Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts

Saturday 15 February 2020

Where Does All The Plastic Go? Gets Media Coverage


My protest song about plastic pollution entitled Where Does All The Plastic Go? has had some great media coverage, but it needs a lot more. The song has been featured in a national newspaper in Portugal and in a recent book from Italy. It would be wonderful if the British mainstream media would report on it too.

The Portugal News


Last September, The Portugal News included an article about my song after I was interviewed by Kim Schiffmann, who is one of the newspaper’s writers. There was a photo of me on the front page too and a caption which said: “Singing Against Pollution p11.” The Portugal News is a national newspaper in the English language and read by many an expat.


My song also received airplay in Portugal on Roque Duarte’s Sonic Fine Cut show on esradio.pt (Eclectic Sounds Radio) and Nação Sónica. The video for Where Does All The Plastic Go? had been made in Portugal by Filipe Rafael, and the song is included in my album Songs of The Now and Then, which is available as an environmentally packaged CD with a recycled egg box CD tray, or as a digital release on bandcamp. On Facebook, the video has had over 19,000 views. 


Where Does All The Plastic Go? is also available for streaming and downloads at Reverb Nation. 

SPAM: Stop Plastica A Mare and Ocean Aid



Meanwhile in Italy, Where Does All The Plastic Go? Has received some wonderful publicity thanks to Filippo Solibello, who is a top radio presenter and author there. He has included an entire chapter about me and my song in his book SPAM Stop Plastic A Mare, which he has been touring extensively to promote. He even got a copy of his book to Pope Francis.


Filippo has been showing the video of my song to audiences in Italy and also spreading word about my idea for an Ocean Aid concert to raise awareness on an international level, and as a fund-raiser for charitable organisations that are working to save the oceans and marine life in them. I think some very famous names would want to be involved if a massive concert could be organised, like Band Aid and Live Aid but this time it would be Ocean Aid. Many stars from the world of music, such as Ed Sheeran, Mick Jagger, Kanye West, Cerys Matthews, Chrissie Hynde and Brian May, have spoken out about plastic pollution but I think I am leading the way when it comes to songs on the subject. 

Music Interview Magazine
I am very grateful to Music Interview Magazine for publishing an in depth interview with me in which I explain about how I became alarmed about the ongoing threat from plastic. I mention David de Rothschild and how he sailed The Plastiki across the Pacific Ocean back in 2010. This was when I started following his work as an environmentalist and learned how bad the plastic pollution problem really is. Sadly, in the years that have gone by since then the size of the problem has multiplied on a mind-boggling scale, and we really do need to find ways of stopping it getting any worse and of getting as much of the plastic that is out there in the oceans out of them. Plastic is now everywhere. As micro-plastics it is in the air, soil and water. The environment worldwide has been contaminated by plastic pollution and plastic has entered the food chain which goes right up to us. This is why I sing: “Plastic kills the turtles and is eaten by the fish, plastic’s in the food chain and the dinner on your dish!” Please help me spread the word about my song and idea for an Ocean Aid concert. Plastic pollution affects everybody!

Monday 11 November 2019

My Protest Songs and Songs About the Environment

With the ongoing Climate Crisis and serious threat of extinction for so many species I have been writing and performing protests songs and songs that draw attention to the environment and to dangers to the wildlife of the world. I have four songs like this on my recent album Songs of the Now and Then, which is released in CD format and as a digital release on bandcamp, and was produced by Jayce Lewis. The CD is environmentally friendly because the tray and packaging is made from recycled eggbox. But now let’s take a look at the songs!
Where Does All The Plastic Go?
Where Does All The Plastic Go? Started life as a poem but I decided to make a song out of it because no one else in the world of music was singing about this problem that affects us all. There is a video made by Filipe Rafael and filmed in Portugal, and this video has had over 19,200 views on Facebook.

My song has been featured in The Portugal News and I was featured on the front page with a caption: “Singing Against Pollution P11.” It has also been featured in a book by Italian radio host and author Filippo Solibello.
In SPAM Stop Plastic A Mare, the author has given a 4-page chapter to it entitled Where Does All The Plastic Go? Filippo has been promoting his book and my song all over Italy and managed to get a copy to Pope Francis. He is also spreading the word about my idea for an Ocean Aid concert, like Band Aid and Live Aid but this time to raise awareness of the crisis at sea caused by plastic pollution , as well as overfishing and other threats to life in the oceans.
I am hoping that this concert will happen and will attract not only big sponsors but very big name bands and singers, who will be willing to take part. Money raised can be distributed to charities helping the oceans. Which ones is yet to be decided on but there are many. Streaming and free downloads of Where Does All The Plastic Go? are available at Reverb Nation.



