CDs play a new tune.It's a cold and rainy spring day, and Craig Minowa is stomping around in his bare feet bare feet symbol of impoverishment. [Folklore: Jobes, 181] See : Poverty . Beside him, his band Cloud Cult Cloud Cult is an experimental indie rock band led by singer/songwriter Craig Minowa. The band was nominated "Artist of the Year" by the 2004 Minnesota Music Awards. History roars through some old and new favorites for a small but dedicated crowd of Connecticut college Connecticut College is a coeducational private liberal arts college located in New London, Connecticut. It is located on the Thames River, on which the College's crew and sailing teams practice. students. This isn't just your average indie rock Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that primarily exists in the independent underground music scene. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with underground music as a whole, though more specifically implicates that the music meets the criterion of being rock, as buzz band with a Top 10 hit in the college charts. What's significant about Minowa and Cloud Cult is how they are working to revolutionize the music industry. After being unable to find an acceptable CD replication Manufacturing CDs and CD-ROMs by stamping blank plastic discs from a metal die that contains the predefined pit pattern (binary pattern). Contrast with CD duplication. service to mass produce his music, Minowa founded Earthology Records in 1997. From the start, Minowa knew that he would build his company with the core value of living lightly on the Earth. The record company boasts a wind-powered recording studio that is also geothermally heated, built with recycled materials and set within an organic farm in central Minnesota Central Minnesota is the name of the region consisting of the central portion of the state of Minnesota. Although no specific boundaries of the region exist, most definitions of what makes up the region would generally consist of the vast swath of land north of Interstate 94, east . "We just thought there's no point in doing this if it's not going to be sustainable," says Minowa. The location was ideal for its placement between Minnesota's two music meccas, Duluth and Minneapolis, and for its highly fertile soil, which provided opportunities for sustainable development. What makes Earthology so innovative is its employment of recycled and eco-friendly materials into nearly the entire production process, including reclaimed jewel cases collected from bins in college record stores nationwide, the highest recycled content papers on the market, nontoxic soy inks and a CD replication process that involves recycling of CD cut scraps into milk cartons. Earthology even employs corn-based shrink wrap, instead of the toxic PVC PVC: see polyvinyl chloride. PVC in full polyvinyl chloride Synthetic resin, an organic polymer made by treating vinyl chloride monomers with a peroxide. counterpart. Currently, Minowa and company are also exploring technology to make the disc itself more eco-friendly. "The CD is tricky," says Minowa. "It's the most toxic part of the process." And then there's the music. For now, Cloud Cult is the only band released on Earthology, but that may change as the company grows. Two wet concertgoers discuss Minowa's lack of shoes: "He's a farmer," one explains to the other. Indeed, with the group's touring van decked out with solar panels and organic cotton t-shirts for sale, this band aims to live lightly on the Earth. But the stereotypes stop there. "People always think we're some folk or jam band, and we're not. We're college indie rock. Our music isn't preachy preach·y adj. preach·i·er, preach·i·est Inclined or given to tedious and excessive moralizing; didactic. preach ," tells Minowa. "Instead, we want to show other bands how things can be." CONTACT: Earthology Records, (320)237-0432, www.earthology.net.--Rachel Anderson |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion