Bob & Rob (& Jack!)
6/8/8 Stop The Spray LBAM Benefit
Sausalito, CA


Intro/Tuning, Maggie's Farm, Birdsong->K.C. Moan, Friend of the Devil,
Salt Pork West Virginia, Ashes & Glass ('spray lyrics')

(K.C. Moan -> Salt Pork W.V. w/ Ramblin' Jack Elliot)


Charity Notes:


Spraying to 'eradicate the light brown apple moth'- what is at stake?

We didn't realize the depth of reprecussions until this benefit event.

We have seen played out the axiom that 'as California goes, so goes
the rest of the nation' -- so even should you not live in the bay-area,
decision here could eventually impact you.


There are a growing number of public advocacy groups in existence;
the one which hosted this 6-8-8 benefit event was 'stop the spray'-
their website is:

http://stopthespray.org

Please visit that site for further information and details about what you can do.


Thanks to Skip Berg & co. for enlightening us to the facts that follow.

At the risk of repeating what some of you may already know, alarming issues
of which we have become aware:


1.  The 'california dept of food & agriculture'- that is, the government
arm of corporate-industrial-agricultural entities- are being permitted
to proceed with *pesticide spraying on urban populations* --
*before completion of "environmental impact reports" (EIRs)* --
in the name of 'economic expediency'.

Substances like this pesticide are normally required by the EPA
to be thoroughly tested for impact on the world before use or application. 

The CDFA has the power to delay the required EIR until *after*
the pesticide application if they 'feel that a crisis situation exists'.

The CDFA believes the lbam's presence qualifies for such a
'state of emergency' declaration and has exercised this EIR-delay power.

This sets a terrible precedent for future erosion of regulation on these corporate
chemical industries.

At this writing, Bay-area urban spraying of the pesticide 'checkmate'
is dated to commence on august 17, 2008- time is fleeting- there are
only ~*68 days left* before they start.  Once this door is opened, it will be
difficult to shut.


2.  Two of the ingredients in this 'checkmate' formulation are classified
by the 'national institute of occupational safety and heath' (a federal agency)--
as *known carcinogens*.  Several others are classified as 'endocrine disruptors'.


3.  As of now, the only required testing of 'checkmate' is 'acute toxicity testing'-
which is defined as 'putting a mouse in contact with the substance for 20 seconds.
If no death occurs within 20 seconds, the substance passes this test.'

This is clearly inadequate for a substance being sprayed over urban populations.


4.  This pesticide cocktail is delivered in plastic-coated particle shells,
some of which measure in size on the order of .5 microns.

Particles of this size can travel far and wide on the wind, and will permanently
lodge in the lungs of any creature which inhales them.


5.  Current proposal would permit the arial spraying of 'checkmate'
in urban areas every 60-90 days- for up to the next decade.


6.  75 million california tax dollars are being allocated to this task
(q: is this per year?), granted to these pesticide-generating corporations-
while our local police, firefighters, school teachers, ... general services
are suffering from budget cut-backs.


What can you do?  Spread information to other citizens, & call and write letters
of protest to your elected officials.


Again, we recommend you visit:

http://stopthespray.org

...for the latest information and details of action.


So, we hope you enjoy this recording, and find it inspires you to act now.
There isn't much time left to change course before this train wreck could hit home.


Sound Notes:


Sound path: Neumann skm 140s->Sound Devices 722->Resample-1.8+(24/192->16/44.1khz);
minor glitch fixes w/ cooledit.

There was a lot of wind noise, so I applied a fairly aggresive low-cut
filter (curve, <55hz -30db, <68 -24, <82 -17, <100 -10, <110 -5, >=130 0).
The wind noise is still audible at many points, but the end result
is far more listenable.  Lost a bit of Rob's 'rob-ustness', alas-
but his bass has wonderful harmonics, so the remaining sound is still
relatively rich.

Towards the end of birdsong (~11:20-11:00), I applied frequency transforms
to reduce/remove the sound of a woman who decided to respond to Bob's
"Snow & Rain" lines with her own: "Bobby my love".  She's still present
somewhat- can't entirely eliminate her w/o seriously impacting quality
of those sections- but compared to the alternative, well, I think you all
will agree with the brief sacrifices of dynamic range to reduce her pitches.

Rule of thumb: if you're going to distract everybody around you by 'singing'
mid-song at a quiet concert, at least try to sing in key please.

We removed her again when she struck up conversation in the midst
of K.C. Moan, ~1:37-1:39, 1:41-1:43.


email: phopely@seas.upenn.edu
Green bittorrent downloads available from http://rosemary.dyndns.org

