In celebration of Earth Day, it's 50th, I'm reposting a review by Kris Larsen of the album, Echoes Within The Forest. It's a long read, but it captures the essence of my '85 journey throughout Brazil, and why rainforest conservation is so important for us all. Thanks, Kris!

ViniVitiVinyl, a DJ Klar production, presents: 
Album Review #6 – Kevin Schrandt – Echoes Within the Forest - 1988 

Just in time for Earth Day 2020 comes the re-release of Echoes Within the Forest, a passionate musical conservancy project, produced and launched nearly 35 years ago. With climate change in the middle of today’s political spotlight, Kevin Schrandt’s early commitment to the environment, conservation and natural preservation solidifies his leadership position in this important area. His preferred medium for supporting this cause, specifically and more personally in the Amazon Basin, is through that which he knows best – his music. 

Kevin first visited the Amazon in the mid-Eighties with a team of like-minded environmental activists he had met in Boulder, CO to document the complex life, and impending decline, of the world’s largest circulatory system; the tropical rainforests of the Amazon River Basin in Brazil. A source of life that ultimately affects people, plants and animals as well as commerce, economies and politics far beyond the South American continent – Kevin sought to better understand and share what he learned about this rapidly changing environmental ecosystem and its effects on our world. Armed with cameras, recording instruments, guitar and inquisitive minds, Kevin and his team began their journey of documenting and recording the sights, sounds and experiences of this incredibly mysterious ecosystem. 

Echoes Within the Forest, like the Amazon itself, is a rich, varied and energetic album that brings together songs of many different styles. As one glides through this musical estuary, the influences of Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, Yes, the Stones, Marley and Zeppelin, among others, lend themselves to a wonderful collection of music that ultimately can be described as World Music – a nod to Kevin’s objective of elevating his cause to one that is global. The bouncy, beachy and even happy 'So Won’t You Come to Rio?' is the album’s opening song, inviting the listener to join him as he frolics in the waves (amongst beers and bikinis) of Brazil’s world-famous beaches. Despite the levity of the song it became clear to me that this would be the jumping-off point to the seriousness of his project. 

'To the Waves' is a big pop ballad that brightly tells the story of laboring policy and half-hearted ideas “crashing around”. 'Ominous Day' then launches into a trance-like bongo beat supported by cautionary lyrics of uncertainty and concern about the future. Just when we are feeling a bit down, we are ushered into the beautifully melodic 'Flight of The Peregrine'. It’s as if we went around a bend in the river and were greeted by rays of morning sunlight and dew-kissed leaves. Clean, refreshing, hopeful. 

'Keepers of The Forest' tells the story of the responsibility bestowed upon all of us, past and present, to care for this precious habitat. 'Cry for The Hunted' blasts out big and tall guitar riffs and dares us to ‘stand up and see’ and realize that we have so much to learn (and do). And what might be considered the centerpiece of this album, 'Amazon' lays down a thoughtful reckoning, a 'come to Jesus’ moment before it’s too late. 

Further into the album we are offered a glimpse of hope with the uplifting 'The Calm Before the Storm', a carefully blended acoustic guitar, flute and wooden percussion medley gently guided by vocal streams. This flows right into Big River, a heavy ballad about a journey along the river of life. It’s a story of birth, life and death depending where one chooses to disembark. 

The final songs on the album return us to 'The Sands Of Copacabana' for a bit of reflection about the modern world before sending us forward (today as when first written nearly 35 years ago) with 'It Changes By The Day', a beautiful piano piece, reminding us again that as the days go by, we need to challenge ourselves to do our best to respect, preserve and conserve our earth. As Kevin rightfully writes, the earth changes by the day, but it’s up to us to manage change in a way that doesn’t lead to destruction and disappearance of the beauty and necessary resources around us. 

As I mentioned earlier, this is a collection of very different styles of songs that demonstrate Kevin’s diverse musical skills, his writing talents and his unwavering commitment to this cause and the environment in general. 

After listening to Echoes, what occurs to me is that, despite the complexity of his music, everything is blended with and bound by the natural sounds of the Amazon Kevin recorded - birds, tree frogs, lizards, insects, animals, and yes, even its indigenous peoples, as well as the sounds of man-made change and global expansion (riverboats, tractors, machinery and more). In the end, it is they who are the true stars (or villains) of this album. Listen. Think. Act. And hope this album is not the only way to experience the rich sounds of the Amazon before you have the opportunity to experience it yourself.

