A Song to Save the Salish Sea

Mark Pedelty

Description

On the coast of Washington and British Columbia sit the misty forests and towering mountains of Cascadia. With archipelagos surrounding its shores and tidal surges of the Salish Sea trundling through the interior, this bioregion has long attracted loggers, fishing fleets, and land developers, each generation seeking successively harder to reach resources as old-growth stands, salmon stocks, and other natural endowments are depleted. Alongside encroaching developers and industrialists is the presence of a rich environmental movement that has historically built community through musical activism. From the Wobblies' Little Red Songbook (1909) to Woody Guthrie's Columbia River Songs (1941) on through to the Raging Grannies' formation in 1987, Cascadia's ecology has inspired legions of songwriters and musicians to advocate for preservation through music.

In this book, Mark Pedelty explores Cascadia's vibrant eco-musical community in order to understand how environmentalist music imagines, and perhaps even creates, a more sustainable conception of place. Highlighting the music and environmental work of such various groups as Dana Lyons, the Raging Grannies, Idle No More, Towers and Trees, and Irthlingz, among others, Pedelty examines the divergent strategies—musical, organizational, and technological—used by each musical group to reach different audiences and to mobilize action. He concludes with a discussion of "applied ecomusicology," considering ways this book might be of use to activists and musicians at the community level.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Bellingham's Dana Lyons: The Artful Activist
2. Victoria's Raging Grannies: An Unstoppable Force
3. North America's Idle No More: The Aural Art of Protest
4. Vancouver's Bobs & Lolo: Raindrop Pop
5. Surrey's Artist Response Team: ART for Ecology
6. Orcas Island's Irthlingz: Community Art as Activism
7. Victoria's Towers and Trees: Together Alone Online
Conclusion: Common Themes and Connections
Discography
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Musique
• Histoire de la musique
• Pop Vocal
• MUSIC
• Popular music
• Multiple signal classification
• Ecocriticism
• Environmentalism
• Ethnomusicology
• Cultural Studies

