Green Roster

New Green Roster Band: Single Girl Married Girl

Newest Green Roster Band- Single Girl Married Girl! Happy to celebrate Earth Day with a new band dedicated to sustainability! SGMG is based in NYC, and their Americana/folk/pop music shows off incredible vocals, playing, and lyrics.

Their new album, Spark, comes out May 19th, and will be packaged in sustainable materials! You can learn more about SGMG's green goals on their Green Roster band page, HERE.

To listen to Single Girl Married Girl, visit their website. Be sure to follow them on socials!

@sgmgtheband on Twitter and Instagram

Facebook: facebook.com/SinglegirlMarriedgirl/

New Green Roster Band: Wise Old Moon

Newest Green Roster Band- Wise Old Moon! The band hails from Hartford, CT. Their music ties traditional folk influences with high-energy, twang infused indie rock. Wise Old Moon is dedicated to the environment- their merch is 100% cotton, USA made and printed with eco-friendly inks! Glad to have them on the Green Roster. Check them out and take a listen to their music HERE. 

This coming year, the band hopes to create another environmentally conscious merch piece, spend more time in natural places, and do their part to encourage other bands to take up environmental practices. Yeah!

New Green Roster Band: The Gage Brothers

Another new member for Green Roster! This time it's the Gage Brothers, out of Akron, OH. These guys play some great music- mixing traditional and new age styles into a unique folk and blues sound. Give them a listen HERE.

When they're not performing, you might catch them hiking around Cuyahoga National Park- it's their favorite. They're also planning to recycle/upcycle all of their spent strings this year! Learn more about The Gage Brothers on their website above, and on our page highlighting their environmental endeavors.

New Green Roster Band: Ben Cosgrove

We are really excited to announce a very accomplished musician and environmentalist to the Green Roster. Ben Cosgrove is a talented instrumentalist inspired by landscapes and place. Nature is clearly situated in his classical-folk crossover music. "By focusing single-mindedly on place/landscape/environment in my music, I hope to actively work against that human tendency to ignore the things around us." Isn't he the best!? What's more, is that he's held artist residencies at public lands across the US! Learn more about his eco-experience here.

Give him a listen and look out for his next show on his website: www.bencosgrove.com

New Green Roster Band: Jake Klar

Sustain is pleased to announce that Jake Klar has joined the Green Roster! Not only does he make great gritty, indie-Americana rock & roll, Klar also cares about doing the right thing for the environment. Check him out and listen to his music at: www.jakeklar.com

(Secret: Sustain's co-founders contributed to Jake's Crescent St. Blues EP! Harrison played bass and Betsy made dinners to feed the crew! Go listen!)

As part of the Green Roster program re-launch, we're now giving all members their own page on our website, highlighting their environmental accomplishments. Check out Jake's, and learn more about him HERE.

Green Roster Program Relaunch


It's been a little over a year since the idea for Sustain was born. In that time we have come a long way, and we're still learning! Our Green Roster program is something we've been giving a lot of thought- how could we better foster environmental practices in the music industry? How could we create a stronger community for the bands, luthiers, and studios who care about their impact on the environment? Just what exactly can the music industry do to be greener? What are people already doing, and what else could they be doing? Sustain and our original Green Roster members have been working on these questions this past year. We've been doing research, going to conferences like Folk Alliance, and talking to experts. And now we are ready to share!
It is with great excitement that we announce the relaunch of Green Roster. We have a slew of new members that we will be announcing throughout the coming week. Some of the key program updates include:

  • More robust requirements for members- including annual green goal setting, measuring accomplishments, and public outreach/education requirements
  • Resource pages tailored to bands, studios, and luthiers on how they can further green their business, materials, and habits
  • A tiered membership system for bands which encourages growth and participation for smaller bands, while rewarding more advanced bands who have the resources to meet stricter environmental standards
  • Member-to-member discounts
  • Community knowledge sharing
  • A quarterly newsletter highlighting member activities
  • Plans for increasing the visibility of the Green Roster program to the greater public, as Sustain gains momentum and audiences
  • Green Roster membership stamp trademark in progress
  • Individual member webpages highlighting their business and their environmental accomplishments

The Green Roster program is still committed to promoting environmental responsibility and awareness in the music industry, but now with this program relaunch, it will be able to do so more effectively.
 

,

Songscape: Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area- SONG RELEASE DAY!