Production note: Reinforcing Kevin’s early commitment to carbon footprint reduction efforts, this album was deliberately produced digitally, in CD format only instead of vinyl, much to the chagrin of ViniVitiVinyl, to avoid use of oil-based materials.

          Tin soldiers and Nixon coming

          We're finally on our own

          This summer I hear the drumming

          Four dead in Ohio

Perhaps no other song encapsulated the tumultuous times of that late spring of 1970 than Neil Young’s opening verse to 'Ohio'. Nationwide protests on college campuses against the United States’ participation in the Vietnam War culminated in this shooting at Kent State. Young would later be quoted as saying, “probably the biggest lesson ever learned at an American place of learning”. 

Equally uprooting at that time was concern for the environment, which was reeling from misuse and abuse, in the form of pollution, oil spills, and very little, if any, controls in place to curb its spreading. Protests focused on environmental ignorance, and from many of the same college campuses mentioned above, Earth Day was born on April 22, 1970 as the genesis of the modern environmental movement. 

From the Earth Day website: The first Earth Day launched a wave of action, including the passage of landmark environmental laws in the United States. The Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts were created in response to the first Earth Day, as well as the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Many countries soon adopted similar laws. 

“Despite that amazing success and decades of progress, we find ourselves facing an even more dire, almost existential, set of global environmental challenges, from loss of biodiversity to climate change to plastic pollution, that call for action at all levels of government,” said Denis Hayes, the organizer of the first Earth Day and Earth Day Network’s Board Chair Emeritus. 

In 1970, Earth Day related protests / marches across the U.S. included some 20 million persons, or roughly 10% of the population at that time. Today, the Earth Day Network mobilizes more than 1 billion people globally (~13%), with thousands of partner networks in 190 countries. Its mission is to build, educate, and make active, the largest environmental movement to drive transformative change across the planet. 

Enter COVID-19… 

For its 50th anniversary on April 22, 2020, the Earth Day Network had planned to mobilize its 1 billion activists in local marches, as well as community earth restoration projects, all over the globe. Sadly, many of these gatherings have been postponed to the fall of 2020, or canceled altogether. Yet, when your plan A stalls, it’s time to launch plan B, or C, etc. 

In recognition of safe social distancing mandated by coronavirus, the Earth Day Network is taking its initiatives digitally, in perhaps the world’s largest online event to date. If interested in this movement, visit Earth Challenge 2020. 

Although we cannot gather as groups at this time, if even for projects out-of-doors, please remember one important fact: As individuals / consumers of goods and services, our voice, vote, and common collective action makes a huge difference. We all wield tremendous power and influence, so if inclined to participate, don’t let today’s lockdown and/or isolation prevent you from doing so. 

For example, the KSM public performance plans to present the 35th anniversary of the Amazonas ‘85 Expedition, my first journey into the tropical rainforests of Brazil, were also canceled. As plan B, I converted my analog films of songs from the Echoes Within The Forest project, to digital. Thereafter, I built a KSM YouTube channel to help continue its awareness, via social media and proper social distancing. To reiterate, when best laid plans stall, a bit of creativity and desire to find another path can go a long way. 

In closing, and in an unintended benefit of COVID-19, pollution, smog, waterways, et al, have all seen improvement, as a result of a lack of economic activity, because there are far less individuals scurrying about the planet. Yet, when we finally curb this pandemic’s stranglehold, and we will, the earth will require even more attention going forward. So please, let your voice be heard, and your efforts become visible.

This past April, I had the pleasure of performing for my alma mater High School, Colorado Academy (CA), in southwest Denver, CO. As one of the top independent schools in the State, Kindergarten through 12th grade, CA has a multi-faceted curriculum that challenges each student to maximize their potential in academics, athletics and the arts. As a result, it was the perfect environment in which to test market an entertaining, yet educational performance of Echoes Within The Forest, entitled A Treasure In Jeopardy.

