The Best Green Festivals of 2008

Eco-friendly music festivals are no longer the hippy-fueled, wishy washy events they once were. Folk trios have been replaced by solar powered rock, and locally sourced, organic beef has taken the place of cardboard like tofu-burgers. Now green festivals are all about great music with less of an impact on the planet. Here’s the Jamble guide to 2008’s best green festivals.

Kokua Festival
19-20 April, Kokua, Hawaii
Lineup highlights: Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews, Paula Fuga

The Jack Johnson fronted, carbon neutral festival is returning to Hawaii for the third time, and as in previous festivals, generators will run on bio-diesel, Festival t-shirts will be made from organic cotton, concert posters will be printed on recycled paper and organic, local food will be on sale. For those who choose to bike to the show, free bike parking and a valet service will be provided, and anyone flying in will be given the opportunity to offset their travel emissions when they buy their ticket.

kokuafestival.com

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Roskilde Festival
3-6 July, Roskilde, Denmark
Lineup highlights: Enter Shakiri, The Chemical Brothers, Efterklang

Green initiatives at Roskilde include a deposit system for cups and a recycling program for unwanted sleeping bags and tents. Ticket sales help fund the Roskilde Festival Charity Society, which gives grants to charities across the globe, and this year a special focus will be placed on Fair Trade, which the festival believes should extend beyond chocolate and bananas to electronics too. With profits on components going directly to the local communities where they were mined.

roskilde-festival.dk

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West Coast Blues & Roots
15-16 March, Freemantle, Australia
Lineup highlights: Eskimo Joe, Salmonella Dub, The Beautiful Girls

Green roots at this festival include Green Money - anyone who returns a recycling bag filled with crushed cans or water bottles will get $5 voucher to spend at the festival. Also, the festival will be plating one tree for every ticket they sell, cell phones can be recharged at a solar station, all the plates, food boxes and cutlery are compostable, and punters will be able to visit eco-stalls run by Aussie environmental groups.

Sunsetevents.com.au

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Vans Warped Tour 2008
20 June - 17 Aug, Various venues
Lineup highlights: The Pinker Tones, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Gym Class Heroes

Roaming across the US gives the Warped Tour an opportunity to reach a vast audience with their eco-message. Last year's festival featured a solar powered stage, crew and band vehicles fueled by bio-diesel and Spudware cutlery (made from potatoes) in its catering truck. As an extra incentive to recycle, festival-goers who recycle 10 items of trash will also have the chance to win a vacation.

warpedtour.com

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Other eco-festivals worth checking out:

• Langerado, Australia. 6-9 March.
  
• Austin City Limits Festival, USA. 26-28 September
  
• Rock Werchter, Belgium. 3-6 July
  
• Monolith Festival, Colorado, USA. 13-14 September
  
• Latitude Festival, Suffolk, UK. 17-20 July
  
• Glastonbury Festival, Somerset, UK. 27-29 June.
  

The Pinker Tones

Barcelona, Spain

Spanish, Japanese, French, English - no matter what language the latest tune from the Pinker Tones is sung in, there is always one strict constant - that wherever in the world you're from, you'll be dancing.

Mr Furia and Professor Manso - the Spanish duo who make up the Pinker Tones, have been developing their brand of funky, and in the last two years their musical mixologist skills have been enhanced with some international style and flair.

The funky, jazzed up flavors of their previous album, The Million Color Revolution, have been re-mixed and re-worked by a varied menu of international artists and musicians they met during their worldwide tour - and the result, the remix album More Colours, packs a punch stronger than a straight shot.

The secret of their success is in their varied ingredients, keeping you guessing by throwing in Japanese rap, steel drums, flutes, theramins and more to produce unique and fun music with a true worldwide appeal.

thepinkertones.com

Shawn Waters And Group Think

Rhode Island, USA

Based on the east coast but with a sound that would be more at home in a one horse Western town, Shawn Waters and his band are clearly inspired by Tom Waits and Nic Cage.

Shawn Water's voice in particular mimics the gruff Wait's style, often sounding as those he has gargled with hot gravel before stepping up to the microphone, but as a perfect foil to Water's rough edges, singer Rosalind Raskin smoothes things out in some well written duets.

The group's first album 'Songs for you' is stuffed full of tales of drinks, drugs and sin, with Water's delivering vocals in a slow, slam poetry style. A couple of tracks stand out, but overall the band are likely to remain a live, underground act, well worth a listen, however.

shawnwatersandgroupthink.com

Eskimo Joe

Perth, Australia

Huge chart toppers in the land down under, Eskimo Joe's third album 'Black Fingernails, Red Wine' was released in Oz in 2006 and launched the band into the big time, with platinum sales and music awards raining down on their heads - and now the album has finally been released in the US this month.

