Daily Loaf

In 2005, vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Nick Thornburn and drummer Jamie Thompson’s band, Islands, was born upon the demise of The Unicorns, their previous group, very successful project. Since then, the Canadian band has featured a regularly changing lineup of contributing members: Alex and Sebastian Chow, the 1993 and 1994 World Super N.E.S. Fest champions (I’m not really sure what that means, maybe something to do with Nintendo?); Jim Guthrie, grandson of Woody; rappers Subtitle and Busdriver (no idea who they are); and Richy Parry from the great band, Arcade Fire.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Swell Season was originally the name of Irish vocalist/guitarist Glen Hansard and Czech vocalist/pianist Markéta Irglová’s first album, released in 2006.  The duo now refers to themselves as The Swell Season, the name taken from humanist Josef škvorecký’s 1975 novel of the same name — Glen’s favorite novel.

The initial success of the one-time romantically linked couple (they split in 2009) came after they co-starred in the 2007 Irish film, Once. Glen played a Dublin street performer to Markéta’s immigrant street vendor.  The film was shown at Sundance in 2007 where it won the World Cinema Audience Award. Incidentally, Once was written and directed by John Carney, former bass player in Glen’s old band, The Frames.  It’s a beautiful film; you should check it out. Read the rest of this entry »

Stockholm’s Taken By Trees is the name of Victoria Bergsman’s latest solo project, who, for 11 years (until 2006), was lead singer of The Concretes. You may recognize The Concretes’ song “Say Something New” from the Target commercial. Or maybe not, I don’t know how much TV you watch.

Before creating Taken By Trees, she collaborated with Peter, Bjorn and John on their infectious, whistle-heavy single, “Young Folks,” which also you may recognize. Anyway, Bjorn then returned the favor by producing and performing in her 2007 debut L.P., The Stark and Gentle Open Field, a beautiful album recorded in only six days. Read the rest of this entry »

The local elections will be decided Tuesday night, but voting for the City of Largo Recycled Innovations Contest has just begun.  This online contest encouraged innovators of all ages to make a use-able items with the contents of their trash can.

Eligible recycled innovations range from kitty litter box hanging gardens to baby food container space savers and more. The innovators went beyond traditional recycling and re-purposed their trash into items that may be reused for daily activities.

Contestants will vie for innovative prizes such a solar/wind powered charges for cell phones, MP3 players and other electronics, environmental board games, and learning toys to name a few.  Prizes will be awarded to the greatest innovators in various age categories: Junior Innovators, Tween Innovators, and MacGyvers.
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Welcome to On the Radar, where we preview up-and-coming arts events to mark your calendar for. For one night only, the Roaring Twenties are back, so grab your flapper dresses and fedoras and head out for a night at the theater.  Next weekend’s event features the 1920’s silent film Souls for Sale, about an ordinary girl’s rise to Hollywood stardom. There are also vaudeville acts, a 1920’s costume contest (for those of you who didn’t get enough of dressing up at Halloween) and raffle prizes.

Come out for an night of fun and contribute to the community by making a $5 donation or bringing three nonperishable foods or dried goods to benefit RCS Food Bank. Thurs., Nov. 12, 6-9 p.m., St. Petersburg College Clearwater Campus Teaching Auditorium, 2465 Drew St. Clearwater; contact honors.college@spcollege.edu for more info. Sign Language interpreters provided.

A local activist has scheduled a discussion on recycling and sustainability at the Seminole Community Library on Monday, November 9, from 10 am to 12 pm.

Mary DeGeorge, coordinator of the discussion, moved from New York to Florida two years ago.  While in New York, she established a paper recycling program at the 1,200 student school in which she taught.

Mary is a member of the Pinellas County Utilities Technical Management Committee (recycling subcommittee) which meets at the Solid Waste Management Plant in St. Petersburg.
Read the rest of this entry »

London-based Noah and the Whale has been dishing out their wistfully gentle indie/anti/nu/pop-folk for a mere three years. The band, Charlie Fink (vocals, guitar, harmonica, ukulele), Tom Hobden (fiddle), Urby Whale (harmonium, bass), and Doug Fink (drums), say that in addition to folk, they are influenced and inspired by punk rock. (But then again, who isn’t?) Critics have compared Noah and the Whale to Belle & Sebastian, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Bonnie Prince Billy. Read the rest of this entry »

The Issue
Most of us spend more waking hours while at work than at home, we might as well be eco-aware while doing so.

