The Grownup Noise - This Time With Feeling

It’s no secret to readers of this here blog that The Grownup Noise is quickly moving up the ranks to one of my very favorite local bands. So when I got the 411 that they were releasing a new disc, it’s safe to say the anticipation for it was palpable. I was happy to tear off the shrink wrap and pop that baby right into my player the very day it arrived.

As expected, I was not let down.

This Time With Feeling was, as the title suggests, full of, well, feeling! Not to mention the band’s distinctive, signature sound. Lead singer and guitarist Paul Hansen put his pen to paper this time around and conjured up twelve songs with lyrics that provoke emotion from the listener, and that ethereal quality of musical reflection these hard working guys and gals have come to be known for.

Paul, along with cellist Katie Franich, bassist Adam Sankowski and drummer Aine Fujioka, (as well as Kyle Crane on drum and Todd Marston on accordian) spin their delicate, yet powerful, beats and strings into a blend of music that defies any labeling into one specific genre; their music truly has something for everybody to enjoy.

This album seriously crosses gender/genre/age/taste lines so smoothly I could play it for anyone and I guarantee they would find at least one track they love. But it isn't all over the place either. Like a runway show at fashion week, the songs stand alone yet still represent a cohesive collection.

When I loaded the disc into my iTunes it classifies as Alternative but there is an influence of jazz, urban/indie pop, folk and smooth summertime groove on every track of this album. Each member of the band (plus a host of featured guests) mixes it up among multiple instruments and vocal backing to bring the fullness of the entire band’s talent front and center; no matter what you call it, the thing is just plain great.

Right off the bat I recognized a couple songs as they were featured on their 2010 EP Shall We? including the lead off song “Strawmen” which was more than a pleasant way to ease right into this disc as if it was my favorite recliner chair. As I continued to listen my ears perked at three more songs from the EP -- “The Artist Type”, “Six Foot Solemn Oath” and “So It Goes”. It was fun to hear some grooves that I was already familiar with blend seamlessly into the additional eight tracks on the disc.

Then I got to track 9, “Just So You Know”. Within twenty seconds the words “this is a radio single” tumbled out of my mouth. And I mean it. I could picture hearing this song on just about any contemporary radio station and bopping along as I roll the windows down in the warm winds of spring. It’s a perfect song to drive to, to cook to, to dance to and to sing along with.

The lyrics are catchy, there’s that thing, that hook, that any radio song really needs, but it isn’t overtly in your face like some pop songs. They hug you with it and it washes over you like it’s your best friend and closest confidant. By the time I got to the end of the song it was like I’d already known it forever.

The last three tracks didn’t disappoint either and the final track, “Somehow We Escaped” is stripped down, ballad-esque and whimsical as Paul and a baritone guitar sweetly, and honestly, put you at ease with his utterly unique voice. You know, despite the fact that the lyrics are about anything but whimsical subjects.

And when it ends all you’ll want to do is start it over again from the beginning. Which I did. Immediately, and with a smile.

Where It All Began

My self proclaimed groupieness with this band started years ago, before I’d even heard a single note from even one of their instruments, when I found out they had converted a 30 some odd year old van to run on veggie oil and they were planning to use it to tour that very summer. The van, dubbed with the moniker Lorian (as taken directly from the side of the van), made two back to back summer tours and was put to rest before last year’s summer tour.

After speaking with Adam about why Lorian had to be put out to pasture I learned that, although veggie conversions are a great idea for bands, they’re still in the earliest stages of testing and, basically, the kinks were kind of outweighing the benefits.

That’s not to say the band is all about stomping on the planet now, quite the opposite! They’re still uber conscious, recycling on the road and keeping an eye on their fuel consumption by limiting the zig-zag of a typical tour. And that makes them even cooler in my book.

Where You Can See them Live

A kick off show for the release of This Time With Feeling is happening this Friday night at the Middle East Downstairs, right in Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tickets are insanely cheap, $12, and are likely to sell out quick because these folks have a pretty healthy local following.

