the emissions for the band travelling, moving the equipment, the venue emissions and the impact of audiences travelling to and from the event. Having listened to the show I checked out Music Declares Emergency - No Music On A Dead Planet https://www.musicdeclares.net/ which advocates the following:

We call on governments and media institutions to tell the truth about the climate and ecological emergency.
We call on governments to act now to reverse biodiversity loss and reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by no later than 2030.
We recognise that the emergency has arisen from global injustices and will work towards systemic change to protect life on Earth.
We acknowledge the environmental impact of music industry practices and commit to taking urgent action.

We have signed up and will follow Music Declares and are very interested in how our members can benefit, however the interview raised many contradictions and many of the suggestions for us were very weak and hypocritical. But it is very tough debate. We get that. To summaries the main suggestions in the interview with Tom included the following:

Standard riders to not include plastic

Not to allow single use plastics at events

Always use renewable power sources when you can

Event organizers to insist on recycling as a priority

Working with responsible corporate partners

Not to work with financial institutions that are not responsible

Using LED lights to reduce energy use

Put restrictions on touring, travelling and taking less equipment

Use streaming media as an alternative to reach audiences

Do not fly around the world to shoot gigs on environmental change

Going on a bus rather than taking your own car

Car share

Put pressure on venues to be more environmentally friendly

Getting rid of plastic CD cases

Ecological packaging

Environmental merchandise and use organic materials

Higher train usage, go car free

Ecological and renewable streaming and data storage

Rent all the equipment at location and not travel with all the kit you need

Do not produce and sell vinyls

The largest omissions on carbon footprint is the audience travelling so a main argument from the artist is that they need to travel to the audience.

Surely, the suggestions made in the interview is not enough and it will not deliver the outcomes to climate change that is needed, it is sycophantic and feeble for global change. In our view the recommendations and solutions suggested are not sustainable themselves.

However, Music Declares Emergency have a great section on their website which is much more comprehensive and lists about actions for artists, songwriters, producers, a label, publisher, a venue, festival live music promoter, manager, agent and fan. So we are going to support them.

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06
Jun

I have a confession to make.

Jeeni has returned to Crowdcube to raise more funds for helping new talent. Jeeni founding director Mel Croucher says, “Day 5 and we have reached 98% of our 100K target". If you want to see our pitch click HERE. Mel has been writing the best-loved column in top-selling tech magazines for over 30 years. Now he's agreed to share his work with all our members. He's a video games pioneer and musician, and to to find out more about Mel check out his website www.melcroucher.net. Here's one of Mel's latest! I have a confession to make. I have been pimping a young model, and I confess my shame. My pimping is the result of a moment of weakness. I’ve had models before, and I understand their capricious nature. One moment they are willing to perform across my desk, and the next they freeze and refuse to let me do what I want to do. But it has not been any fantasy performance that’s got me hooked, it has been the fantasy looks. I was bored. I wanted colour. I wanted make-up. I wanted dazzle and glitter. I wanted tribal tattoos, hot bubbles, glowing tubes and a whirling fan-dance. Forgive me, but I’ve pimped my computer.In 1909, Henry Ford declared, “I will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the best designs that modern engineering can devise. And no man making a good salary will be unable to own one.” He then added his famous line, “The customer can have his car painted any colour he wants as long as it’s black.” And so they were. Painted black. When I was young, cars were still mostly black, apart from the odd spot of lipstick around the exhaust pipes of those used in suicide pacts. As for computer manufacturers, they all followed Henry Ford’s marketing strategy for half a century. Except their colour of choice was not black, but the sort of beige favoured by dead maggots. The exception was the ZX Spectrum which was black, but the keyboard really was made of dead maggots. Apart from that aberration, beige was the colour. In fact the beige box came to be used as a term of derision for desktops, implying dated, boring specifications. For example, IBM's early desktop computers were not only very beige indeed, but also very box-shaped indeed, and most PC clone manufacturers followed suit. As IBM and its imitators came to dominate the industry, beige boxes became the unquestioned norm for boring desktop computer design. Even early Apple Macs were beige boxes, until Apple took the revolutionary step in 1987 of switching to the even more boring shade of Chicken Poo By Moonlight. Not long after, equally boring videogame consoles took over the world, until there were so many revolting grey Nintendos and Segas and Playstations and Gameboys, that they had to be transported across deep space to be turned into landfill on distant moons. Meanwhile all Earthbound computers were still fifty shades of grey, until one day Apple changed everything.I remember the shock when their 1988 iMacs were launched. Suddenly we had a choice of computers that looked like see-through giant jellybabies, in a range of five neon colours called gangrene, monkeybum, impetigo, barbie and mince. And that was the end of the adult era in electronics, as a collective madness took over computer marketing. Now users are persuaded to buy machines not for what they do in the adult world, but for their infantile appearance. Users who are normally sane actually enjoy miniature coloured LEDs, winking and blinking through transparent windows like a pixie brothel. Tubes of bubbling, gaudy liquids snake their way through the computer’s guts like tapeworms on acid. Miniature spotlights illuminate cooling fans and heat-sinks from the inside out. These days a serious gamer will spend serious money on a serious PC, then corrupt the whole thing by spraying it with Plasti-Dip peelable, durable, non-slip, rubberised, multi-coloured spew. Yes, I know I shouldn’t have, but a bloke called Xephos made me do it. Let me explain further. I have been influenced by the newly popular phenomenon of celebrity PCs, where people buy a particular machine simply because their heroes favour it, endorse it or actually commission it in their name. For example one of the world’s most popular videogaming channels on YouTube is called The Yogscast. Last time I counted, it had more than seven and a half million subscribers and over six billion views, and that’s a whole lot of purchasing power. Their founder, this bloke called Xephos, got a business partner of Jeeni to create “the ultimate Yogscast PC range to live stream and play games all day.” And as the factory os not far from me, I went over to mock. But I stayed to pray, and found myself mesmerised by the bloody thing. Bloody as in bejewelled with animated red illuminations inside the see-through casing. Which is how I joined this PC pimping revolution.And even non-gamers are at it. Most regular folk, who normally wear sensible shoes and don’t indulge in bear-baiting or country music, they too have joined the pimping revolution by expressing their personal proclivities via their mobile phones. In the beginning, all mobiles were universally Henry Ford black. Now even old age pensioners wave customised casings around, all lipstick colours, sparkles and cutesy-poo creature decorations. At least, that’s what mine’s like. But I still suffer from a residual shame over my pimping habit, and like all instant gratification I feel guilty because of it. In fact while looking for a replacement machine recently, I have been quite attracted by one of those shapely models with a bit of sobriety, experience and bulk. And yes, before you ask, it’s black. Click HERE to visit or return to jeeni.com