The 30-minute multimedia show, A Treasure In Jeopardy, combined visuals and video with song, and shared elements of nostalgia, fact, education and performance in its presentation. The primary goal of the show was to see that if entertained, students may be more apt to absorb and/or become interested in complex subject matter, such as the deforestation of the Amazonian rainforest in Brazil.. The latter encompassed topics from natural resource depletion to biodiversity; deforestation and its reasons; the role and plight of indigenous peoples; dams and energy from the Amazon river; and overall, the long term consequences of this exploitation on the planet. The secondary goal was to encourage students to act, as in 'get involved'. Presented on Earth Day, another objective was to impress upon students the importance of becoming stewards of the earth each and every day, not just once a year.

A Treasure In Jeopardy was presented to two of the three schools (Upper and Lower) on the CA campus, to more than 500 students. Perhaps not altogether surprising, the best inquiries and questions came from the Lower school grades, Kindergarten through 5th grade. Despite the obvious, Did you see a spider? and Did you get bit by a snake?, they had some really great insights, such as: (4th grader) Doesn't the government know that cutting down trees will make it difficult to breath? Or, (2nd grader) How many tress do we need to plant to help? It's this kind of inquisition that we can only hope will embody our youth, in order to make the right decisions for our future, when they're in a position to do so.

In retrospect, fielding those questions was the best part of the performance, for it showed the students had listened, and they were concerned to know more. Mission accomplished.


In closing and for posterity sake, my senior picture shows the head of hair I wish I could still sport today. C'est la vie... And yes, they did have color film back then. Our school just couldn't afford it for the yearbook!

P.S. Get involved!

We all have witnessed the vast and varied musical career of Gordon Sumner, better known as Sting, first as the front man for The Police, and for the past twenty years, as a solo artist. The accomplishments are undeniably successful: five multi-platinum studio albums with The Police, twice that many as a soloist, the sold-out world tours, the Grammys, over one hundred million records sold, and counting, and through it all, his trademark unwavering bravado.
 
But what may not be apparent in the aforementioned givens is the strategy and intellect behind his career, and the lesser-known facts that make him more than a pop icon. Here’s what I find intriguing about Mr. Sumner:
 
Differentiation. Classically trained in jazz and big band orchestrations, Sting first played guitar as a youth. Yet the British pop/rock landscape was littered with guitar virtuosos like Page, Clapton and Beck, and he didn’t want to be just another guitar hero (reference the Anders Lundquist article in the Singing Bassist). So as he developed a penchant for vocals, he focused upon the bass as his instrument instead for two reasons: To control both the top end melody line of the song, and the bottom end groove for the band. Consider if you will a compass standing upright, whereby north is the melody of the tune, and south its bass line. All other instrumentation make up the layers in-between, east-to-west, but its the polar ends that control both the music lyrically and its tempo respectively. Sting found the bass root to be most powerful, which he exploited masterfully as a 3-piece in The Police. Personally, I tried this technique on the lead in to The Record Man, although I didn't sing while playing the bass part, which is difficult to do.
 
Storytelling. Despite dominating pop/rock radio from the late '70s into the 21^st century, I think his best work during the period was The Soul Cages, released in 1991. Yes, it did have its Grammy for Best Rock Song, but much of the album was not commercially accepted, nor radio friendly. Introspective and melancholy, I think it his most prolific work about the shipbuilding profession of his grandfather, and the life of his father in a seafaring town with few opportunities to transcend its social and economic shackles. Each to their own. But to me, it showed the breadth and depth of Sting as a singer-songwriter storyteller, and an ability to pull verses from those dark places we all have within.
 
Eco-Warrior. It was while on his world tours with The Police in the early eighties that he first became outspoken about human rights violations,supporting  Amnesty International along side the likes of Bono and Peter Gabriel. Sting also shared a concern for the environment, and those that steward it, particularly indigenous peoples in tropical rain forested areas. Along with wife, Trudie Styler, Sting founded the Rainforest Fund in 1989, a non-profit supporting rainforest communities and the persons whom make their homes and living within. This organization has brought awareness to the importance of tropical forests on the earth’s ecosystem, along with preservation of indigenous lands, for more than a quarter century. And although he doesn't have an album specifically made of rainforest music, he does make lyrical references to the importance for preservation throughout much of his catalog.