(Hint, hint -- go buy your ticket now!)

But if you can’t make it to that show fear not! The band is on every social media network known to man -- Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and you can listen to their live music on YouTube, just search The Grownup Noise. Not to mention a schedule of appearances is updated regularly on their official website.

Trust me, buy this new disc, you will not be disappointed.

The Grownup Noise Kicks Off their Tour Tonight in Cambridge

One of our long time fans and supporters of Green Leaf Reviewer, The Grownup Noise, is once again hitting the road and they open their summer 2010, coast to coast tour right here in their hometown tonight.

It’s their fifth tour but this year things will be a little different. As many of you who have been reading for a while know the band has toured for the past couple summers in a van who’s diesel engine was converted to also run on veggie oil. The band had a love-hate relationship with the van, which they lovingly named Lorian, but after far too many incidents last summer, she was officially retired.

But does that make these guys & gals any less responsible when it comes to touring? Heck no!

This year the tour, aptly dubbed the “Mom & Pop Tour”, will only feature three band members, who will all take turns bouncing around between instruments. It sounds pretty rad and high energy to me! The energy on stage unfortunately will not propel them all the way to California of course so they made some adjustments.

The band will be touring in a smaller mini van, and they even went out to procure smaller amps in order to reduce what is being toted around in it while on the road. They won’t be dragging a trailer behind them so, as they put it, “the band [is] focusing more on reducing rather than recycling” this time out.

They certainly care about their overall impact and do whatever they can to ensure their footprint remains as small as possible while they bring their fun grooves to the ears of eager fans. Yea for that!

They are touring the release of their new EP Shall We? and it really should be a rocking good time. I fully intend to get out to The Lizard Lounge on Mass Ave in Cambridge tonight to see the first show of the tour and highly encourage all of you to find the date closest to your town so you too can catch their act.


July 31st Boston, Ma. Lizard Lounge
August 3rd Montpelier, Vt. Langdon St. Cafe
August 8th Dayton, Ohio South Park Tavern
August 9th Chicago, Illinois Elbo Room
August 11th Minneapolis, MN Acadia Café
August 13th Denver, CO Walnut Room
August 15h Albuquerque, NM Atomic Cantina
August 16th Tucson, AZ Skybar
August 17th Los Angeles, CA Room 5
August 19th San Diego Winston’s
August 20th San Fran, CA Kimo’s Penthouse
August 21st Sacramento, CA The Naked Lounge
August 25th Portland, OR Ella St. Social Club
August 26th Seattle, WA Comet Tavern
August 27th Spokane, WA TBD

To read about the band’s former adventures with Lorian or their continued efforts to spread the word on veggie oil you can click here.

Off-roading with The Grownup Noise -- Back Home in Boston

They saw crazy thunderstorms, braved breakdowns and played their melodies to countless thousands across the United States and now The Grownup Noise are finally back home, safe and sound in Boston gearing up for their final show of the fall.

The tour this summer was a bit more whirlwind than last, not to mention they played slightly larger venues with more recognizable names on the bill. These folks deserve a big shot of killer success because they are a caring and fun band who just rock.

Especially because the AC in the van died somewhere in Tennessee in the middle of the summer. Even more so because they sprang a hole that had to be patched on the fly.

But speaking to Adam Sankowski, bassist for the band, it would never be obvious they had a moment of trouble because this band takes it all in stride!

Year two in the veggie van...how different was it from last year?

There were tons of differences. First off, grease was everywhere for the most part, or restaurants were very excited to see us! Because of the drop in fuel prices, used veggie oil is worth less too (which isn’t necessarily a good thing for the environment) so a lot of the start up environmental companies that were around last year, and who made it difficult for us to find it, simply were out of business. So we had to spend a bit less time convincing restaurant owners to give it to us, and most of them had heard about what we were doing so there was a bit less “you drive your van on what?”

