The musical group Guster is the first artist to be featured on the redesigned website of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, providing a new and unique way to attract visitors to learn more about environmental issues.

The song “Satellite,” from Guster’s newest album Ganging Up on the Sun, is the first to be streamed through the music link on PEC’s website, which also highlight’s Guster’s support of environmental sustainability through Reverb Rock.

“We wanted to have some fun with the new web site, and letting people discover a variety of new music is a good way to do that,” said Brian Hill, President and CEO of PEC. “We’re absolutely thrilled that a band as dynamic and as environmentally pro-active as Guster has agreed to be our first featured artist, although we will also feature artists with many different styles, ranging from folk to jazz, not just rock.

A new artist or group will be featured periodically on the new web site, which was redesigned to make it easy for people to learn about PEC’s initiatives on water quality, sustainable communities, and energy and climate change. The site also features PEC’s new logo.

Guster hails from Boston, where three of the band members started playing as "Gus" while attending Tufts University in 1991. They released their first independent album in 1996 and signed a contract with Sire records in 1998 – the year they appeared on the Conan O'Brien Show. Their popularity has grown continually ever since.

Reverb Rock, a non-profit organization that educates and engages musicians and their fans to promote environmental sustainability, was founded by Guster guitarist/ vocalist Adam Gardner and his environmentalist wife, Lauren Sullivan, in 2004.

Reverb Rock helps touring artists to minimize their environmental footprint by implementing services such as carbon neutral concerts and venues; bio-diesel for vehicles and generators; waste reduction; biodegradable catering products; and recycling.

Reverb also works to offset the carbon footprints resulting from fans’ commutes to concerts through a carbon offset program and provides services such as an eco-village at each concert, built to reflect each band’s causes and interests, to inspire fans to take action.

The Dave Matthews Band Summer 2007 Tour had the highest fan participation rate ever and resulted in 3,312,424 tons of total CO2 reduction, with the combined efforts of the band and its fans. This is equivalent to 193 households not using electricity for one year or 325 passenger cars not being driven for a year (1.2 million miles of driving).

Guster’s most recent tour, the Campus Consciousness Tour 2007, was greened by Reverb through efforts such as carbon-neutral concerts by offsetting global warming emissions with wind power through NativeEnergy, bio-diesel-powered tour busses and trucks, and recycling at venues and on busses.

The goal of this tour was “to educate, inspire, and activate students, and above all leave a positive impact on each community and college/university that the tour reaches.”

For more information about PEC’s new music feature, please send email to: music@pecpa.org . Visit the Pennsylvania Environmental Council music webpage and subscribe to PEC’s RSS news feeds at www.pecpa.org/rss_feeds .

2/1/2008