The Ditty Bops - Press Releases

It probably isn't much of a surprise that the Ditty Bops are plying their trade during their current tour -- which finds the duo visiting and playing farms around the country in addition to traditional music venues -- without major label auspices these days. Their eponymous 2004 debut was a swinging, jitterbugging girl-power version of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, embraced by critics, beloved by a small but rabid fan base and utterly misunderstood by Warner Brothers.

When the duo (Amanda Barrett on mandolin, dulcimer and vocals; Abby Dewald on guitar and vocals) began work on their sophomore album, last year's Moon Over the Freeway, they crafted a set of fresh originals with all of the Swing/Jazz/Ragtime spunk of their debut. But Warner Bros. resolutely refused to release the album until the pair ponied up a cover version. Thinking along the lines of their ripping spin on "Sister Kate" from their debut, Barrett and Dewald proffered numerous suggestions from their vast live repertoire, but the label vetoed them all. The two sides finally came to a grumbling agreement on the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love."

"We never perform it live," Barrett says from the Bops' tour stop in Columbia, Mo. "We like the Everlys' version but we're not wild about our version of it."

The Moon Over the Freeway negotiation was a turning point for Barrett and Dewald, and when their contract came up for review, they opted out. After considering label offers, the Bops decided that sisters should be doing it for themselves and released their five-song EP, Pack Rat, on their own earlier this year.

"Some songs that we recorded during the sessions for Moon Over the Freeway -- kind of the B-sides from that, songs that we didn't get to put on -- Warners let us put them out on our own," says Barrett. "Which was really cool of them to let us do."

Self-releasing Pack Rat was just the start of an extremely busy period for the Bops, as they also wrote a batch of new songs and returned to the studio with Mitchell Froom and David Boucher to record their third full-length, Summer Rain, a continuation of their love of early Jazz with a slightly mellower vibe.

"We've been busy," says Barrett. "Preparing for this tour took a lot of stuff -- getting in touch with all the farmers and routing it out. We also started a comic, The Environmental Dilemma, which we've been posting online, and we also put out our new 2008 calendar."

Response to Pack Rat has been positive to the extent that the Bops are making plans to release Summer Rain on their own as well. The pair realizes that going label-less could be a pretty risky move in the current industry climate, but they're willing to give it a shot.

"We need to figure out how we're going to make it work, but more and more bands are doing it that way," says Barrett. "The problem is that a lot of people are not buying records anymore, so it is going to be interesting to figure out how we're going to continue to make a living doing this."

With their label considerations relegated to a non-issue, The Ditty Bops have returned to the open road, which is not without its downside: Dewald suffers from motion sickness, which may be the reason the pair did their extensive and highly original bicycle tour behind Moon Over the Freeway last year.

"These drives are harder than riding," says Barrett of Dewald's infirmity. "It's exhausting to sit in the van for hours if you tend to get nauseous and it's also hard to deal with heat exhaustion on a bike tour for 100 miles in 100-degree weather. Everything has its ups and downs."

Although their music might suggest the theme, the Ditty Bops' Farm Tour is no exercise in nostalgia about a simpler time. For them, it really is about becoming more aware of the food we put in our bodies daily.

"I was born in Los Angeles so I haven't been raised on a farm or anything," Barrett says with a laugh. "This has been a great learning experience for us. Abby and I both worked at farmers' markets before we started our music project, so it's been really cool to see the variety of farms and types of farming and different sizes of operations and some biodynamic, bigger scale farms. We haven't visited any factory farms yet and it would be really interesting to compare, but I kind of have the feeling they'd be a little more hesitant to let us come through."

The Bops' 2007 farm-themed tour is an effort to raise concern over our increasingly processed food chain and show the benefits of buying fresh and local. This year's tour was actually intended to be a part of last year's bicycle circuit.

"When we were on the bike tour last summer, we'd planned to visit some farms and ended up not getting to do it," says Barrett. "We were too busy and couldn't work (it) into the plan, so we decided to make a tour that was just about visiting the farms. We shot our vegetable calendar and we love to talk about food and eat food and explore food.

"It's really important that, since we all eat every day, our food comes from resources that are sustainable and local and grown with care and respect for the earth, and that's something that we care about so we wanted to learn about it firsthand and visit farms."

You buy a CD and a T-shirt at the Ditty Bops concert tonight, don't expect to carry them out in a plastic bag.

That's because the L.A.-based band, a harmonizing vocal duo of mandolin player Amanda Barrett and guitarist Abby DeWald, is not only out on tour, it's out on an environmental mission too.
Barrett and DeWald blend an earth friendly theme into their musical performance, which itself is a blend of such old-school styles as folk, swing and pop-vocals.

Barrett spoke from the Ditty Bops' tour van on the road in Idaho. She covered such topics as plastic bags, bicycles and Hummers - and a little about music.

Question: I've never seen your band live, but I read that the Ditty Bops live show is theatrical. Does this tour have any theme or props that you could describe?

Answer: We're doing a farm tour. I'm dressed as a carrot. Abby's an artichoke. Or sometimes we wear these plastic bag outfits. Every venue has been different. Some have been doing a farmers market at the show. We're also playing Farm Aid next month.

Q: I guess the bag outfits have to with your campaign to end the use of plastic bags. What's that about?

A: We're getting signatures on a petition asking people to bring reusable bags to the store. We're petitioning the EPA to add a plastic bag tax. Ireland passed this tax, and it reduced plastic bags by 95 percent. The tax money went to an environmental fund.

Q: Why are plastic bags bad?

A: Plastic is something that can be very useful, but most plastic bags end up in landfills. Or they end up in waterways. Countries have had floods because of bags clogging up storm drains. They break down into little pieces and get eaten by fish.

Q: You did a nationwide tour on bicycles last year. How did the logistics work?

A: We had little trunk bags on our bikes for water, food and walkie-talkies, and a biodiesel-fueled van hauled all of our equipment. It was 4,700 miles total, which is almost cross-country and back. It was pretty intense, a little more than we anticipated.

Q: I would guess your environmental stance is something your audience embraces. There probably aren't a lot of people who listen to old-timey swing music driving around in Hummers, are there?

A: We probably have some fans in Hummers, I wouldn't know. We've had bicyclists added to our fan base. That's been fun. I think people are thinking of ways to adjust the way they use things. Shop at farmers market, ride a bike a little more. Our fan base is very wide-ranging. We always try to play all-ages shows. We get little kids, teenagers, grandparents. Some people come for the old covers. We get to play to everybody that way.