This year was also different in that we had a lot of mechanical problems with the system, and our tank got a crack in the seam and started leaking. Not a fun time on the tour, but we worked through it and my genius mechanical roomie and I are going to re-do the entire system when we get the chance. So although there were problems we learned a lot too. It's still an emerging technology and we’re basically trying to figure out how to collect, filter, heat, and burn garbage on the go, which is no small feet. So it seems like whenever we head out on the road there is always some new, easy to fix, but stressful at the moment problem that we have to learn about and fix on the road. There just seemed to be more of them now that she’s got two years of veggie oil in her. Like I had no idea that it will clog your fuel injectors after some time so that you can’t go over 45 on the highway. It was an easy fix, just pouring in injector cleaner, but it can be stressful when you can’t go over 40 mph on veggie fuel on the way to Chicago…

Now that traveling by grease is "old hat" did the newness wear off or are you still in love with Lorian?

Well, Lorian and I will always be in love, especially since she’s 21 plus now and can finally buy me beer. She’s an old van, but they really don’t make them like they used to. With all of the problems we had with the veggie system at times, we didn’t have a single mechanical problem with the van itself in all of the 6,000 plus miles we drove. And she’s a 1988. Plus the van was totally top of the line in 88’ so although she looks like a mobile late 80’s history museum right now, she’s probably the nicest thing I’ll ever own.

What was Kyle's impression of this form of travel since it was his first year in the van? (Kyle Crane, Drummer)

He loved it on so many levels. Being a professional drummer he lives on about 5 dollars a week. Nobody is better at not spending money than Kyle, and nobody loves free stuff more than him. So the concept of not paying for gas blew his mind. He was a fast learner and very excited to collect grease.

Are Paul and Katie still fans? Who of the four of you did the most driving? (Paul Hansen, lead vocal & guitar; Katie Franich, cellist)

I think that they are… I think the tank busting on the west coast was stressful for everyone and made us realize how easy it is for this system to break and how we really are kind of “riding the line” with the van. Touring with it is a lot of fun, but at the end of the day we are traveling with a lot of hot grease and with that comes great responsibility and that we probably need to re-work the system if we are to go out in the same van again.

We all split a lot of the driving pretty equally. Paul did a lot of the driving out west but that’s because I got internet from my phone and I did a lot of emailing and sending of our press releases out, and bugging people to come to shows. But we all did our own heroic ten hour drives at times.

Since gas prices have dropped so much from last summer, do you think it was still a financial savings?

Yeah, totally. Maybe not just from this summer but if you combine the two summers… I mean, I hope so! If we really figured it out, maybe it wouldn’t be if we had a super fuel-efficient brand new van, but Lorian gets like 3 miles to the gallon so veggie fuel is our only real option. All I know is that when the system wasn’t working so well in Chicago we had to drive for a day before we could fix it and it was a solid 200 dollars in fuel for the day, so I can’t imagine doing that everyday. Nobody came back in any real debt and we are able to support ourselves throughout the month simply through touring, and I can’t imagine doing that and paying for gas.

Did you find it more difficult to obtain grease this time around? Were there any places you went back to that you stopped at last year?

Like I said, it was much easier. And yes, we kept a log of all the good grease spots so that made it easy to find old ones. We visited at least three or four and the one in Minneapolis was one of the best grease “scores” of the tour and they were so nice and excited to see that we came back.

Tell us about any issues you faced this year you didn't encounter last year with the van itself.

Like I touched on previously, we had problems with the injectors, the internal heating system (to heat up the veggie oil) and our actual tank cracked. Nothing worse could have happened than that… Basically everything that could go wrong did the second time. But it has inspired us to re-do the entire system. Keep an eye out for a “Grownup Noise” signature veggie van system soon!

Talk to us about breaking down, how difficult was it to find someone who would service the van?