Be Part of the Solution
What can we do to be more sustainable?  How about:

Turn off you computer at night!  A computer left on 24 hours a day costs your company between $115 and $160 in electricity annually!

Don’t use screensavers.  Instead, set your monitor to turn off automatically after 10 minutes of non-use and set computers to sleep/hibernate after 30 minutes. Read the rest of this entry »

If you don’t understand the definitions of each of the terms, you may not end up buying what you are looking for!

Here’s what you need to know…

The USDA enforces proper organic production and categorizes the terms in the following manner:

-Products with the “100% Organic” seal include products with 100% organically produced (raw and processed) ingredients.

-Products with the “USDA Certified Organics” seal are made with 95% or more organic ingredients. Read the rest of this entry »

The super group Monsters of Folk is made up of actual “monsters of folk” Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes), M. Ward (of late, the “him” of She and Him), and producer Mike Mogis (Jenny Lewis, Rilo Kiley, Sea Wolf, Cursive, etc).

The foursome first came together as a result of a 2004 one-off gig in Chicago,”An Evening with Bright Eyes, Jim James and M Ward.” Oberst later explained that the unnecessarily long name wasn’t very catchy. Read the rest of this entry »

The Florida Gulf Coast Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council will sponsor a Green Living Expo and Sustainable Science Fair Saturday, Oct. 24, from 10AM to 3PM at the Science Center of Pinellas County.

The Expo portion of the program focuses on homeowners and other interested parties.  The Science Fair is aimed at middle school students.

There will be several education sessions planned, some of which include:

• Tax credits and incentives
• Sustainability 101 for middle school children
• Greening your home’s interior, including interior design products and cleaning products
• Greening your home’s exterior, including landscaping and lawn care
• Energy efficiency, what it means to be energy efficient and the savings benefits to becoming more efficient
  Read the rest of this entry »

Our friend Alex Spoto of Roppongi’s Ace fame turned me on to Maxim Ludwig & The Santa Fe Seven a few months ago.

Twenty-one year old Brooklyn-born/current Los Angelian Maxim Ludwig got his start banging pots and pans in his godmother’s kitchen, and later as a ten year-old harmonica blower playing in blues cover bands in German beer tents. From then on, he embraced the philosophy that everyone do what they do best in a particular song and not have a particular permanent job.

A few years ago he bought a cheep guitar at a police auction and learned to play it from a “skinny, toothless, heroin addicted” handyman. The handyman walked up to Maxim one day and said, “Kid, I’m gonna teach you how to play the blues.”  The handyman handed maxim a guitar slide (read: toilet paper tube) and they practiced the rest of the day.  Maxim never saw him again and never had another guitar lesson.

Later, he further embraced his second passion: language/poetry/thought. Then as now, he was more “concerned with how words are held in the shape of the mouth than the notes.” Read the rest of this entry »

The St. Petersburg College Environmental Club and the Emerging Green Builders adopted a mile of beach (Lot 36) on North Shore Clearwater Beach, running from Rockaway St. to 880 Mandalay. We have scheduled our next beach cleanup Saturday, October 17, starting at 9 am. Help us spend a few hours picking up garbage and then relaxing on the beautiful, clean beach.

We will be meeting on the beach at Rockaway Street, right in front of Frenchy’s restaurant. Bags and gloves will be provided, but please remember to wear a hat, sunscreen, closed toed shoes and pants for the dunes, etc. You can park in the public beach parking or go past Frenchy’s Rockaway Grill and find residential parking further down the road then just walk back.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Issue

We try so hard to make eco-minded decisions for ourselves that we forget about man’s (and woman’s) best friend!

-Typical dogs produce 274 pounds of waste each year, and each pet litter bag take up to 100 years to biodegrade!

-We wouldn’t eat low quality foods, so why should our pets? Read the rest of this entry »

Tupperware Lights by Frank Criscione

Eco-Innovators and procrastinators have more time to submit their recycled creation to the City of Largo’s Recycled Innovations Contest. This online contest encourages innovators to make use-able items with the contents of their trash can.

All entries must be made of 75 percent or more recycled material or material that would otherwise be discarded. Contrary to a recycled art show, Recycled Innovations are items that may be reused in daily activities. Accepted entries will be functional items made of materials that can be diverted from the waste stream. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not even sure how I found this; maybe insomnia, maybe boredom. But either way, other than Real Ultimate Power, it is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen on the amazing World Wide Internet.