Q: Would you group the Ditty Bops with cult bands who play a sort of old-timey music, like the Squirrel Nut Zippers and the Asylum Street Spankers?

A: Everybody who reviews us describes us differently. Some people say ragtime, other people say something totally different. There are so many different influences it's hard to categorize. I like the range.

August 31, 2007
Go green with the Ditty Bops

As environmental concerns are getting more attention in the mainstream, artists in film, television and music are proud to call themselves “green.” On Thursday, CAPA presents one of Billlboard’s top “Green Ten” artists at 8 p.m. at the Capitol Theatre.

The Ditty Bops, known for pure-voiced harmonies and folk-centered music, will be coming to town as part of its 2007 Summer Farm Tour.
Featuring Abby DeWald on guitar and Amanda Barrett on mandolin and dulcimer, the Ditty Bops made its debut in 2004. Since this debut only three years ago, the duo has made a name for itself with its variety of musical styles. Using elements of performance art, visual art and storytelling, the Ditty Bops also focuses on an eco-friendly message.

To drive its green attitude home last year, the duo turned its back on tour buses to pedal from California to New York. This year, the Farm Tour is helping to raise money for farm organizations such as the Growing Connection and Farm Aid.

Last summer, the eco-friendly folk/rock/jazz duo known as the Ditty Bops - singer-multi-instrumentalists Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald - pedaled their bicycles some 4,700 miles across the US on a tour that doubled as a way to promote a green lifestyle. This summer, they're traveling by van (albeit one that runs on biodiesel) and playing a variety of farms and music clubs. Barrett spoke via phone from a rural Missouri tour stop about the current tour and the duo's brush with major label fame.

The last time you played Cleveland, you came through on your bicycles. What's your mode of transportation on this tour?

This tour, we're traveling in our biodiesel van. It was with us on the last tour too, carrying our equipment and crew. We have our bikes too. We've been lucky. We only had to fill up with straight diesel twice. The biodiesel fuel is more available than last summer.

What's it like touring without your fabulous costumes?

We have other fabulous costumes. This tour we have vegetable dresses. I'm a carrot and Abby's an artichoke. We also wear plastic to raise awareness for the "Plastic Reduction Petition" campaign. We do that to get people to wonder why we're wearing plastic. Our friend who's an artist let us borrow these outfits for the tour.

You recently performed in front of an audience of goats. Any future plans to play for other barnyard animals?

Yes. We're hoping to hit up some chickens next week.

Free-range ones, I take it.

Of course. I was wanting to play only for free-range, but Abby made a good point and said the caged ones might need the music the most.

I've read that you're traveling with an Earthbox. How's it holding up?

Amazingly well. We've had them for three weeks. We'll be raffling off an Earthbox at the show too. Tickets are only five bucks. They'll send it directly to your home. The one we have is our personal one we have in LA that we keep in our carport. We have basil and sage and rosemary. It's really easy. You can't overwater it. It saves water and uses up to 80 percent less than growing in the ground.

I think your food bikini calendar is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. What's your favorite food bikini outfit?

Oh, I like the one in April when Abby is a carrot and I'm a rabbit. Next year's calendar is out now. It's a "save the world" theme.

I was sorry to hear you're no longer on Warner Bros. Is it the case that your combination of Western swing, early jazz and Led Zeppelin is just not commercial enough for a major label?

Probably so. They took a big chance on us. It afforded us lots of opportunities. We had to agree to go forward or separate. We left on good terms. We're doing a strange project, and it doesn't fit with a major label.

And yet you have a new EP called Pack Rat out all the same. Tell me about it.

It's b-sides of the Moon over the Freeway record and includes five tracks we never released before. We're putting it out ourselves and it's available only through our Web site and at our shows.

I can never decide between paper and plastic. What's the right decision?

Canvas. The third potion is the best. Paper uses an extreme amount of different resources. And plastic uses petroleum. The whole process is bad. It's destroying wildlife and clogging up our drains. The easy thing is to get a bag you can reuse. That's why our petition is asking the head of the EPA to institute a plastic tax. Money could go toward an environmental fund. There are always more than two options.

Looking at your Web site, I can't tell what's "truly unbelievable" or "unbelievably true." How am I supposed to know the difference?

It's intentionally confusing. There are true fun things in there. Abby was really in the National Enquirer with Bill Clinton.

Are guys disappointed when they find out you're lesbians?

I haven't heard that myself. I'm sure it depends on the guy and whether they thought they had a chance with us. But I'm happy I'm with Abby.

The Ditty Bops are a music critic's dream come true.
There is so much about this duo that is unique that one hardly knows where to begin. So we'll start with the most titillating tidbit - they've performed onstage wearing bikinis made of plastic shopping bags, and fans can buy calendars adorned with photos of them scarcely clad in vegetables.

But for the Ditty Bops, who bring their lively show to The Ark on Wednesday, this is not just facile, come-hither shtick. Instead, it's their way of attracting attention to their very green-minded message. For example, the plastic-bag bikinis underscored their petition to implement a tax on a single-use plastic bags, which are not bio-degradable and are made from petroleum products. And their Vegetable Bikini Calendar calls attention to their support for organic farming and the importance of buying produce from local farms.
And last year, when they embarked on a 12-state tour that included 40-some gigs - including a date at The Ark - they rode all the way across the country, from their Los Angeles home base to New York City, on their bicycles - to illustrate America's need to reduce consumption of fossil fuels and cut down on traffic congestion.

"Yeah, we definitely have a message we're trying to get across, but we do it in a fun way, like with the calendars and the outfits,'' said Amanda Barrett, whose mandolin, dulcimer and washboard-percussion complement Abby DeWald's guitar and piano.

"We figured, if people see that riding a bike long distances can be fun, and that eating delicious locally grown food is a good idea, then we've gotten our message across in a way that maybe inspires people, but we've done it in a fun way, instead of preaching."

This year's tour also has a theme. But instead of riding bikes, they're trekking through farming communities and visiting food co-ops, natural-food stores and restaurants and organic dairy suppliers and vegetable farmers. While in Michigan, the Bops plan to drop in on Zingerman's, the Eater's Guild Farm in Bangor, and the Tree-Mendus Fruit farm in Eau Claire (home of a cherry pit spitting contest).