Approaching a decade together, the three piece have drawn in influences from the likes of fellow Aussie group Powderfinger, the Killers, and My Chemical Romance and have emerged with an upbeat sound, infused with melodic piano and stirring vocals to create a well rounded rock album.

The groups real challenge in the US will be whether they can convince the record buyers that their sound is original enough to shell out the cash without taking a further ten years to break the market.

virb.com/EskimoJoe

Ishfaq

Split, Croatia

Chilled out beats with a jazz and blues vibe is Ishfaq's specialty, and this is music with a true international blend. Ishfaq himself was born in the UK but gathered musical influences while living in Ireland and Holland before the move to his current hometown of Split, and his recent release on Dublin based label Scribble Records, features vocalists from New Zealand, Sweden and London.

Although Ishfaq dishes out the vocal duties to others, all the instruments are played by himself, and minced up and blended using an MPC and laptop - his main on stage instruments.
His latest EP 'The Change' delivers a few stylish and original nu-jazz offerings, but Ishfaq also spends his time remixing the likes of Bugz in the Attic and Doob - but as is often the case, the original recordings are the better tunes.

virb.com/ishfaq

Shotta

Seville, Spain

Shotta, aka Ignacio González Rodriguez, began his MC career aged just 16 in a duo formed with his elder brother, a rapper known as Tote King, and the early start has been good for him, as Shotta recently got to number one in the Spanish charts with his latest solo single, 'Los Raperos Nunca Mueren'.

Shotta molds his native Adalucian Spanish into fast flowing, intense rap, covering everything from politics to masturbation in his lyrics. Although there are some clear inspiration from the US hip-hop scene, Shotta draws on a much wider range of influences for his music and features Arabic and Asian music and Spanish TV samples to embellish his lyrics.

Following the success of the single, Shotta is now working on his second solo album, due to be released later in 2007.

myspace.com/shottifer

Kim Novak

Caen, France

Quite why this French four piece named themselves after a 1950's Hollywood actress is unclear, but it is clear that they take their musical influence from a very different era.

The group fit nicely into the group of new wave of 80's inspired bands such as Interpol and the Editors. Singer Jérémie's vocals, the multiple layers of guitar and hammering piano build up a melancholic wall of sound, reminiscent of Joy Division, but the group do have more upbeat moments too, and offer plenty of variety on their debut album 'Luck and Accident'.

Kim Novak have achieved some moderate success in France, but despite singing in English, they haven't yet received much attention in the UK, and there are no current plans for a UK tour, but they easily have the potential to gain a large British fanbase.

virb.com/kimnovak

Ladi 6

Auckland, New Zealand

Hip-hop MC Karoline Tamati first introduced her vocal talents to New Zealand as part of the Christchurch based hip-hop crew Sheelaroc - an eight strong, all girl group, featuring Japanese, Maori, Samoan and Niuean members; but after the ethnic-supergroup's split, Tamati moved north to Auckland (as all ChCh based musicians inevitably do) to pursue her solo career under the guise of Ladi6.

Tamati's husky soul tones have already proved popular with Aotearoa's growing hip-hop and dub scenes, and has led to countless collaborations with some of the country's top emerging artists, such as Scribe and Shapeshifter, but she's now producing her first solo work and is currently recording her debut album.

New Zealand's own particular brand of chilled out music has already proved popular, with acts such as Bic Runga, Salmonella Dub and Fat Freddie's Drop all finding success worldwide, so Ladi6 has some great foundations to work from, and her album could easily prove to be her ticket to global recognition.

ladi6.com

YACHT

Portland, USA

Every few years or so a man is born with so much creativity that it could be siphoned off them and sold on as sold a drug. Jona Bechtolt is such a man.

YACHT is Jona's one man electronica extravaganza, but it's not his only project - not by a long shot.

Some of the musical pies Jona has his fingers stuck in include being one half of the pop-electronica group The Blow, knocking out outstanding remixes for the likes of Architecture in Helsinki, and playing drums on tour for Devendra Banhart.

Jona doesn't just stop with music, however. Somehow he also manages to find the time to tour the globe, blog, film movies and produce contemporary art for MoMA - and all, he claims, without the use of stimulants.

His latest solo album, 'I believe in you, your magic is real', is stuffed full of bleeping, clicking electro-riffs, guest vocalists and magical laptop samples, all played backwards, up side down and wrung out until every last drop of musical goodness has been squeezed in.