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 03 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9780253023162
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A S ONG TO S AVE THE S ALISH S EA
MUSIC, NATURE, PLACE Sabine Feisst and Denise Von Glahn
A S ONG TO S AVE THE S ALISH S EA
Musical Performance as Environmental Activism
MARK PEDELTY
Indiana University Press
Bloomington Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2016 by Mark Pedelty
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pedelty, Mark, author.
Title: A song to save the Salish Sea : musical performance as environmental activism / Mark Pedelty.
Other titles: Music, nature, place.
Description: Bloomington ; Indianapolis : Indiana University Press, 2016. | Series: Music, nature, place
Identifiers: LCCN 2016021950 (print) | LCCN 2016035381 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253022684 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253023001 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253023162 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Ecomusicology-Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.) | Music-Political aspects-Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.) | Environmentalism-Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.)
Classification: LCC ML3799.3.P44 2016 (print) | LCC ML3799.3 (ebook) | DDC 780/.0304-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016021950
1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19 18 17 16
Back Cover Image: Towers and Trees performs at Butchart Gardens. Photo by Tyson Elder; used by permission.
This one s for the band-Tim Gustafson, Leon Hsu, Robert Poch, and Bryan Mosher-the Hypoxic Punks
F ERDINAND: Where should this music be? i the air or the earth?
-William Shakespeare, The Tempest , act 1, scene 2
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Why Environmentalist Music?
1. Bellingham s Dana Lyons: The Artful Activist
2. Victoria s Raging Grannies: An Unstoppable Force
3. Turtle Island s Idle No More: The Aural Art of Protest
4. Vancouver s Bobs Lolo: Raindrop Pop
5. Surrey s Artist Response Team: ART for Ecology
6. Orcas Island s Irthlingz: Community Art as Activism
7. Victoria s Towers and Trees: Together Alone Online
Conclusion: Common Themes and Connections
Discography
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE OLDER I get, the greater my debt. I will start by thanking thousands of students who have taught me so much. It would be impossible to mention them all, so I will note two with whom I coauthored related publications: Joy Hamilton and Morgan Keucker. I have been working with Joy nearly as long as I have been doing this research, and our weekly discussions concerning environmental communication have had a profound influence on this project. Also, Christian Angelich s bomb train research stands out among many student projects that have informed my thinking over the past several years. Without students, this would be a meaningless pursuit.
I would like to thank all of my colleagues in the burgeoning field of ecomusicology, especially members of the American Musicological Society s Ecocriticism Study Group (ESG) whose work has informed various aspects of this research. I should specifically mention Aaron Allen, founding chair and leader of the ESG and a central leader in the development of ecomusicology. This book literally would not have been possible without Aaron s kind assistance and mentorship.
I would also like to thank Aaron s coeditor and fellow organologist Kevin Dawe, whose scholarship and ideas have positively influenced this work.
And then there is Tyler Kinnear. Tyler s work as editor, author, organizer, and soundwalk composer has greatly influenced this work, and I owe him a deep debt of gratitude. Which brings me to William Bares, who along with Tyler organized the Ecomusicologies III conference at the University of North Carolina in Asheville, a watershed event. Thanks, guys. The academy needs a lot more like you.
Thanks as well to ESG leaders and members Rachel Mundy, Kate Galloway, Michael Baumgartner, Robert Fallon, Michael Silvers, Sonja Downing, Andrew Mark, and Maja Trochimczyk and the entire group. As an interdisciplinary scholar with obligations to several disciplines and departments, I have been somewhat mercenary, taking more from groups like the ESG than I am able to give back. Please know how much I appreciate all that you have so generously offered. As an anthropologist who studies music in environmental contexts, I am continually surprised by the kind and giving reception offered by musicologists, ethnomusicologists, and popular music researchers to my work.
And that s just the musicologists. Ethnomusicologists and popular-music researchers have been highly influential in this research as well, and I owe them all my heartfelt thanks. First and foremost is Jeff Todd Titon, whose research and mentorship have been absolutely essential to the development and execution of this project. Jeff s combination of listening skills and insight greatly advanced my understanding of these issues, and he is among the first colleagues to whom I should apologize for any areas of the book that fall short. My armchair theorizing involving Thoreau will, I hope, lead readers to Jeff s extensive research on the topic. Getting to know Jeff, one of the University of Minnesota s most outstanding alums and a foundational figure in ethnomusicology, has been one of the highlights of my career.
Thanks also to Tony Seeger, for his kind thoughts and comments at the Wesleyan Shasha conference, as well as hip-hop artist Manifest, for providing inspiring ideas at that same event and letting me tag along to see him in action at the community center.
I have been fortunate to get to know Jennifer Post at the Ecomusicologies conferences. I read Jennifer s work on applied ethnomusicology at a crucial point in this research, and her thoughts on applied ethnomusicology exerted a profound influence. Seeger, Titon, and Post provide models and language for applied work like this, and I hope that this project lives up to their calls for cultural relevance.
Likewise, many thanks to colleagues in Environmental Communication, also too numerous to fully acknowledge here, but I would like to single out Jennifer Peeples, Richard Besel, and Tema Milstein for their very direct help and great ideas.
Also, many thanks to environmental artists who shared their work and ideas with me during this research, especially poets Laurie Allmann and Sandra Alcosser, Likewise, thanks to all of the artists who contributed to the Ecomusicology Listening Room (ELR) projects in New Orleans and Pittsburgh. Directing that living exhibit radically enhanced my understanding of sound and music as they connect to place.
Here, at the University of Minnesota, I wish to thank my colleagues in environmental studies, communication studies, anthropology, and music studies, friends who have thoroughly informed this project. In particular, I would like to thank the resident fellows in the Institute on the Environment (IonE) for challenging and expanding my understanding of the relationship between culture and environment. There is not space to list all of my IonE colleagues who have influenced this research, but I would be remiss if I did not cite Lewis Gilbert for his leadership and Todd Ruebold for his valuable insights into environmental communication. Directors Jonathan Foley, and now Jessica Hellmann, have created an interdisciplinary space where scholars from different fields can come together to inform each other s research.
Beyond the IonE, Dan Phillipon (English), Sumanth Gopinath (Music), Matt Rahim (Music), Bill Beaman (Anthropology) are among several University of Minnesota colleagues who have offered their ideas and support during the course of my work on this project.
Thanks also to Ron Greene, Chair, and my colleagues in the Department of Communication Studies, including Catherine Squires for her insight into intersectionality. Much remains to be done in regard to connecting identity, place, and environmental justice issues, and I have just scratched the surface in this work, but Catherine s research and collegial feedback have inspired me to take the research further.
Which brings me to the editors of Indiana University Press s Music, Nature, Place series: Denise Von Glahn and Sabine Feisst. They were incredible colleagues before they became my editors, welcoming me into the musicological fold and offering up their ideas on music and environment. Their work in regard to composition, performance, and place was incredibly influential in my past publications, and, as cited in the following pages, their published work has had a significant impact in this research as well. Denise s work on the role of listening has not only helped me understand issues of voice and listening but also helped me become a more skillful listener (a useful skill for an ethnographer). In addition to her other work, Sabine s interpretations of Luther Adams s compositions have caused me to think about environmental musicianship in new ways and provided a key comparative reference for the musicians I studied in the Pacific Northwest. I am extremely fortunate to have had editors who know this subject so well. Denise and Sabine provided extensive feedback after each iteration of the manuscript, radically improving the text. Thanks, Denise and Sabine.
I would like to thank Raina Polivka, sponsoring editor at Indiana University Press.