"We want to bring attention to the importance of family farms, and encourage people to support the family farms in their community,'' said Barrett by phone from the road. "If we all ate more food grown organically, it would reduce the amount of pesticides that get into the air and water. And it's good for the local economy, and it gives us more food sovereignty, to buy and eat food from family farms'' - instead of from agri-business conglomerates.

"We've definitely been eating great on this tour, and it's given us a chance to check out where some of our favorite brands of natural foods come from.''

But lest we forget - the Ditty Bops aren't just a two-headed "green machine,'' they're also a musical act. The Bops deliver a delightfully retro sound that is grounded in country, bluegrass and Western swing, but also draws on ragtime, Gypsy-styled jazz and old-time musical theater. Their live act is whimsically theatrical as well - their shows have often frequently involved skits, multiple costume changes, puppet shows and vaudevillian shenanigans.

Their self-titled debut album was released in 2004, followed by "Moon Over the Freeway'' in '06. Their current release is a five-song EP, "Pack Rat.''

"Yeah, when we started, we were definitely into creating a mish-mash out of Western swing and early jazz and bluegrass, but with some classic rock in there, too,'' said Barrett.

"And we also were inspired by the artwork of Edward Gorey. ... And the Muppets. 'The Muppet Show' was a big influence, for sure.''

Like so many sustainable notions, the Ditty Bops emerged from a farming community. Amanda Barrett met Abby DeWald in Davis, Calif., in 1998 in the agricultural Sacramento Valley. The singer-songwriters were avid bicycle riders in Davis, where DeWald was attending the University of California.

Last summer, the Ditty Bops toured 4,700 miles across America -- by bicycle -- in support of their enchanting indie release, "Moon Over the Freeway." That's when they got the idea for this summer's Farm Tour, which brings them to the Old Town School of Folk Music at 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Described as "The Andrews Sisters meet Sleater-Kinney," The Ditty Bops also play at 1 p.m. Sunday at Crust, 2056 W. Division, in a benefit for Co-Op Image, the youth collective in Humboldt Park.

Barrett plays mandolin and dulcimer, and DeWald plays guitar. They harmonize like bread and butter. They will be accompanied by Greg Rutledge on piano and accordion and John Lambdin on guitar, dobro and violin.

Portions of the tour proceeds will benefit local farm organizations, "The Growing Connection" and the non-profit Farm Aid, where the farm tour concludes with a Ditty Bop set Sept. 9 at Farm Aid 2007 on Randall's Island in New York City.

"We've met more farmers than we planned," Barrett said earlier this week as the group's biodiesel van pulled out of Lincoln, Neb. "I've learned more about the variety of farms, even just within what's organic or the range of different practices in your local farm. We've visited medium-size dairy farms [Redwood Hills Goat Farm in Sebastopol, Calif.] and biodynamic farms [Full Circle Community Farm in Eugene, Ore.]." Before her music career, De Wald worked for a biodynamic farm at the Green Market of New York.

Earlier on the tour, the women debuted their vegetable outfits, which resemble an artichoke (De Wald) and a carrot (Barrett). The outfits are a spin off their plastic bag clothing, which they occasionally wear until they collect 5,000 signatures for a proposed tax on plastic bags. A 15-cent tax on plastic shopping bags in Ireland cut their use by more than 90 percent. Bangladesh has banned polythene bags altogether.

"The vegetables are more comfortable than our plastic outfits," Barrett said. "We wore the plastic last night in Lincoln, and they were sweaty. But we want people to sign our plastic-reduction petition. We're trying to get people to get the head of the EPA to implement a national plastic bag tax and to get people to bring reusable bags to the store. Banning or taxing plastic bags is working in Ireland and other countries. People would rather remember to carry a bag in the car instead of paying 15 cents. The money could go to an environmental fund to help clean up the waterways that are getting polluted by plastic bags."

Last summer, L.A.-based folk-pop duo The Ditty Bops bicycled their way across the country instead of taking a tour bus, all as part of an effort to promote clean air and cycling. Perhaps 4,700 miles of pedaling worked up quite an appetite, as this year Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald are taking a Farm Tour. Over the course of this summer, they're playing traditional shows as well as benefit concerts on farms to raise money for The Growing Connection and Farm Aid.
This tour includes a stop in Madison, where they will be playing at the Barrymore Theatre on Friday, August 24.
During the tour so far, the Bops have been visiting organic and co operative farms, including a youth farm in Eugene, Oregon, where "kids get to learn how to farm organically and grow produce for a local food bank and farmer's market." They've been gifted with everything from vegan cupcakes to an organic pie eating contest held at one of their shows.
"On the bicycle tour we rode by thousands of miles of corn and soybean fields -- crops being grown as animal feed," recalls Barrett. "It made us want to learn more about small family farms and to bring attention to the people who are feeding their local communities." The Farm Tour, ultimately, is their way of learning about and raising awareness of family farms, co ops, organic restaurants, health food stores, organic dairy suppliers and vegetable growers.
Wisconsin certainly is a good place for this kind of stuff. As of the last count in 2001, there were about 50 certified organic farms in the state, putting us second in the nation.
The Ditty Bops have swung through town on a number of occasions since their debut album was released in 2004. Attendance at each concert since has grown in size and enthusiasm, illustrating the band's following in Madison. The appreciation seems to be mutual, as at their last show in town they declared: "We love Madison! You bike in the snow, you've got a great co-op, and lots of gay people!"
Stylistically, the duo create a unique fusion of vintage rag time and jazz rhythms and tight, pleasing harmonies, with entertaining and often interactive vaudeville style theatricality. They've been known to feature all manner of costumes and props at their shows, including a set of vegetable dresses designed specifically for their Farm Tour. The songs are mostly upbeat, enough to get audiences up and moving and even to inspire dance offs, which are often held to the tune of "Sister Kate." The pervasive mood at these shows is light hearted and family friendly.
The show on Friday at the Barrymore will feature an opening set by the Bop's bandmates under the guise of Ice Cream Truck, along with a farmers' market in the theater lobby and a silent auction for Family Farm Defenders. If the torrential rains have you feeling blue, this will be one surefire way to get your toes tapping and your body bouncing.

Ditty Bops mix musical play, attitude
Duo takes Fanny Hill stage tonight

By Stewart Oksenhorn
August 16, 2007

SNOWMASS VILLAGE — Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald met on a playground. And not just any playground — this one, in Davis, Calif., sported at the time, nine years ago, an adult section.