Pterodactyl Squad is a record label that describes itself as “a video game music netlabel.” Basically, that means it’s an online record label that distributes music inspired by video games, for free. The label most recently released Weezer – The 8-bit Album. Read the rest of this entry »

The Issue:

Environmentally friendly and humane residential pest and rodent control.

The Larger Issue:

-Researchers have linked the ingredients in the typical residential aerosol pesticides to cancer and other diseases.

-Mosquitoes can carry and transmit diseases and viruses like Malaria, Encephalitis and West Nile Virus.

-Typical ant-killers may cause nervous-system issues in dogs, cats, and birds. Read the rest of this entry »

The Issue

Only 5% of pesticides reach target weeds, the rest ends up in our water supply or the air we breathe. Runoff from fertilizers pollutes streams and lakes and cause algae blooms, depleted oxygen and damage to aquatic life.

Research has found that dogs exposed to herbicide-treated lawns can double their chance of developing lymphoma and bladder cancer.

Of 30 commonly used pesticides: 16 are toxic to birds, 24 to fish, and 11 to bees.  In the U.S. alone, pesticides poison approximately 65 million birds each year.

Prolonged exposure to pesticides can cause increased incidences of cancer, certain organ damage, asthma and allergies. Read the rest of this entry »

St. Petersburg College Sustainability Club members, Dynamet, Inc. and Gateway Organic Farm have partnered with High Point Elementary School students, teachers and a gardening expert to develop a garden which will have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems.

The garden is located on the High Point Elementary School grounds at 5921 150th Avenue North in Clearwater. It covers about 1,700 square feet, but may be enlarged later. Read the rest of this entry »

Canadian singer/songwriter Patrick Watson began his musical career early in life.  As a boy he played in church choirs and studied jazz and classical piano performance, composition, and arrangement. While in high school in the late 1990s, he sang and played keyboards with a ska band called Gangster Politics. He left the band in 2001 and released a solo debut. He creates vibrantly textured music with his “romantic” voice that can easily be heard above the guitars and pianos so common to his sound. Read the rest of this entry »

How are academic institutions meeting the challenge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce their carbon footprint?

What are the strategies that they are using to become more “green,” less wasteful, and more energy efficient?

Colleges and universities across the country are exercising leadership in their communities by modeling ways to eliminate global warming emissions, and by producing graduates educated in environmental issues and concerns.  Panelists will give brief presentations on current and future plans for sustainability on their campus, followed by a roundtable discussion amongst all participants. Read the rest of this entry »

Brooklyn-based Grizzly Bear is made up of Daniel Rossen (songwriting/guitar), Ed Droste (songwriting/guitar), Chris Taylor (bass/woodwinds/electronics/vocals) and Christopher Bear (drums/vocals). All four members of the acid-folk/neo-psychedelic quintet contribute vocals.

Grizzly Bear connected while students at New York University. During freshman year, Daniel met Chris Taylor in the dorm. Sophomore year, Chris Taylor met Christopher Bear through “jazz stuff” they were playing. Upon meeting Bear, Daniel realized that as teenagers, they went to jazz camp together. Ed met Bear while he was working on a documentary at NYU. Read the rest of this entry »

In the era of ever increasing utility bills and shrinking storage space, tankless water heaters seem to be all the rage.  Let’s take a minute to discuss the benefits and disadvantages of going tankless.

Conventional water heaters require a great amount of time and energy to warm.  Tankless water heaters provide instant, unlimited access to hot water.  In fact, when installed at each hot water faucet, tankless water heaters can be up to 40% more energy efficient than the conventional water heaters and run at 99% efficiency (while brand new conventional heaters are at 80%). Read the rest of this entry »

With the intention of creating a Valentines Day gift for his then-girlfriend Christine, Cambridge-based musician Michael Angelakos formed a one-time/one-man project he called Passion Pit. The resulting EP, Chunk of Change, quickly found its way onto the iPods of his friends at Emerson College, who then passed it on to their friends and acquaintances. In late 2007, Michael (vocals, keyboard) teamed with Ian Hultquist (keyboards), Ayad Al Adhamy (synth/samples), Jeff Apruzzese (bass) and Nate Donmoyer (drums) and Passion Pit became a real life band. After playing just a few shows, they were voted best new act by The Boston Phoenix. Read the rest of this entry »

The Issue: Cleaning products that are full of chemicals!

The Larger Issues:
-Certain glass cleaners contain isopropyl alcohol which can irritate the skin, eyes, nose and throat, and ammonia which can irritate the skin and eyes and cause coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath.

-Many all-purpose cleaners contain 2-butoxyethanol which can cause headaches, dizziness, lightheadedness and confusion, and eye, nose, throat and mouth irritation.