,

Less than a year after our founding, Sustain’s first Songscape song is officially released! You can now purchase ‘KTAADN’, by folk-rock band Parsonsfield, at their website HERE.

KTAADN is the product of Songscape: Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area. Songscapes are Sustain’s songwriting retreats, where we partner bands with public land organizations. Through the hospitality of host land groups, we send bands out for a few days of immersion in protected landscapes. The musicians use this time to write a song inspired by their experiences and their environment. This song is then donated to the host land group, and used to inspire and encourage audiences to value these landscapes.

In our first Songscape project, we partnered folk-rock band Parsonsfield, with Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area in Maine.  Parsonsfield, formed in Connecticut in 2010, has played their rowdy Americana folk music across the USA and throughout Canada. David Vescey, from The New York Times writes, “They harmonize; they play saws, mandolins and pump organs; they back their songs with crickets and squeaking screen doors; they are boisterously youthful yet deftly sentimental...”. Theirs is a sound that has its roots in Maine as well. The name, Parsonsfield, comes from the rural town in southwest Maine where they recorded their first album. Those crickets and squeaking screen doors were courtesy of the old farmhouse recording studio there, called Great North Sound Society. Parsonsfield was very excited to pilot the Songscape program, and spend a week in Maine exploring Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area (KWWRA).

Located in the shadows of Mount Katahdin, Maine’s highest and most storied peak, Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area offers a sneak peak of land that one day could become a new national park and national recreation area. The land, bordered on the west by Baxter State Park and with the amazing East Branch of the Penobscot River running through its heart, includes unparalleled opportunities for traditional outdoor recreation and an opportunity to see firsthand the woods and waters that have helped to define the state. It is KWWRA’s hope that the Katahdin region, and KWWRA specifically, will gain public support to become America’s next national park and recreation area. This unique and beautiful landscape has such a rich history and ecology, and it deserves to be shared with the nation.

For our Songscape: Katahdin Woods and Waters Recreation Area project, Parsonsfield spent a week at KWWRA, at off-the-grid Lunksoos Camps on the banks of the East Brach of the Penobscot River. The first night, local KWWRA supporters welcomed Parsonsfield with a feast and bonfire- a friendly welcome that set the tone for the rest of the retreat. The band hiked Barnard Mountain and saw the Katahdin landscape cloaked in fiery autumn foliage. They went looking (and calling!) for moose. They saw glowing sunsets, and canoed in the same waters that Henry David Thoreau paddled. Parsonsfield had a wealth of experiences and beauty to draw from while writing and composing their Songscape song, KTAADN.

On the band’s final day at KWWRA, we filmed a music video of KTAADN, with the whole band playing in a canoe. This video will be available on Sustain's Youtube channel next week. Parsonsfield has also been performing the song on dry land, at shows across the northeast.

After the retreat, Sustain arranged for Parsonsfield to record their Songscape song at Dirt Floor, a recording studio in Haddam, CT. Dirt Floor, run by Eric Lichter, is one of the original members of Sustain's Green Roster program. Green Roster is a community of bands, luthiers and recording studios which pledge to uphold environmental practices in their businesses. Dirt Floor has been a great supporter of Sustain and generously donated a free recording session for this project. Another Green Roster band member, Greg Dyson of Hanging Hills, donated his graphic arts skills in designing the KTAADN album cover. Sustain is very grateful for everyone's support.

All of this work has culminated in today's release of KTAADN. Parsonsfield has donated the song to Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area to use in their marketing materials, and has made the song available to anyone who would like to purchase it on their website. The proceeds of the song sales will help support Sustain, KWWRA and the band, so we can continue to bring you great music, a great landscape, and future Songscape projects.

Sustain would like to especially thank the following people for supporting Songscape: Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area and taking a chance on our new organization and our pilot project. Lucas St. Clair (president of Elliotsville Plantation, which founded KWWRA), Susan and Mark Adams (KWWRA Ambassadors & Hosts), Simon Roosevelt, the members of Parsonsfield (Antonio Alcorn, Chris Freeman, Harrison Goodale, Erik Hischman and Max Shakun), Eric Lichter, Greg Dyson, and the Board of Sustain Music and Nature (Ricky Hernandez, Maggie Comstock, Nicole Reese, Aubrey Gallegos, Harrison Goodale and Betsy Mortensen).