“It had giant swings and slides for grown-ups, a great place,” said the 28-year-old Barrett. “I was on the swings, she was on the slides and we met in the middle. I don’t remember our first conversation, but we went on a rock, juggled. We had an enjoyable, easy time together.”

It’s a perfectly appropriate starting point. Barrett and DeWald haven’t stopped playing since that first meeting. First they became a couple, and four years ago, they became a musical duo.

The name of their project — the Ditty Bops — suggests something playful and childlike, and their sound fulfills that promise. On their second CD, last year’s “Moon Over the Freeway,” the Ditty Bops sing in high, dreamy voices. There is a heavy element of musical theater in their songs, with tinkling pianos, accordion and washboard, and the way their voices make them sound as if they’re play-acting. “Angel With an Attitude” seems to come out of Vaudeville, with its zany tempo and lyrics like “I’ve got a chip on my shoulder and a halo on my head.”

“If you’re not having fun with what you’re doing, people are going to sense that,” said Barrett, who appears with the Ditty Bops on Thursday in the Snowmass Village Free Summer Concert Series.

Barrett and DeWald did, in fact, stop playing music together early on in their relationship. Not long after meeting, they made a stab at music-making, but found their styles didn’t mesh. DeWald, a 29-year-old who sings and plays acoustic guitar, was into Western swing. Barrett, as a teenager, had sung in her mother’s band, which focused on Celtic, British Isles and what Barrett calls “Goddess folk.” But somehow, in the ensuing years, she had developed an interest in what she terms “a bizarre synthesizer instrumental style of music.” The two sides clashed musically, and, to use the words from one of the “Moon Over the Freeway” songs, they had “bigger fish to fry.”

“It just didn’t happen,” said Barrett, speaking by phone from a tour stop in Eugene, Ore. “It was more important to get along than to have a musical project.”

Instead of spending their time with instruments, they got into food. Both Barrett and DeWald worked in farmer’s markets — Barrett mainly for a maker of fresh pasta, DeWald for the pasta maker and an assortment of farmers. Barrett also continued the modeling work she has done since high school.

A place to play
Four years after they hooked up, the couple was singing one of the songs they both knew. An acquaintance from their Los Angeles neighborhood, Marty, heard them harmonizing. He insisted they resume their musical partnership, and went so far as to provide them a place to play — his home.

“He’d have friends over to listen,” said Barrett, adding that it was Marty who started calling the duo “Ditty Bops.” “It was a very supportive group of people. So we could try stuff out. It was really fun.” Apart from having a comfortable environment to perform in, Barrett and DeWald’s musical interests had begun to synch. Barrett had recently taken up the mandolin, making for a better fit with DeWald’s love for Western swing. And in the second go-round, there was more determination to make it work musically. “I think we just tried a little harder,” said Barrett.

In 2004, the Ditty Bops released their debut, self-titled CD, which included a pair of songs — “Pale Yellow” and “Short Stacks” — that Barrett had written in her “bizarre synthesizer” days. Producing was Mitchell Froom, an accomplished musician who has also worked with Los Lobos, Bonnie Raitt and Elvis Costello. It was a surprising pairing, the veteran producer and a newbie duo with virtually no experience. Barrett says Froom had to overcome some initial hesitation.

“He was slightly concerned about our rhythms,” she said. “He was listening to these crappy demos we had made a while ago.” Froom returned to co-produce, with the Ditty Bops, “Moon Over the Freeway.” The duo got not only a major producer, but a major label. Both of their albums have been released on Warner Bros. (They also have a new EP, “Pack Rat,” with songs left over from the “Moon Over the Freeway” sessions, that they are selling at their concerts.)

Alongside the music
Outside the music, the Ditty Bops have found other ways to enjoy themselves. Their website is a treasure chest of goofy biographical information, even goofier fake news stories (”DeWald Wins Oscar!”), and Barrett and DeWald in various costumes. Their current tour is the “Farm Tour,” which has them playing select shows on farms, to benefit farm organizations. The tour ends in September not on a farm, but on Randall’s Island, located in New York City’s East River. Despite the setting, it is a big agriculture event; the island is the site of this year’s Farm Aid, a fundraising concert for family farmers that also features Neil Young, Willie Nelson and Dave Matthews. The Farm Tour was dreamed up last summer, when Barrett and DeWald did a tour by bicycle, from California to Manhattan. (Their band and equipment rode in a biodiesel van.)

The Ditty Bops are riding in the van this summer. But they have their bikes with them, for when they arrive in a town and want to get around. “It’s great for the environment — but there’s also the aspect of fun,” said Barrett of biking. “It makes you feel like a kid. People need to remember that. Although I do more biking now than I did as a kid.”

Another source of fun has been the annual bikini calendar. The project began in 2006 with the Bicycle Bikini Calendar, a fantasy-filled, superbly produced wall calendar that had Barrett and DeWald as bikini-clad pedalers, on all sorts of two-wheeled contraptions. They followed last year with the Vegetable Bikini Calendar, with peas, pumpkins and apples replacing the bikes — and the scanty-costume theme intact. For 2008, with photographer and graphic artist Rick Whitmore, they have created the Save the World calendar; the cover photo has the duo as superheroes.

That particular source of fun is about to come to an end. Here’s where Barrett’s serious side emerges. “The issue that women have to wear tops and men don’t — that seems unfair,” she said. “It’s our own bodies, and it’s completely ridiculous that a man doesn’t have to cover his nipples and a woman does.” The August photo from the 2008 calendar, she added, “brings up the issue of ‘top freedom.’”

Barrett’s thoughts on clothing norms hints at the fact that, for the Vaudevillian arrangements of their songs, the calendars and the costumes, the Ditty Bops aim to share some serious, left-leaning concerns. “Angel With an Attitude,” for instance, is a statement both of ambition and generosity: “I’ll take that cake and I will eat it too/ I’ll get more than I need so I can share the rest with you.” “Nosy Neighbor” seems a rebuke of the Bush administration’s domestic spying policies.

“It definitely makes it into our music,” said Barrett. “But probably not as much as some folk music, where the message is loud and clear.”

Ditty Bops save the world

When the Ditty Bops last came through town, they were doing it on bicycles as part of an environmental awareness campaign. Nowadays, the Ditty Bops — Abby DeWald (guitar and vocals) and Amanda Barrett (mandolin, dulcimer and vocals) — haven’t changed perspectives. They’re calling this one the Farm Tour, and in addition to regular concerts like the one Monday at the Bottleneck, they’re also playing benefit shows at farms. It will culminate in September at the Farm Aid show in New York.