06
Jun

For the Love of words - why writing it out makes the best therapy.

By Sammie Venn. Jeeni's Official Writer, Columnist and Blogger I have been an avid bookworm all my life. I used to read under the covers by torchlight when I was little and wake up bleary eyed but full of wonder. Delving into alternative worlds until the early hours, I would write stories and music imagining I was part of those mystical realms. Even though I was only 10 I understood the power of words. Their lyricism was captivating, and the songs I wrote became part of me, despite the fact that I could not hit a single note on key. My grandmother was an Opera singer, so my dulcet tones were put to shame, but it never stopped me belting out a melody in the shower as I grew older. Little did I know that verse would be my go-to therapy and expression of humanity in later life. Art in any form is therapeutic. Macklemore wrote that “Music moves people. It connects them in ways that no other medium can. It pulls heart strings. It acts as medicine” . Whether it is playing an instrument, reading, painting or writing, creative activity in any guise will have a positive impact on our mental health. Music is to the soul what words are to the mind, it’s all about turning a cacophony of phrases into poetic verse. I have always described it as a cathartic vent; enabling a confrontation between the most of powerful demons as well as deepest desires. Poetry is my chosen genre these days; it helps to make sense of chaotic thoughts in a non-sensical way. Iambic pentameter, rhythm and rhyme gives a structure to the subconscious and coherence to thought. David Richo author of “How to be an adult” said that “Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us - Our tears are precious, necessary, and part of what make us such endearing creatures.” Just like a piece of music, giving your thoughts a physical shape helps them to form a new arrangement. Why not spend 10/15 minutes a day brain dumping. I always finish a liberating mind sweep with a gratitude list. It helps me to feel invigorated and more energised. Write from your heart, not your mind. Get those words down on a page, it doesn’t have to be rational, make sense to others or be the next prize winning tome. Writing therapy is about you as an individual clearing headspace for renewal and recovery. Don’t censor or perfect just let your feelings be part of a free flow process. Tune into those emotions, stay as present as you can with them and let the page hold onto them so you don’t have to. Fictionalise yourself. Create a third person version of you - I have employed this technique numerous times it is like writing for self-knowledge. The plethora of journals that sit on my bookshelves describe hope, abundance, love, passion, desire, fear and all manner of emotions in between. In understanding how I wanted to feel, I was able to get creative and fall in love with a whole new way of being. As the Beatles so appropriately said “take a sad song and make it better”. So I would like to share one of my poems with you its called “ Wild Child”.

10
Jun

Jeeni Live Global Festival on 29 August 2020

Jeeni is proud to announce the next JEENI LIVE - our series of Free Festivals for Independent Musicians and Performers, where rising stars have a golden opportunity to step into the spotlight in front of a global audience, strut their stuff, stay safe and have fun. Best of all, they appear alongside some of our favourite superstar ambassadors. On 29th August 2020 we’ll be streaming the Jeeni Live Festival across music websites and social media. The event will be headlined by Sonique (Brit Award-Winner, Best Female Solo Artist) and Grammy Award-Winner Skyler Jett (hit-maker for Stevie Wonder, Celine Dion and Christina Aguillera) supported by Jeeni chart-toppers from both sides of the Atlantic. Showtimes: 21.00-23.00 GMT - 14.00-16.00 Los Angeles. With guest appearances from multi-award-winner Natasha Watts, the godfather of punk Jesus Hooligan, platinum-seller Daisy Chute, a blues genius we found down the pub, classical electro-diva Sarah Mallock, stadium favourites Filta, and a sensational new band with an average age of eight! More to be announced soon. All our performers will promote the event and share the live streaming to their fanbases, so we expecting lots of engagement. The live stream will also be saved on Jeeni.com, Jeeni Facebook and the Independent Musicians and Performers Group to replay later. This is our first event with our new Californian partners AmplifyX, the only FINRA and SEC compliant platform that allows investors to build a portfolio by directly funding musicians. The partnership was arranged by Kelli Richards, Jeeni Managing Director USA, who was mentored by Steve Jobs at Apple where she launched and managed the Apple music and entertainment division. Co-founder of AmplifyX Bobby Kamaris says, “Our companies run in an adjacent space helping independent artists, and our philosophies and motives are very very close. What you guys at Jeeni have done in putting it together and launching is actually incredible.” • Jeeni Live is a global festival of music.• Covid19 has closed live venues, so Jeeni Live goes out across social media and selected websites.• Jeeni Live gives equal exposure to brand new talent and world-class stars, with an exciting mix of new material and massive crowd-pleasers. • Jeeni Live reaches out across the whole range of styles and ages to deliver new audiences and new fans for our poll-winning artists.• No adverts, no hype, no rip-offs, no fakes. Jeeni - the ethical alternative.

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