Well, we really lucked out because our major breakdown happened between Seattle and Portland and the inventor of our entire veggie system and the pioneer of www.greasenotgas.com lives in Portland. He hooked us up with an amazing welder on a Sunday. And my roommate is a diesel mechanic so he talked me through fixing everything else over the phone (re-wiring the tail lights, fixing A/C, cleaning the injectors). We call it “Sean-star”.

How likely do you think it is the van will make it for another tour next summer?

Honestly I think that Lorain might be brought out to pasture soon… or sold to a younger punk band that’s full of energy and maybe has a budding young mechanic as a drummer? I mean, I love her dearly but it is a 20-year-old van. She’s old and it might be time to just stay on one coast. If we just tour the east coast in the near future we’ll use her, but heading all the way out to the west coast is a bit much for her and we might be on borrowed time anyways with her.

But, my genius mechanic roommate and I are going to invest in a much newer van, research all the other new systems and companies that are out there and then create our own. I’ve seen a hundred things at this point that can go wrong with a veggie oil system and I think that between to two of us we can design something really good. At least we have some good ideas on how to improve the system and we might try putting the design under the van, functioning almost as a traditional gas tank…but that’s another interview!

Do you have any photos you would like to share?

Yes, they are up on our Facebook!
You can view them here: 2009 Summer Tour

When are your final shows and where can we all get out to see you?

Final shows? Well we are going “underground” for the winter to finally finish our second album, which is a long time in the making, but we have no plans of stopping anytime soon!

We’re playing our “last show for a good while”, our “recording hibernation” kick off show, on Saturday, October 24th @ TT the Bears in Central Square Cambridge, MA (10 Brookline St.).

The Grownup Noise - Re-Fried and Back on the Road

The Grownup Noise is a Boston band which happens to care so much about the planet that last year before their summer musical expedition they converted an old van to run on veggie oil and used it exclusively to tour all the way to California and back. The tour in the van was a rousing success so they are packing up for a repeat this summer, starting this Friday (dates at the end of the interview).

I recently touched base with Adam (or as some might call him, ‘Mr. Press’) and he was anxious to share where The Grownup Noise is now, with relation to the band, the van and their music, since we spoke last summer.

For those who have not read the full story, I highly recommend checking out all of the following links before diving into this interview:

Touring with a Side of Fries: Part I - The Band Gets a Van
Kicking Off the Veggie Van Tour in Boston
Touring with a Side of Fries: Part II - Hitting the Road

I think the first most important question everyone is dying to know the answer to is - have you named the van yet?

Yes we have, although she kinda came named. It’s an old 1988 E-350 and it was converted into a luxury conversion van. The company that converted it kinda named it as it says on the side of the van “Lorain Motor Coach”. I’m not sure if that’s the name of the company or not, but that’s her name, Lorain.

Have you taken her around town since last summer's tour?

Yes, as much as I can. She’s only really good for trips over forty-five minutes though as it takes ten minutes just to heat up, so we use the van for all the regional dates -- Northampton, Portland, ME, Albany, etc.

I’m actually typing this in the van as we drive back from the Cape, and are running on veggie oil.

What is the most common reaction or question you are still getting from fans and bystanders?

I think that a lot of people have at least heard of the concept by now, as alternative fuels got so much press last summer as the prices inched towards five dollars a gallon. It seemed like everywhere you went you couldn’t escape an article on alternative fuels.
It’s kinda sad in some ways that alternative fuels get such lower press when gas is affordable.

Most people either don’t quite understand what I am talking about when I explain it, or they understand mechanics and don’t believe me. My new roommate is a diesel mechanic and he didn’t believe me when I first explained what kind of van I had. Now he is a total believer and can’t understand why this isn’t talked about amongst mechanics more. He is also the sole reason that our van currently works and we owe him everything!

How has the band evolved since last summer? Talk to us about your members and what has gone on there.