The duo’s Web site (theditty bops.com) is a fun place where you can make them drink tea with a click and see some creative bios and the store. The group is selling a 2008 bikini calendar (the cover is seen here).
They’re also pushing a comic called “The Environmentalist’s Dilemma” on their Web site’s Comics Page, and they have a new nonprofit called You and I Save the World, which is now stressing plastic reduction.

Eugene, Oregon, was originally a stopover for us on our tour – a day to relax and digest all the amazing places we’d been to and people we’ve met. But as fate would have it, we found out that the musical group The Ditty Bops were playing the same night we were in town, and we were invited down to their show to table and to have an elegant pie eating contest on stage.

We met The Ditty Bops through Farm Aid (they’ll actually be playing there this September). Farm Aid knew both of us were going on cross country tours, and it turned out we were missing each other by only days in many cities. The band is deeply committed to sustainable and environmental issues and encourages their audiences to follow suit. They have a plastic bag ban on the bus, wear clothes made from plastic bags (that really look good too!), host farmers markets or let local groups table in lobbies, and are about as eco-friendly as you can get. They even biked across the country on their last tour, to bring awareness to sustainable issues.

At each of their shows on this tour, they’re raffling off an Earthbox. It’s a garden box that’s designed to grow more vegetables than would normally happen in a backyard garden, and is an excellent way to grow food when there isn’t good soil or land nearby to plant. At the Eugene show, our Oregon host Kendra actually won the box!

What’s great about a band like The Ditty Bops is that they have a strong, clear message about sustainability and being environmentally aware, and they talk about it on stage quite a bit, but because it’s tied in with the music, it doesn’t feel like a lecture. They’re educating their audiences through entertainment, which can be an excellent way to reach people who otherwise might not hear what you have to say.

The show itself was excellent – they played at WOW Hall in Eugene, an old venue with a lot of character. There were at least 200 people there either bopping their heads to the unique music of the band or dancing in the aisles (literally). The band’s music is a mixture of alternative jazzy blues semi-swing pop and is quite catchy so before you know it, you find your foot is tapping or your head is bobbing.

Not only is the band on tour across the country, playing venues like WOW Hall, they’re also playing on farms to help raise money for local groups. The day before Eugene they played on a goat farm, and before that, they played to a herd of cows. Amanda and Abby, the two leads of the band, truly live what they speak about.

The highlight of the show was the pie eating contest – organic blueberry pie (with local berries) from Sweet Life, a local bakery. Our Kendra did a lovely job on the door as people came in, getting interested folks to sign up for the contest. Of the 30 willing participants, five were chosen at random to come on stage and eat a slice of blueberry pie. Now, this wasn’t your average pie eating contest where people are gluttonous and shove as much pie in their face as they can – this was an elegant pie eating contest where the goal was to eat the pie as creatively, elegantly and neatly as you can. The Ditty Bops played a song as the five contests ate their pie – one contestant went into the audience and fed others, another had his girlfriend behind him, using her hands to feed him, and the eventual winner ate elegantly and also sang along with the band.

It ended up being a big laugh and went over extremely well with the audience, and it was a fun way to raise awareness about Sustainable Table and who we are. After the contest, a lot more people came over to speak with us about our programs and the work we’re doing. And, who knows, maybe we’ll do this again when we see the band in New York City at the end of our tour.

It isn't often you see a pop duo dressed up as a carrot and an artichoke.

But the Ditty Bops aren't your ordinary musical act. Appearing at the Triple Door Friday night, this two-woman outfit was not afraid to be fey.

Prized for their sweetly ethereal harmonies, whimsical stage antics and commitment to "green" causes, Ditty Boppers Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald packed the house -- the first set of a two-show night at Triple Door -- with a multigenerational crowd.

They scampered through a set laced with jingling Django Reinhardt jazz, old-timey 1920s-style dance tunes and deadpan whimsy that recalls the Roche Sisters (coming to the Triple Door this fall).

The chattier washboard and mandolin-strumming Barrett (she's the tall brunette in the carrot-colored sheath) and the guitar-playing DeWald (the blonde in the full-skirted artichoke dress) performed mostly original, lilting songs of love, ecology and cycling. (They cycled some 4,500 miles last year, on cross-country tour.)

Well supported by Greg Rutledge on jump-and-jive piano and versatile string man John Lambdin (on guitar, dobro, violin, etc.), their hushed, swingy, closely harmonized vocal sound went down easy. But their lyrics were unpredictable, quirky, and sometimes enigmatic.

"Angel with an Attitude" ("I got a chip on my shoulder and a halo on my head"), and the bicycle ode, "Moon Over the Freeway" ("We could drive on and on forever/As the hours slip on by") could be their theme songs. More idiosyncratic were numbers like "When's She Coming Home?" which mates a plaintive lyric with an ambling, lazy-day tempo.

The Ditty Bops funky chic and agreeable music put them on the alt-music radar in 2004, when their self-titled debut album came out. They've since recorded two more CDs, and put out, yup, ecology-minded bikini calendars.

Between jaunty tunes, the pair auctioned for charity an "earth box" of soil and plants, and plugged a proposed tax on plastic bags (which were props for their inflated-ego song, "Your Head's Too Big").

Eventually the duo did sing the requested 1920s dance tune, "(I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My) Sister Kate." But they let the little and big kids in the audience do the shimmying.

Fancy yourself more concerned about the environment these days? Great. Then how about ditching your car for a bike and taking to the traffic-riddled streets of the teeming and hostile metropolis that is Los Angeles? What, no takers?

“It does work very well as far as it’s flat and has great weather through the winter,” swears Amanda Barrett, one half of the L.A.-based, newgrass duo The Ditty Bops.

“But there is kind of a car-based mentality here that doesn’t really appreciate stopping for pedestrians or people on bicycles,” she admits. “But that can change the more people get out on bikes.”

The brave and optimistic Barrett and her partner Abby Dewald are The Ditty Bops. Their music, a buoyant, artsy blend of ragtime, swing, jazz and old-timey bluegrass, has a curious quality of being simultaneously vintage and cosmopolitan. The ladies’ light harmonies effervesce over playfully macabre lyrics. And then of course, there are the Vaudevillian skits that Barrett and Dewald perform at their shows, complete with elaborate props and costumes and often eco-themed.