-Certain bathroom cleaners contain Sodium hypochlorite/chlorine which can irritate the skin; and cause eye damage, coughing and/or shortness of breath. Read the rest of this entry »

Eco-adventurer David de Rothschild plans to sail 11,000 miles from San Francisco to Sydney by way of the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch on his 60-foot catamaran called the Plastiki.  That in itself is a big deal, however the amazing thing is that the catamaran is made of used two-liter plastic bottles!  “Our philosophy of throwing everything away has to change,” says de Rothschild. “I want to use the Plastiki as a platform to help people think of waste as a resource.” Read the rest of this entry »

Dirty Projectors are led by former Yale student, current “musical director” and one of the most unique/eccentric indie singer/songwriters of the early 2000’s, Dave Longstreth, who is accompanied by a shifting cast of band members. In fact, there have been 17 different band members in total, but no more than six at a time (including Ezra Koenig and Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend).

Dave deconstructs his own music and others’ (like Black Flag — more on that later) and reassembles it using his own instrumentals and vocals. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are two upcoming lectures on environmentalism, sustainability, and conservation, one presented by a St. Petersburg College professor, the other hosted at St. Petersburg College.

The first presentation will be held Tuesday, September 8, 2009, 7:30 until 8:30pm at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve’s Lake Maggiore Environmental Education Center, and led by SPC Professor Christopher Nichol.

During the talk Professor Nichol will discuss the Tampa Bay Estuary, the largest open-water estuary in Florida.  He will present the multitude of unique habitats and their inhabitants, threats to the bay, and some of the things that people are doing to ensure that this beautiful resource will remain productive for many years.

Lake Maggiore Environmental Education Center is located at 1101 Country Club Way South in St. Petersburg.  For more information, please call Boyd Hill Nature Preserve at (727) 893-7326.

The second lecture, sponsored by the SPC Friends of Florida Environmental Club will be held Thursday, September 10th 2009, 12:30 until 1:30 pm in the Natural Sciences Building, room SC236 of SPC’s St. Petersburg/Gibbs Campus (6605 Fifth Avenue North, St. Petersburg).
Read the rest of this entry »

Vieux Farka Touré’s father, the late, great Malian musician Ali Farka Touré forbade his son from becoming a musician; he didn’t want Vieux to have to deal with the same problems he’d endured through his career. Instead, Ali encouraged him to become a soldier. In the end, music won out as Vieux was always drawn to it.

After listening to a track or two, you’ll realize he made the right decision.

Vieux grew up in Niafunké (located in the Sahara desert) and the Malian capital Bamako, where learned to play percussion, calabash (a dried gourd drum) and drums, in spite of his father’s opposition. Beginning in 1999, Vieux studied guitar at the National Arts Institute in Bamako. During this time, he become a local celebrity who wrote his own music and performed energetic, stylistic live shows — proof that he is his father’s son.

Soon after, he became part of the back-up group for Toumani Diabaté, who urged Ali to finally give his son his blessing and encourage his musical talent. During this time, Vieux further developed his stage presence and gained valuable international experience. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not easy being green, you work hard to live sustainably, and at the same time you take every opportunity to enlighten others to live socially and environmentally responsible lives, if you didn’t you wouldn’t be reading this Creative Loafing Green Community post.

Here’s an idea…

It’s nice to see the “please print only if necessary” or “please consider the environment before printing this email” messages at the bottom of emails, but that statement really means nothing.  If you are going to add a tag (signature) to the end of every email you send, consider an informative/educational message.  Think about changing your email tag to include an environmentally meaningful and thought provoking fact.

For example:
Read the rest of this entry »

Progress Energy announced that it applied for $200 million in U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) federal infrastructure funds for the development of an electric Smart Grid in the Carolinas and Florida.  The DOE grant would be shared equally between the two states.

A “Smart Grid” is a modernized digital electric transmission and distribution system that delivers detailed, real-time energy use information to customers. Read the rest of this entry »

Eccentric and uber-funny English and German art punk/wave band Art Brut are named after French painter Jean Dubuffet’s definition of outsider art: art made without thought to imitation or presentation by prisoners, loners, the mentally ill, and other marginalized citizens.

Art brut is fronted by “Top of the Pops” fan Eddie Argos (vocals), and is currently rounded out by Jasper Future (guitar), Ian Catskilkin (guitar), Frederica Feedback (bass), and Mikey Breyer (drums). Legend states that they began writing songs five minutes after they formed.

