Another one straight from the merch booth, under the dominion of Lia, in the classic style of DIRECT, just as Lorin drops his latest mashup of Boombox and the crowd of extra-gorgeous freaks and bassfiends parades by.

How could you not love these people, in between the guys in banana suits, the anime-esque gorgeous girls from the future, complete with massive fuzzy legwarmers and little backpacks? The number the booming bass is doing on my neck tension… I have to call this night quite fine. With the Wobble Factory, every chair is a massage chair.

The weirdest thing ever is the time change between Nashville and Knoxville, and while jetting in between with my top-notch travel buddy, we lost an hour. I don’t know how to program my phone to adjust to time zones… Everything’s an hour later than last night, here’s hoping that puts us with a curfew of four? Nashville ran until 3:30. InSANE.

Best thing about TN hands down, including the gorgeous scenery with the leaves just starting to turn, is those who defend it. That’s why we brought United Mountain Defense back for round 2, and tossed in Keep Knoxville Beautiful, because who doesn’t want to?

Keep Knoxville Beautiful

Being a hippie in high school, one of my biggest pet peeves was always how much kids would litter. I proposed to the school administration that a crew of students go collect all the litter that kids leave in a day and shut the gates to one of the hallways, dumping all the litter inside. Teaching kids that litter is nasty, every little bit contributes to a gross problem, and that it’s a massive inconvenience for us all. Don’t get me started on my ideas for making kids recycle… hot pokers, anyone?

Anyway, Keep Knoxville Beautiful shares the frustration but adds common sense to the equation with educational programs and collaborations across the board, starting with feel-good school programs and spanning out into the stratosphere of collaborations with architects, artists, and events seeking to encourage their attendees to get green and conscious, tracing the responsibility for our waste back to the real source- you and me. And when the problem is us, we are 100% empowered to fix it.

United Mountain Defense (again, but we love them!)

Today, I met Bonnie with United Mountain Defense. As I’ve already given y’all the lowdown on my last blog I figure it’d be best to talk specifics, because (1) it’s more fun to meet the people actually effecting change and (2) Bonnie is completely righteous.

Bonnie works with United Mountain Defense because of the gaggle of budding concerned citizens she teaches at a local middle school. After the TVA disaster this past year (which happened just 40 miles away from Knoxville) the kids had a lot of questions. Bonnie found the answers and got passionate about the issue in the process. Her kids did a study of the life cycle of coal, hosted events to show videos about the issue, and waged letter writing campaigns against coal powered plants. These projects are what brought Bonnie to the Bassnectar show tonight, seeking to empower others to protect their communities from coal.

UMD does outreach at other events like this as well, building a mock appalacian porch at Bonaroo, campaigning at Camp Reggae. They are seeking people who like shadow puppet theatre, actors, artists, web monkeys, and musicians to create an educational experience for all those who coal impacts (ie everyone.)

Want to get involved now?

Saturday October 10th is TN Wild Mountains Day. And if you’ve never had a good excuse to go to Dollywood, here’s your chance! They are hosting a press event where everyone is invited to come speak about why they love mountains and don’t want them blown up. Good deal. Never thought I’d say this one, but Viva Dolly Parton.

On that note, I think I will melt back into the night…