Last year, the two women, emboldened by their car-less mastery of L.A., decided to ride their bikes clear across the country in support of both their new album Moon Over the Freeway and eco-friendly transportation. Riding alongside a diesel van that carried their instruments, Barrett and Dewald embarked on a four-month long tour that took them from L.A. to Manhattan.

“It was beautiful,” says Barrett of the 4,700-mile trip that included camping. “You don’t see very much when you’re in the back of a van going on the highway. This was the first time that we really got to see the country and a lot of the small towns that we would have missed or skipped over if we’d been on a van tour.”

This year though, it’s all about the farm tour. Expanding on the theme of their pro-sustainable agriculture 2007 vegetable bikini calendar, Barrett and Dewald, are currently performing on farms, at community co-ops, farmers’ markets and organic restaurants across the country. Tour proceeds will benefit local farm nonprofits and Farm Aid, an organization founded in 1985 by Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp that benefits family farms.

Deftly skirting a shortage of eco-deeds, Barrett and Dewald will also be performing in outfits made of plastic until they can collect 5,000 signatures for their Plastic Reduction Petition. Past plastic attire has included bikinis crocheted entirely from plastic bags. Unbreathable?

“Yes, and sweaty,” Barrett concedes of their protest provisions, but in mentioning their newest outfits to be unveiled on tour and until then “pretty top secret,” I detect a hint of gleeful anticipation.

“Innovation is a big part of what’s exciting,” Barrett says of the trend toward adopting a green lifestyle. But it’s the little things, the simple practices that people can incorporate into their daily routines that Barrett hopes people will embrace.

“One of my friends just got back from Berlin, another from Paris and we were saying it’s not special to ride a bike there, it’s not special to recycle,” says Barrett. “All of these things are normal. They don’t use dryers, they hang their laundry on the line. It’s little things like that, that we could do here, but it’s just not part of our mentality. I hope that those things will become commonplace, that it won’t be special that you ride your bike to work and take a canvas bag to the store. It’s such a basic thing, it’s such an easy thing. But for some reason a lot of people feel like they’re entitled to that free plastic bag.”

And if fame were to flatter The Ditty Bops, Barrett envisions a new American dream that focuses its benefit of excess on having more time to create and spend with friends.

“I’d like to think it would include being aware of how our choices affect other people that we can’t always see, finding out where things are made, maybe donating our time to ourselves and to each other,” says Barrett. “If you have the luxury of more time, let’s cook more, let’s have dinners with our friends, let’s spend more time working on things that we’re passionate about, our art or helping people. That’s a good thing to do with excess.”

Visit The Ditty Bops’ nonprofit online at youandisavetheworld.org to sign their plastic reduction petition.

Ditty Bops take green ethic to the next stage
Karen Solomon, Special to The Chronicle
Tuesday, July 31, 2007

From cars to clothes, kitchen cleaners to ketchup, nearly every product imaginable is wet with greenwash, and the next natural, organic step would be to wrap the message of sustainable food within the fat folds of indie rock.

The unique and excellent music of L.A. duo the Ditty Bops is certainly not the first to flower an environmental message from the stem of popular music. But partners and real-life couple Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald - who last year raised an environmental flag by doing their entire coast-to-coast tour via bicycle - are bringing together an unusual recipe for marrying the flavors of environmentalism, sustainable agriculture, local farm support and green eating.

Two decades after Willie Nelson brought guitars to the heartland with Farm Aid, the duet is starting a six-week tour packed with farm visits, farmers' markets and herbs growing in the tour van. Whether they will succeed in changing the mind of a single Big Mac eater or if they're just preaching to the choir remains to be seen.

What's really important is their ear-alluring sound: the Andrews Sisters meets Sleeter Kinney - a piquant and vibrant combination of Western Swing, early jazz and Led Zeppelin.

The pair got the idea for the Farm Tour while on their 4,700-mile bike odyssey last year. "It occurred to me that our slow movement and the Slow Food movement are kind of similar. We couldn't believe how many acres of farm land that were just corn and soy beans along the way," says Barrett.

The next leg of the tour begins Wednesday on Windrose Farms in Paso Robles. This outdoor show, the first of their hay bale-side performances on the 31-stop tour, will include farm fresh produce for nibbling and a tour of the farm's sheep, lilacs and antique apples included in the ticket price. And the entire show's proceeds will benefit this independent, 50-acre farm.

The next day, the show spreads its roots to a free performance at Concord's Todos Santos Plaza, with a farmers' market in front. Friday, the Ditty Bops play Berkeley's Freight & Salvage Coffee House, with a handful of local co-op Arizmendi pizzas to feed the crowd, gratis. Saturday, a Santa Cruz performance will feature another farmers' market, and the UC Santa Cruz on-campus sustainable gardening sciences leg, Life Lab, may be cooking what its members have grown.

But wait, there's more: There's the 2007 Vegetable Bikini calendar, which features the musicians in creative bikini-wear made from cabbage, lotus and carrots in artful, pinup quality collage. The tour van will be equipped with an EarthBox - a 29-inch, water-saving terrarium that will be sprouting lettuce greens and herbs - nestled in with five musicians, their gear and two bicycles. One EarthBox will be raffled off at each show, with all proceeds to support the Growing Connection, an organization promoting EarthBoxes as a way to grow inexpensive produce in the United States, Ghana, Mexico and Nicaragua. The herbs and lettuces will be incorporated into the band's hotel-room salads.

Still hungry for more? There will be the tour blog covering food facts. They will be collecting donations for Farm Aid. And then there are the meetings with local farmers, chefs and food folks along the way. Locally, the biodynamic duo plans a visit to Strauss organic dairy and a performance at Sebastopol's Redwood Hill Farm - strictly for the goats.

"We're expanding our demographics to interspecies," quips Barrett. "It will be some interesting acoustics out there, and a nice break from our regular audience, who usually talks back. I want to see how the goats will react." No tickets will be sold for this event.

Why the focus on farming? "I hope people are turned on to the variety of foods available directly from a farm." Barrett says. "And we hope to learn more about the farming process along the way - about how animals are treated, and about renewable energy use."

And doing so in a tongue-in-cheek manner, as exhibited by tools like the calendar, which features images of DeWald as a carrot being picked by bunny Barrett, or an all-goat show, is the medium and their message.

