Earth Song - Music Goes Green
by Amanda Martinez, Santa Cruz Good Times
Wednesday, 08 August 2007

With a voice that is strong but kind, commanding but feminine, Naomi leads her Santa Cruz-based band, the aptly titled Naomi and the Courteous Rudeboys (NCR) in a repertoire of sweet, sassy funk and soul originals, with lyrical themes that touch on love, friendship, acceptance and self-expression.

If her music had a distinct purpose, it seems it would be to serve as a salve for those aspects of the human experience that can leave a person feeling alone and discomfited.

"I want people to feel good about themselves when they hear my voice and hear our songs," says Naomi. "Because if we're all feeling good about ourselves, the more potential we have to make good things through art and music and teaching."

Although they've only been together for just over a year, Naomi and her Courteous Rudeboys, who are Justin Degenhardt on bass, Cole de Faymoreau on guitar, Johnny B on drums and Russel Kreitman on keyboard, have already begun to tour.

Over tea last week at the Lulu Carpenter's in the MAH, Naomi declared the band's most recent tour that took the musicians through Nevada, Wyoming and Colorado to be "mindblowing."

"As a band, I feel like we just took it to the next level in a lot of ways, musically and spiritually and personally." But she also confided a sincere frustration with how many resources the band had to waste on the road.

"America is geared toward the quick stop and go," says Naomi. "And you run out and you need it again. I feel like it's an economy that forces you into a situation where you have to use disposable products ... Why aren't there more recycling facilities at gas stations? ... Why does everything have to come in a plastic bottle?"

A lot of touring musicians complain about the wastefulness of their peripatetic lifestyles. Living on the road means the absence of routine. You use everything once and then leave it behind. Most musicians regretfully chalk it up to the consequence of needing exposure or the casualty of being an artist with talent in demand. Not NCR.

Talk with Naomi about songwriting and performance and the conversation will wander into the sacred, the abstract and the profound. Shift the subject to NCR's touring methods and suddenly it's all about strategy and science.

For starters, the band camps whenever possible. Sometimes local fans or friends host the band, sometimes, as Naomi says, they have to "bite the bullet" and get a hotel room for the night, but most of the time, when the band is ready to hit the sack, it means pulling into a campsite and climbing into the "crow's nest," the converted area in the back of NCR's tour bus that sleeps all five band members.

The band's ride, an old diesel school bus that sips biodiesel whenever possible, is a bona fide vehicular Swiss army knife. By wetting the bus' curtains and allowing wind to whip through them, NCR enjoys the cool breeze that Naomi calls their "swamp cooler method of air-conditioning." And on this past tour, NCR even used the bus' steaming hood to heat their coffee and tea.

If there's no mom-and-pop natural food store to support, NCR cooks its own food, and well-stocked with their own utensils, wooden bowls and water bottles, the band never has to partake of the myriad plastic and Styrofoam utensils that accompany concert food or gas station fare.

And oh yeah, in case you were wondering, the band also has a portable shower. "[It's] great," Naomi says, "but you have to be in a place where you'd feel comfortable using it."

Although this all might sound like a lot of effort, in talking with Naomi one gets the impression that it's just the beginning of NCR's Earth conscious touring approach. On the band's wishlist are a portable solar oven and a portable reverse osmosis drinking water system.

"Basically, we've learned by traveling this way what exactly it is that we need in order to be comfortable, but not to become extravagant and wasteful," Naomi says. "The new American dream would be to love what you do and make just enough so that you have exactly what you need in order to further your goals and your creativity."