More Than Just Music and Stunts - A Corporate Social Responsibility

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AppId is over the quota

Despite the fact that the main focus of the Vans Warped Tour happens to be on putting up great music for the people, but raising concern about environment issues has also been an equally important priority for them. Vans Warped Tour launched a Warped Eco-Initiative which made it the most environment friendly event in North America. With the initiative, the Vans Warped Tour switched over to bio diesel for running their tour buses and production trucks. Having more than 17 tour buses and close to 19 production trucks, running around in the US for two months, meant consuming a lot of fuel. Having been converted to bio diesel, Vans Warped Tour significantly reduced the usage of traditional fuel and thereby reduced a lot of pollution. By utilizing a renewable resource such as bio diesel, Vans Warped Tour proved the fact that bio diesel could actually be used on a regular basis and yet meet the essential efficiency requirements.

Everyone involved in the Vans Warped Tour propagates and encourages following the three R's of Restoration:

A. Reduce the consumption of non renewable resources.

B. Reuse the existing articles before trashing them.

C. Recycle products and articles.

Warped Eco-Initiative has become a cult movement which has greatly inspired the youth to take the first step in restoring beauty on the planet earth. The youth have been overly keyed up to stand for the cause and make an attempt for the big change. And it's not that the Vans Warped Tour has no incentive for them- volunteers are provided free access to the tour and are given away a whole lot of goodies like T-shirts, caps, souvenirs and many other items.

Vans Warped Tour believes in giving back to the society. At the open atmosphere, the tour builds up booths where you can find a number of vendors addressing socially relevant causes. The vendors constitute environmental rights activists, civil rights activists and even anti-racism organizations. Leaving aside these, a number of charitable organizations such as Teen Suicides, National Hope Line Network, and many more are also set up at the tour. In fact a tent by the name of 'Girl Garage' addresses the issues in an innovative way. The fans that happen to visit the tent are asked to design their T-shirts and bid for Vans shoes. All the proceedings from the sale of T-shirts and the shoes go to the suicide charitable trusts.

The Vans Warped Tour also contributes to causes such as the American Red Cross, Cancer Care and even AIDS research centers. In fact, with the sale of every 4 tickets at the tour, $1 gets credited to 'Camp Hollywood Heart'- an institution that takes care of the families that have been affected by HIV/AIDS. In 2005, the tour contributed more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the victims of hurricane Katrina. But money is not only the way through which they contribute/donate - many times, artists of the tour come together and supply prefabricated homes to the families in need.

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Lords of Chaos - The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground Book Review

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AppId is over the quota

I bought this book a few months ago and managed to finish it a few days after buying it. It was an intense but a good read altogether although the approach, the style of writing is quite academic, necessary, from my point of view, for a book which chronicled the world's most notorious music since the formation of the hexachord system by Guido of Arezzo, which spurred the unearthing of the satanic chords (diabolus in musica) way back in the 18th century, to be taken seriously. The music they call Black Metal. It requires a tune so that people will take the book seriously.

I have been listening to this kind of tune since primary school and the one accountable for introducing me to this music was not any of my friends or older relatives, but a local Malaysian tabloid. Untarnished still in my hazy remembrance, I was quite captivated by this diabolical music through an article in that particular tabloid that did a 2-page special report on the subject, complete with cool pictures and band logos. They even listed all these so called satanic rock bands for my trouble-free reference. And that was in 1995 if my memory serves me correctly.

I was very inquisitive and very much the curious cat. It was like a giant whirlpool sucking me in and there were no ways for me to escape these enthralling madness of sorrow, supremacy and extreme aggressiveness. I got to try this, I said to myself. It took me no more than 5 second to convert myself from a nerd into a metal and hard rock listening nerd. Still a nerd but a different kind of nerd. It took me no more than the next week later for me to buy my first record. Talk about ultra influential. I have been a devoted fan and an avid listener ever since. I live happily ever after and my life has never been the same again.

Enough about my metal fairy tale and lets check this book out. Since the orientation of this book is quite academic, the read was quite deep, hectic and more often than not, quite tiring since the authors have widened their extent of investigation beyond the musician and its miniature circle. This includes outsiders who were directly involved with the satanic scene. Thus giving the reader more elaborative facts from different perspectives and distinguished angles.

Although there are several general issues covered and discussed by the authors, I can see that the reason for the publication of this book was more towards exploiting the notoriety of the Norwegian Black Metal scene, the birthplace of what was known to be as the second wave of Black Metal (Mayhem, Burzum, Dark Throne, Immortal, Emperor, Enslaved are all Norwegian bands). A chunk of pages was dedicated to its early inception, the power struggle, suicide, the murders and the church burnings, which all in fact happened in Norway. In case you do not know, Black Metal was once Norway's main export. Black metal bands being nominated in the Norwegian Grammy is quite normal there. I would like to see that kind of openness here.

Two of the most important individuals, highly influential to the early inception of Satanic Black Metal in Norway, Oysten Aarseth aka Euronymous and Varg Vikernes aka Count Grishnackh, were heavily dealt with in one of its chapters. Besides touching on the history or the early development of the Black Metal sound, the book also features interviews with who's who from the scene (the infamous members of the Inner Circle. the Black Metal Mafia as the Norwegian press called it) and quite elaborative on the music's influence through out the world.

It is a good read, highly recommended to those who really want to dig deep into the music judging the music by its cover, since Malaysia had (still having) her fair share of controversy (known worldwide, even Ian Christe mentioned the conservativeness of Malaysia in his book, Sound of the Beast. Maybe we do live on trees) with regard to this highly intolerable form of entertainment (yes, entertainment. Intolerable but still entertainment).

I write about heavy metal music in an obscure land called Malaysia. Help me make my writing better. visit my blog: http://www.thebulletbelt.blogspot.com/