Simplifying agriculture and simplifying diet ( both women are vegetarian) are themes that will permeate the tour. Whereas last year's performance saw multiple costume changes, elaborate painted sets, a skeleton, pagoda and other hefty stage props, Barrett reports this summer's performances will be slim and trim, with the duo playing instruments - Barrett on mandolin, dulcimer and vocals, and DeWald on guitar and vocals. They will sport their signature plastic outfits, an homage to the band's nonprofit organization, You and I Save the World, whose flagship cause is the abolition of plastic bags.

While waving the flag of environmental awareness may attract attention to some real issues of the day, Barrett confesses the whole (grain) inspiration for the interest in farming. "This will probably be the best food we've ever eaten on tour."

The Ditty Bops at the Henry Fonda Theater
Saturday, July 28, 2007
by David Sprague

With the Ditty Bops' shows, one begins to think about Forrest Gump's famous saying, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get."

Not that this is a bad thing. The Ditty Bops love to be theatrical, making every show a unique musical experience. The show Saturday was no different, with the Bops kicking off their summer Farm tour that runs through September and will be raising money for local farm groups, The Growing Connection and FARM AID.

Last year's tour had the girls riding cross country from Venice to New York on their bikes, promoting biking and blogging all the way. If you get the feeling they are into politically correct causes, you are definitely correct. They do manage to pull it off without being nagging, and the end result is some pretty persuasive activism.

Jesca Hoop opened the show, being joined non-traditionally by the Bops on several numbers that frequently had a Ladysmith Black Mambazo quality to them. Hoop made reference to the fact that the opener doesn't usually get joined, but the Bops don't think that way.

The Bops then made their official concert entrance by appearing in the alcoves of the theatre, bathed in red light, singing a torch song. Then, launching into mostly new material and numbers from their second album, Moon over the Freeway, they meander through vaudeville territory, with excellent musicianship throughout. Amanda plays the uke and mandolin mostly, and Abbey the guitar and dobro, both to wonderful effect.

But of course that is not the best feature of this group. The two harmonize so naturally and purely, it almost seems like they are just breathing. Check out "Short Stacks" for an ethereally trip through their regular territory. "Aluminum Can" also shows off their intensity.

There is no easy way to categorize these ladies' work. It is best to just listen and see what you think. And although it would be easy to dismiss them as a novelty, one would be missing what amounts to some of the most creative, apparently simple, but actually complex music around.

Apparently more people are catching on, as the Fonda is the largest venue I've seen them at. I'm hoping they never lose their penchant for the dramatic aspects of their shows, even though their music is great and stands on its own.

They closed the show by marching down the aisles of the theater, ending up in the lobby, much to the spilling crowd's delight. There they sold their new bikini calendars and encouraged folks to sign their "Plastic Reduction Petition." And emphasizing that a person acting alone CAN change the world, they have even started a non-profit, You and I save the World.

The Ditty Bops; Cute, quirky, talented, serious and entertaining. Quite a feat.

July 2007 \| From the Editor EVERYDAY SUPERHEROES

So I’m sitting in Mani’s Bakery on Fairfax chatting with Amanda Barrett, one half of LA-based acoustic folk-pop duo The Ditty Bops, when it dawns on me: pre-kids, there are really only two kinds of serious relationships. There are those (few and far between) like Amanda and her girlfriend and bandmate Abby DeWald, for whom coupledom is a fertile partnership of creative productivity. And then there are the couples (far more common) for whom the greatest regular achievement is making it through a Netflix rental queue.

From the vantage point of my couch (where my beloved and I can often be found training for some ambitious movie marathons), The Ditty Bops seem busy on a level approaching the superhuman. Not only have they created two successful albums, a way cool website, a regular comic strip and an annual themed bikini calendar; Not only did they bike over 4,500 miles across the country on tour last summer — but as if that weren’t enough, this dynamic duo managed to start a nonprofit, the aptly-named You And I Save The World.

And honestly, I wouldn’t put it past them to make good on that declaration. Well-matched sidekicks, with a penchant for playing dress up, The Ditty Bops seem to have the talent, ingenuity and vision to make their big dreams happen. What could be more super-heroic than that?

But if all this gushing is making you want to retreat to your couch to drown your defeat in Netflix, consider that some of The Ditty’s most epic accomplishments are in their everyday choices. Riding their bikes instead of driving, turning their carport into an organic veggie garden (see left), and bringing their own reusable bags, napkins, to-go containers (and even chopsticks) wherever they go. Daily feats of daring, well within the reach of you or I.

At the time of this writing, close to 800 people have signed the plastic ban petition and accepted the challenge posed by YouAndISaveTheWorld.org. Read more about the site, and the good work of its fearless creators.

Here at Whole Life Times, we do our best to highlight the folks who are making our city — and our world — a little brighter. And we hope that their stories inspire the everyday hero in you.

—Eliza Thomas, Editor in Chief

Whole Life Times Conversations: The Ditty Bops Interview by Eliza Thomas

Last year — instruments in tow — they biked across the country from the Venice boardwalk to the Big Apple. This year, the Ditty Bops — America’s favorite two-wheelin’-vaudeville-newgrass-folk-pop-circus-activist-sweethearts — bring their feel-good brand of honky-tonk to the heartland, in celebration of organic farms, local foods, and the good folks who keep the country fed.

The LA-based acoustic duo — Abby DeWald (guitar/vocals) and Amanda Barrett (mandolin/dulcimer/vocals) — built their rep on stage shows featuring ample use of props, costume changes and the dispersal of crafty goodies like handmade reusable shopping bags. It’s all part of their “name the coolest idea you can think of and do it” philosophy — an ethos that informs their happy-go-lucky harmonies, their car-free existence (in the capital of sprawl), and their new nonprofit, You And I Save The World. This month, we sat down with one half of the prolific power couple to talk guerilla gardening, the nation’s bike-friendliest cities, and what it’s like to rock out on stage in a bikini crocheted from plastic shopping bags.

Eliza Thomas: So tell me about the tour.

Amanda Barrett: We’re going on a six week tour from Los Angeles to New York, playing regular venues and also on farms, at co-ops, farmers markets, restaurants that use organic food — all kinds of good places. We’ll be playing benefit shows on the farms for Farm Aid, local farm nonprofits and The Growing Connection (TheGrowingConnection.org) The Growing Connection gave us earth boxes to raffle off at our regular shows to raise money. We’re bringing our bikes, but we’re traveling in a bio diesel van.