It's no surprise therefore that Jona doesn't describe himself as a musician, instead his chosen job title is magician - and we can't find any fault with that claim.

teamyacht.com

Red Motor Dog

Reykjavik, Iceland

Icelandic bands remain a mystery to many music lovers across the globe. Despite a wealth of musical talent it seems only the quirky and odd have managed to break through to UK or US charts.

If things were different Red Motor Dog would be prime candidates for topping the rock charts. Their pure power-chord crunching rock serves up a blend of gravel strewn, smoky vocals, monstrous riffs and firey solos that will keep all air-guitar fans happy.

The four piece are currently unsigned, but recently released their own self-produced album called Rock Machine, which despite clearly showing influences such as Queens of the Stone Age, Motorhead and Metallica, still has plenty of originality.

Red Motor Dog may hail from the land of fire and ice, but they would probably feel more at home in a biker bar off Route 66.

myspace.com/redmotordog

The Fall of Troy

Mukilteo, USA

The Fall of Troy, a young trio of lads from Mukilteo in Washington, first flew onto musical radars in 2005 with the release of their first studio album, Doppelganger - a fast paced, intense record that defied pigeonholing, crammed with tracks that sounded like a mortar attack on an enemy outpost.

The group's latest album, Manipulator, follows a similar path, but offers even greater diversity. This is a group that excel at keeping the listener guessing, changing direction from insanely quick pick work to rhythmical choruses and mixing up aggressive, screaming vocals with tuneful lyrics and sing-along verses.

The Fall of Troy revel in defying song structures and expectations. "We wanted to expand upon our band in every direction musically and attitude-wise," Says singer/guitarist Thomas Erak. "To push the envelope even further than what we've done before. We've figured out what we want to sound like and it’s a million different things. We wanted to go in different directions and see where we could take it. I think we went above and beyond that."

While the band's albums pack a punch, its necessary to see them live to experience the full force of the trio - who play with an intensity and speed that many more experienced bands would find hard to match.

thefalloftroy.com

John Butler Trio

Pinjarra, Australia

In a world of commercial, manufactured acts, it's always refreshing to discover a group like the John Butler Trio.

The band, having made the leap from struggling independent to mainstream act, have retained their values and continued to plant their political and ecological views within their music, despite the fact that it may offend some listeners of the commercial radio stations.

Their songs have attacked Australia's immigration policies, the worldwide logging industry and even those who apathetically stand by and "watch like a lady getting her handbag stolen" while politicians continue to abuse their power.

The group don't just talk the talk either. John Butler set up the JB Seed program in 2005 - a grant scheme designed to help other emerging artists break into the industry; and on their current ‘Grand National’ tour the group have initiated several green schemes.

As well as touring in a biodiesel tour bus, they are also offering organic cotton merch, using 100% recycled paper and soy based inks for all printed materials and staying at hotels identified as more sustainable.

Ticket buyers for the tour were also given the option a paying an additional 50 cents to make their journey to the concert carbon neutral.

JBT aren't just green, of course, they are also one of Australia's finest musical exports, creating music rooted in blues, chock full of delightful slide guitar solos and dashed with dozens of different musical influences.

johnbutlertrio.com

Viva Machine

Swansea, Wales

The recent new wave revival has resulted in several fashions coming back into style - drainpipe trousers, big hair, and the korg keyboard - which in the hands of Viva Machine, is a very welcome return.

Although the group shun the new wave sound themselves, the korg is a central part of the band's sound. Lead singer Chris bashes away on it like a mad scientist in a crazed experiment; and together with two further backing vocalists the resulting harmonies would make any Welsh male voice choir proud.

As well as his talent at hitting the high note, Chris also has a knack of crafting some inspired lyrics, which vary from time machines and space travel to modern day sea shanties, complete with 'yo ho' sing-along choruses.

The four piece are currently in the studio recording their debut album, and with the following they have built up from their massively fun live performances, the album is certain to be a hit.

myspace.com/vivamachine

Flit

Ivano-Frankivs, Ukraine

Here at Jamble we've always believed that good music is good music, no matter what language its sung in - and Ukrainian punk band Flit help drive that point home.

Flit, pronounced Fleet, put together their current line-up around the same time as the Ukrainian Orange revolution - which helped spark a creative as well as political change in the country, and Flit's brand of melodic punk rock was just one of the many results.

The four-piece band recorded their first album in 2004 and released their follow up album 'Zanykay' (Hide It) in 2006, a fun album stacked full of anthemic choruses and tuneful Ukrainian vocals, and the occasional homage to Green Day and Offspring.

Don't be fooled that these guys are singing about fluff, however. Flit have attracted a large following in Poland and Ukraine thanks to their 'intelligent rock' and politically charged lyrics, but even without a translation, the music is strong.

myspace.com/flitband