"I’m doing this to illustrate how tenuous life on earth is with the planet warming! How beautiful things, things we care about may disappear without our stewardship!"
Australian musicians are continuing to join international artists in support of the No Music On A Dead Planet campaign which launched last week on Earth Day, with names including Budjerah, Kevin Parker, NIDALA, Nick Albrook, Jake Taylor, Anna Lunoe, Something For Kate, Jimmy Barnes, Alex The Astronaut, Montaigne, Beckah Amani, The Living End and more.
A select group of artists are now sending out an urgent SOS by declaring their songs endangered, like our planet, by removing the tracks from streaming services or their live performances until we change course. These acts include Montaigne, Regurgitator, Ella Hooper, Kim Churchill, When Children Collide (Johnny Mackay, Chelsea Wheatley), Chela (Chelsea Wheatley) and Sky City Gold/Haiku Hands (Beatrice Lewis).
Ella Hooper announced the initiative on Instagram, "I am now retiring a song, a song that I play at almost every single gig - Daily Detritus - (favourite opener of all my solo shows) to emphasise how these songs are at risk, everyTHING, everyONE is at risk on a planet that is in distress.
"In accordance with #SAVEOURSONGS, The Dying Song is now on the endangered list and will be removed from all shows this month. It is one of my most beloved songs,” said Montaigne.
"I’m doing this to illustrate how tenuous life on earth is with the planet warming! How beautiful things, things we care about may disappear without our stewardship!
"How you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone…I mostly believe solutions to the climate crisis are structural, and so this is a plea from me to you to vote for the planet this coming Australian federal election! We can’t afford another government that sits on its hands for another three years!”
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Band Regurgitator have taken a further step, declaring their song Future Is Plastic extinct, removing it from digital streaming platforms.
“Scientists say dramatically escalating extinctions are ‘falling on deaf ears’. Now the alarm grows with music facing its own dormant slide into silence. The future is drastic," they said.
Frontman Quan Yeomans went on to state, “How easy is it to forget that this substrate, the Earth, which has supported a biodiversity rich enough to produce something as awe-inspiring as music, is also one that requires our fundamental understanding and stewardship in order to continue to do so.
Accepting the current climate crisis as a Global Civic Responsibility is a chance to achieve a level of shared human awareness critical to our survival as a species.”
Fans can save their songs by taking the pledge on Green Music Australia's Website.