The Nightingale
The Nightingale, is a song that not only talks about the threat of habitat destruction that is causing a serious decline in this iconic songbird , but talks about the problems caused by development schemes all over the UK and elsewhere. Land-grabs of green belt and forested areas are causing an incredible amount of destruction of the homes of a vast number of species of wildlife. It makes reference too, to the ongoing felling of trees in cities and towns. The song starts with the lyrics: “You’ll never hear a nightingale if their homes are no longer there, destroyed by a developer who doesn’t really care, despite their claims otherwise about biodiversity, ripped up hedges and bulldozed land’s the reality I see.” The Nightingale features vocals from well-known Welsh poet Mab Jones on the choruses. This song is very topical due to all the protests that continue in the UK, where people are trying their best to stop the destruction of the forests and countryside. As I write, there are ongoing demonstrations to Stop HS2, but many more protests are taking place to save the wild places of Britain.
Citizen of Earth
Citizen Of Earth is actually an old song of mine that has been brought up to date with a new recording. I have been aware of the problems the world faces for a long time but everything has got so much worse. This is why I am making protest songs my focus. Citizen of Earth makes reference to the cult TV series The Prisoner, which starred Patrick McGoohan as Number Six. It talks about social unrest and about how people are trapped in a system that is similar in many ways to the Roman Empire. “The Roman Empire was much like today, Patricians and Plebeians and social decay, until the fires burned it all away, the ghost of Nero’s still fiddling. Citizen of Earth has been played on Roque Duarte’s show on the radio in Portugal and has inspired two very different videos. One was made by Ludgero Corvo and the other is an animation by Simon C. Watch them both and see which one you like best!
 

Butterfly In My Beard

Butterfly In My Beard is the most lighthearted of these songs, though it still raises awareness about wildlife, in this case it is talking about butterflies. I rear these insects and the verses of my song refer to real-life incidents. I have had Monarch butterflies on my beard. The second verse goes: “They called me the Bugman on the news one time…. they called me the Bugman on the news, a Hissing Cockroach on my head got plenty of views…” These lyrics are about the time I was in the South Wales Echo in an article about how I kept exotic insects. 
When I perform the song live I get the audience to join in by “making butterflies” with their linked outstretched hands and by giving me a “yeah” at the right places. I am hoping to audition this song in front of the judges of Britain’s Got Talent.
Butterfly In My Beard at CamonesCinebar in Lisbon

Thursday 6 September 2012

Concert for Ocean Aid is an idea


Plastic rubbish on a beach



An idea based on Live Aid and Band Aid
I don't know about you but the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the appalling way the clean-up and stopping of the leak was handled really depressed me. I still cannot stop thinking about all the billions of sea birds, turtles, dolphins, fish and other marine creatures that will have lost their lives because of this tragedy, and the damage to the coast and marshland, as well as to the livelihoods of people who live in the States affected, is immeasurable.
Besides the ongoing ecological disaster, there is the very serious danger being caused by marine pollution by plastic. David de Rothschild sailed across the Pacific Ocean on 2009 on a catamaran made entirely from used plastic bottles and called the Plastiki. One of the main purposes of his expedition was to raise awareness of the pollution of the oceans by plastic waste.
All over the world people who are disgusted by what has happened to our seas are saying something must be done. I have been thinking deeply about it all and have come up with an idea based around the success in the past of the Band Aid charity single and the more recent Live Aid rock and pop concerts.

Ocean Aid the concert

The original idea for Band Aid had been hatched by Sir Bob Geldof, who with the help of Midge Ure, had assembled a collection of pop and rock singers to lend their talents to a charity single entitled Do They Know It's Christmas? It was recorded and released under the collective name of Band Aid.


Bob Geldof

It swiftly became a number one single. Singers involved included Bono from U2, Boy George, George Michael, Bananarama and Paul Young.
From this in 1985, Live Aid followed on and in 2005 there was Live 8. These massive charity concerts featured appearances by a host of internationally famous pop and rock stars and were screened worldwide so were seen by billions of people.
If such events could be organised to help benefit the starving and poor people of the world then why not a similar effort being made to raise awareness about the dangers to our oceans and to raise funds for their protection?
As to where the money raised would go that would have to be worked out. There are activist groups like Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd that work on marine environmental campaigns but there are many more organisations that are concerned with keeping the oceans as they should be. Perhaps a new one could be set up inspired by the growing need for something to be done to protect the oceans and their ecosystems?
It is not just plastic pollution and the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that is killing marine life. Overfishing, bottom trawling and over-acidification of the seas are all wreaking havoc too. Because the water is becoming too acid coral reefs are disappearing and along with them go the complicated and very beautiful ecosystems of life that depend on them.
Anyway, having come up with the idea I did a bit of "Googling" to see if the term Ocean Aid was already being used. I was very pleased to find that a team of people have thought like me and that Ocean Aid 2010 had already been organised.
That doesn't stop a much bigger global event or series of concerts at stadium-sized venues to also happen though. An Ocean Aid single could be written, recorded and released and possibly to be followed by an album of songs written specially for it. The concert or concert series could all be recorded both as sound recordings and as visual footage that could be broadcast on worldwide TV and sold later as DVD releases.
Then there would be Ocean Aid merchandising. The possibilities are endless.
I am sure very many stars from the world of pop and rock music would be only too glad to be involved in this. Film stars and other celebrities could appear on stage at the concerts too as special guests.
It would of course be a lot of work organising all this that I have outlined here, but it has all been done before and to great success. I am presenting here the seed of the idea.
What is needed now is Sir Bob or someone else with the celebrity status and power to make this happen! Now are we going to make this happen? Who can help?
Ocean Aid links
·        David de Rothschild's supporters and fans on Facebook
Facebook site for David de Rothschild's supporters and fans
·        The Plastiki Expedition
The Plastiki, a boat made from 12,500 Plastic bottles, sailing from San Francisco to Sydney on a mission to showcase waste as a resource and highlight plastic pollution.