Well, the band is doing well and musically I feel like we have evolved a good deal, and in a really good and natural way. Paul’s song writing continues to change and amaze me. Before he would write new songs and we would spend forever arranging them only to get really bored with them or feel like they didn’t represent or sound like what we heard in our heads. I think that everyone in the band has heard what we could sound like for a while now and we are finally realizing this. I feel like we are much happier with our songs now, and they will have a much longer shelf life and be something that we will want to play for a while.

As far as band members go, we have changed some drummers. Absolutely no bad stories or anything, and everyone has become a member of the extended band family, it’s just that life gets in the way sometimes, and playing in an original band is one of the largest time commitments and serious relationships you can engage in.

The drummer we did our last summer tour with, Attis, got an offer from his first band, Eli “Paperboy” Reid to go and tour Europe with him during November, and Attis would have been a fool not to jump at that. Then Eli just blew up, got signed to Virgin Records, and Attis is busier than ever. We go to his shows with him though and catch up as much as we can. Then we started playing with Aine, but she had to go back to Japan for the summer, and hopefully we’ll start playing with her again in the fall.

For the tour we’re playing with our original drummer Kyle, who now lives in LA, but wanted to take a break from the city and hit the road with us for a month. At this rate we’ll hopefully have drummers in ever city and we’ll just have a huge extended drummer family!

For those who did not hear about your infamous route 93 breakdown, are you willing to talk about it? Did it change your mind about driving a 20+-year-old van?

More than willing! We had one of our belts break, which then took out another. Because of that we lost all power and our breaks…yikes! So, I’m probably always way too paranoid about weird van sounds and such but she actually does really well most of the time. Although she is old she only has 13,000 miles on her and the older couple that I bought it from really babied it. I have been assured by my roomie mechanic that most diesels last forever.

Like I mentioned, my roommate is a lifesaver and fixed the belts for us, as well as replacing most of the parts on the van in anticipation of the tour.

As sketchy as all of our touring vehicles have been we have never missed a show on tour, and the show we missed because of the belt was our first in ever in our four years.

Are you going back to any cities you toured through last summer and if so do you expect to find their grease is still free for the taking?

We always try to book our tours so that we hit most of the same cities, so we can continue to build upon previous tours. Last year I was able to keep a detailed log of every restaurant that we went to that was friendly and gave us grease, so I’m really hoping that pays off this year.

I think that things are actually going to be 100% easier this time, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. Because fuel prices dropped so much there isn’t the same intensity that existed last summer, when grease was so valuable. There was money to be paid turning it into bio-diesel and there were a ton of start up companies that were paying restaurants for it, so that make our case tough.

I feel like a lot of those companies have gone out of business though as the price has dropped and the profit isn’t the same. For example, as I mentioned I am writing this as driving back from the Cape. We just stopped and got some Thai food and I noticed two full containers of grease on the restaurant’s back porch. I inquired and the cook was very excited to give them to me, he said that somebody came every week to collect his grease last summer, but that stopped suddenly when the price of gas dropped and he hasn’t been able to find anyone since. He even has a grease barrel that the guy dropped off and now the company has disappeared.

This is good for bands but not good for the immediate future of the green economy. That’s a much longer discussion though...

Talk to us about your Boston band grease collective -- Grease for the Arts. How did that get started? Who else is actively involved? Is it still going strong?

It’s definitely not an official organization quite yet. Again, a lot of that is because of the economy and at the time we were preparing ourselves to have to fight for grease in Boston and to fend off both the rendering companies and the environmental startups, which are never as environmental as, they seem (again, another long conversation).

But I digress… Here’s a quick explanation of why we were putting our collective together and why we thought it was very urgent at the time of last fall.

I could write a book on the politics of grease collection, but here is a quick history of grease collection in the US. This is a fascinating world to me, and have educated myself the best I can, but if this sounds boring please skip ahead to our shameless tour kick off show plug, ha!

Basically used veggie oil is big business and it’s actually traded on the commodities markets under “yellow grease”. For many years rendering companies collected it, and sold it to other companies, many of whom would boil it down and turn it into dog and cat food, or other random things.