The band, contemporaries of acts like Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party, formed in 2003. Blender Magazine soon described them as the best unsigned group in the UK. The band released their first LP in 2005, Bang Bang Rock and Roll, and it’s follow up, It’s a Bit Complicated, in 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

The Issue:

-During the school year, each student will create 240 pounds of waste.

-The average family with school age children will spend $594.24 on back-to-school purchases this year!

-During the school year, the average school throws away 38 tons of paper, the equivalent of 644 trees!

-Each year, six billion pens are thrown away in the U.S.!

-During the school year, each elementary school cafeteria creates 18,760 pounds of waste.

-Schools use more than $6 billion in energy every year and about $1.5 billion (or enough to hire about 30,000 new teachers) is wasted due to inefficiency! Read the rest of this entry »

The town of Arcadia in DeSoto County is currently building the nation’s largest photovoltaic plant.

According to Florida Power & Light (FPL) the $173.5 million, 25 megawatt solar generating facility should be operating by the second quarter of 2010.

In February, FPL broke ground on its DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center: Florida’s first commercial solar energy facility.  The facility is projected to produce an average of 42,000 MWh of electricity annually.  This enough to meet the needs of over 3,000 homes or over 7,000 people; nearly 20% of DeSoto County.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Issue
Hot water consumption!

The Greater Issue
Between 80 and 90 percent of the energy used to heat water is wasted.

With 110-million households in the country, that’s a lot of inefficiently used energy.

The cost of heating water amounts to 14% of your utility bill.

Be Part of the Solution
You don’t have to take cold showers, eat on dirty dishes or wear dirty clothes to conserve energy and save money.  Follow these simple steps to reduce your hot-water consumption:
Read the rest of this entry »

St Petersburg College’s Corporate Training Office announced a partnership with the Florida Gulf Coast Chapter (FGCC) of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to provide a comprehensive sustainable building operations training course based on the LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance rating system.

The course will be available August 17th.

According to the USGBC, LEED for Existing Buildings: O&M is the tool for the operation and maintenance of commercial and institutional buildings.  The certification system identifies and rewards best practices and describes ways for using less energy, water and natural resources; for improving indoor environment; and for uncovering operating inefficiencies. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you have a lead foot or drive an inefficient automobile?  Here are a few simple tips to improve gas mileage and save a bunch of green!

The Issue: Poor gas mileage!

The Larger Issue:
-Oil is a non-renewable resource, and while there is debate as to how long it will last, we will eventually have to find new ways to fuel vehicles.

-Poor fuel economy increases our dependence on foreign oil.

-Burning gasoline and diesel contributes to air pollution and global warming.

-You will pay an extra $200 to $1500 each year by driving inefficient vehicles. This can cost many thousands of dollars over a vehicle’s lifetime.

-Oil spills from oil refining and oil transporting destroy ecosystems and pollute water.
Read the rest of this entry »

St. Petersburg College recently announced that for the second time in as many months, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has awarded LEED Gold certification for one of its new campus buildings.

The Natural Science, Mathematics and College of Education building on the Clearwater campus received the certification. The other LEED Gold building is the Student Services building on the St Petersburg/Gibbs campus.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is a nationally accepted certifier of high performance and environmentally sensitive buildings. Gold is its second highest designation. Read the rest of this entry »

In 1967, that smug businessman from the film “The Graduate” took Dustin Hoffman’s character aside and declared “I just want to say one word to you, just one word: ‘plastics.’”  Ever since that iconic moment, plastic has signified society’s wasteful tendencies and has come to represent our “throwaway culture”.

The prepackaged bottle of water is the epitome of waste.

Plastic bottles are manufactured from non-renewable petroleum and natural gas.  Annually, Americans dispose of 29 billion water bottles, requiring 1.5-million barrels of crude oil (enough oil to keep 100,000 cars running for one year), resulting in the release of 2.5-million tons of carbon dioxide.  In addition, scientists have found that over time, plastic bottles can leach chemicals linked to birth defects, miscarriage and prostate cancer into the water. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you receive way too much junk mail? Here are some tips to lighten your junk mail load:

The issue:

-Every year, each of us receives almost 560 pieces of junk mail, accounting for 43% of all delivered mail!

-Every year, the US EPA estimates 44% of junk mail isn’t even opened, creating four tons of waste!

-Every year, junk mail uses as much energy as almost three million cars!

-Every year, junk mail consumes 100 million trees or approximately 550,000 tons of paper!
Read the rest of this entry »