There were the occasional environmental folks and bands that would collect veggie oil too, but we were small guys to the rendering companies and they mostly left us alone. Because every restaurant needed to have their grease disposed of, and since it was worth money but not that much, rendering companies actually charged them a monthly fee for pick up and then made money off selling the grease too. This is still the case in some places (mostly the mid-west).

Then as the price of gas rose, veggie oil became very valuable as you can make bio-diesel from used veggie oil (although we run on straight waste oil, as our van is converted to do such). Environmental start-ups popped up all over the place offering to pay restaurants to take their grease, as they would then covert it into bio-diesel that they could sell for 4 dollars a gallon. A battle ensued between [those who] render and environmental companies for a bit; both were even hiring private detectives in some parts of the country to prosecute anyone that would take their grease.

Now, it’s good on a lot of levels that Environmental Grease collection companies started popping up, but they often were nowhere near Boston and would drive to the city in large vetches that were not converted. So, they were using fossil fuels to pick up bio fuels from far away…[doesn’t it make] more sense to just keep them in the community?

This was when we realized that the local users and bands were being squeezed out, as we couldn’t offer to pay for it. So, we wanted to start a collective and sell it to a few local businesses as something that they could be a part of that would give back to the community. Some of the other people involved even talked [to] the folks who got the tax credit for the movie industry in MA, as we were thinking that would be a good thing to offer restaurants that donated us their grease.

What has been the most successful strategy though has been just educating local businesses that are involved with both the local music scene, and the communities that [they] are located in, that they are making a choice with how they want to dispose of their waste oil. We have been fortunate to find several that are more interested in supporting locals than a few bucks from sketchy companies. And, as I mentioned, things have gotten easier as the price of gas has dropped.

Right now the collective is just a bunch of musicians and bands that tour on grease, and we just share some resources and help each other out if we need some. I’m lucky to have found a large organization that uses a lot of grease that is totally excited about what we are doing. In the future, and especially if the price goes back up, we talked about having it be more of a membership organization. That would involve us collecting the grease and [then] others who use grease, but who didn’t want to have the hassle of collecting it, could just join. The focus will always be to keep it in the community and to cut back on fossil fuel use.

Where can we find more information on the band, your tour dates, or listen to some of your music?

Well, you can always find us on our website where we have tour dates and you can sign up for the mailing list.
The Grownup Noise

Of course we are also on MySpace.

And Facebook.

And Twitter.


So where and when does this summer's tour kick off?

I’m glad you asked….

We’re playing a tour kick off show at The Middle East Upstairs on Friday, July 24th

The show starts at 9pm and we’re on at around 10:30. We are playing with some other awesome bands including local favorites, Brendan Boogie and the Best Intentions, the amazing Winterpills (from Northampton), and Varsity Drag. It is Varsity Drag’s CD release and they include original members of the Lemonheads. Very exciting!

From there we leave for the first tour date, Columbus Ohio on Mon. the 27th. We then start working our way over to the west coast. We’re playing 20+ dates and hitting almost every major (and non-major) city, so check out tour dates and if you have friends that really like things that smell like slightly burnt French Fries and Pad Thai, send them our way! We’re very nice and love to give tours of the van too. All of our current tour dates and a ton of info are up on both our website and MySpace.

Tour Dates as of this interview include:

July 24th Boston -- The Middle East Upstairs
July 27th Columbus, OH -- Rumba Café
July 28th Athens, OH -- Casa Cantina
July 29th Chicago -- Darkroom
August 3rd Minneapolis -- Acadia Café
August 5th Billings, MT -- Off the Leaf
August 6th Spokane, WA -- Caterina Winery
August 7th Portland, OR -- Red Room
August 8th Seattle, WA -- Comet Tavern (4pm early show)
August 8th Tacoma, WA -- Doyle’s Public House (late show)
August 10th Santa Cruz, CA -- The Crow’s Nest
August 11th San Fran, CA -- Hotel Utah
August 12th Sacramento, CA -- Marlyin’s on K
August 16th San Diego -- Brick by Brick
August 18th Los Angeles -- Spaceland
August 19th Tucson, AZ -- Club Congress
August 20th Santa Fe, NM -- The Cowgirl
August 21st Albuquerque, NM -- Atomic Cantina
August 24th Denver, CO -- The Hi-Dive
August 26th Nashville, TN -- Springwater Supperclub
August 28th Asheville, NC -- Bobo Gallery
August 29th Washington, DC -- Red and Black Bar
August 30th NYC -- Rockwood Music Hall

The Grownup Noise is Paul Hansen (lead vocal, guitar), Katie Franich (cello), Kyle Crane (drums) and Adam Sankowski (bass).

[Jenn’s side note: I have seen these guys play and they are awesome! Last summer when I interviewed Adam (as found in the links above -- read them) I went to their show simply to get one of those van tours and chat all things grease. By the end of the night I was a fan of their van and their music! Get out and see them, seriously, you will not be disappointed.]

One Voice, Singing in the Darkness

Those of you who are Barry Manilow fans will recognize the title of this blog as a line from one of his songs however I use it as it completely embodies just what we as environmentally aware individuals are doing to come together collectively -- sing loudly on our own so all our voices end up joining together as one in the end. There are many musicians who, through their recognizable names and faces, are fighting for humanitarian or environmental efforts so we all have a chance to survive on this planet. These are two of my favorites who not only spread their message but also live it everyday. Who are your favorite eco-musicians?

One of my all-time favorite musicians is Jason Mraz. The reasons for this are not strictly linked to his beautiful music or lyrics but to his strong planetary and humanitarian efforts as well; he genuinely seems to care greatly about the state of our planet. Not only do I support his art from a musical standpoint but I am an avid reader of his blog as well. Over the past year that he has been writing, he has shared information on his: diet change to raw foodist, carrying of a Sigg to replace plastic water bottles, support of local artists, tour in bio-diesel busses, concern that he is not very eco-friendly due to his flight paths, support of humanitarian causes and many others. One of his most recent efforts is teaming up with Bruce Parry and Brett Dennen to record a song (Long Road to Forgiveness) for Survival International. Truly inspirational.



A local act, The Grownup Noise caught my attention when a close friend told me of them and their plan to convert their 1980’s, diesel van into one that runs on vegetable oil, in an effort to save the environment as well as some cash on their summer tour. Cool! I met up with their bassist, Adam, at their kick off show in Boston and through shared information, links and photos, compiled a fantastic three part story of the entire process from installation right up through wrapping up the tour. To follow the journey please visit these three links -- Part I: The Band Gets a Van, Boston Based Band The Grownup Noise Kick Off the Veggie Van Tour and The Grownup Noise Part II: Touring, With a Side of Fries.

The inspiration for this post comes from the song by Barry Manilow, referenced above, so for those who are unfamiliar with it, here are the lyrics. It is a story about one individual starting the movement of joining together for a common purpose. We do not have to be celebrities to have a huge impact, all it takes is one effort in one town by one person and eventually all of those "ones" will add up to tons!

One Voice
Just One Voice,
Singing in the darkness,
All it takes is One Voice,
Singing so they hear what's on your mind,
And when you look around you'll find
There's more than

One Voice,
Singing in the darkness,
Joining with your
One Voice,
Each and every note another octave,
Hands are joined and fears unlocked,
If only

One Voice
Would start it on its own,
We need just
One Voice facing the unknown,
And then that
One Voice would never be alone,
It takes that
One Voice.

It takes that
One Voice.
Just

One Voice
Singing in the darkness,
All it takes is
One Voice,
Shout it out and let it ring.

Just One Voice,
It takes that
One Voice,
And everyone will sing!