Why farms?

Well, we had shot our vegetable bikini calendar, and as we mentioned in there, sustainable agriculture is important to us. And we love food. On our bike tour, we noticed a lot of soy and corn growing and we were wondering, well how do we feed the country with all of the other things that we eat? We wanted to meet people who are feeding their communities with organic crops, and see how they’re getting along.

What are some of the most exciting ideas, or organizations, or people on your radar right now?

The Growing Connection is really exciting. They’re connecting communities — mostly children, but a lot of people around the world — who check in with each other via the web, and see how their veggies are growing, in Ghana, or in California. It’s a pretty cool thing.

The Earth Box from The Growing Connection was our first growing project. We’ve got lettuce, and it’s doing so well. And since then, we’ve planted a lot of other things — I can send you a picture — I built all of these wood boxes and we’ve got zucchini and herbs… It’s a good use of a carport without a car, you know! You can plant a garden! Give up your car and grow veggies!

And we’re super excited about San Francisco passing the plastic bag ban, and hoping other cities follow suit. In fact, we’re working on a plastic reduction petition right now. Please go to our website YouAndISaveTheWorld.org and add your name to our list. We’re about 4,000 signatures shy of our goal, and we’ve been wearing plastic at our shows until we get 5,000 signatures total. A friend of ours crocheted a plastic top for me and then we borrowed these amazing plastic outfits from Diana Cohen, who makes plastic art. It’s been fun, but it’s definitely sweaty. Plastic doesn’t breathe very well on stage, so please commit to bringing a reusable bag to the store! We need to get that petition filled up.

What keeps you up at night?

I think a lot about how to get people to change their habits. And I’ve decided it’s really about finding a way to inspire people, instead of preaching to them — and that’s a fine line. So what keeps me up is thinking of games and fun, creative projects that get people excited. That’s why we decided to wear plastic at our shows.

Is the green thing just a fad?

There definitely is a fad of people who want to stamp themselves as green without doing the work. And that’s kind of scary. We’ve never really dealt with this before, have we? Green has never been mainstream, so we’ll see how it pans out. I’ve been getting a lot of calls from all these different magazines, like, “We’re doing something on ‘Green Touring!’” or whatever, and that’s cool… but I hope it’s not just one “green issue” a year — that it would be more integrated into our lives all the time.

What keeps you focused, motivated and hopeful?

When I see how easy it is to make little adjustments in my own life, and I talk to my friends about it, and they’re trying little things — that’s exciting.

What are some of the most bike-friendly communities you’ve visited in your travels?

Seattle was great. We were riding during rush hour, and there were so many people going to work on bikes, on a special route. Chicago, people are kicking ass riding in the snow… and Oregon, San Francisco… a lot of the country is into it. At one point on our tour, we were in this small town in Kansas of 150 people, and we got a rider to ride with us through the town. So you never know. There’s a bicycle community everywhere.

Who’s on your dream presidential ticket for ’08?

Well, I’m thinking of running for office myself. I think Abby would make a great first lady. I don’t think I’m going to be running for president, but there are a lot of local positions available. We’ve been talking seriously about that. But who do I really want? I’m not sure. I have to research the candidates more and see who decides to run. More people are still popping up.

What question do you think our readers should be asking themselves?

I think your readers can ask: what are they excited to do that would also be beneficial for their environment? You gotta start there, with excitement, otherwise people become critical or overwhelmed. Just start. There are plenty of things to do.

On the heels of that, what is one act that if all of us did we could change the world for the better?

Ride a bike instead of driving your car for one day a week — that would be incredible. Or just a portion of your day — go to the farmer’s market on your bicycle, ride to work, go have a fun joy ride with your kids! That’d be a great start. I think employers can take steps to make that happen, because a lot of people say “Oh I would do that if I could shower off before work.” But I met people on the bike tour whose employers have provided a locker room so they could bike to work. Maybe we could take the focus off of the suit and tie, and bring the casual thing back, so people can feel comfortable to ride. And that would also reduce the amount of climate control inside these buildings that don’t breathe, all so that the dudes can stay in their suits — it doesn’t make any sense. So here’s to dressing casual! [raises her teacup]. I guess that’s the answer to all of our problems. Casual everyday! Not just Fridays.

(excerpt on The Ditty Bops)

Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald, better-known as the Ditty Bops, kicked up national publicity last summer by pedaling from California to New York on a 12-state, all-bicycle tour to support their Warner Bros. album "Moon Over the Freeway."

The group recently expanded its environmental mission with You and I
Save the World, a nonprofit they created to raise awareness for
environmental issues. The organization's first project is a campaign to reduce the use of plastic. "Abby had the idea of making outfits out of plastic bags and wearing them to shows, to bring attention to how easy it is to reuse bags," Barrett says. The band is also selling reusable tote bags and hand-sewn produce bags to benefit environmental charities.

Known for their creative use of quirky imagery in band marketing, the
Ditty Bops incorporate environmental messages into visual projects. In
addition to publishing an online comic strip called "The Environmentalist's Dilemma," the band is going green with the next edition of its popular Bikini Calendar, which will be printed on post-consumer recycled paper with soy-based ink. Following prior bicycle- and vegetable-themed calendars, Barrett says the 2008 "Save the World" theme will feature photographs of Barrett and DeWald illustrating "ways that we can save the world, like alternative energy and universal health care . . . in bikinis."

-Evie Nagy

other artists in Billboard's GREEN TEN selection are:

Pearl Jam
Guster
Sheryl Crow
Jack Johnson
Perry Farrell
Maná
Dave Matthews Band
Bonnie Raitt
Artists' Power

During a recent interview, the Ditty Bops' Amanda Barrett begged for a mention of their petition to start a tax on plastic bags.

"If you wanted to give out our website, I would not say 'no,'" Barrett said. "Because we're wearing plastic until we get 4,000 more signatures. We're excited to wear it for the cause, but we'll be excited to be wearing natural fibers too."

Barrett and the other half of the Ditty Bops, Abby DeWald, are clear leaders in the environmentally conscious music world. Last year's nationwide tour was entirely on bicycle (with a support vehicle), and this year's tour focuses on local, sustainable agriculture.

They'll bring their unique, playful sound to the Snowmass Summer Free Concert Series on Aug. 16. Expect them to talk up organic and the plastics campaign at least little. They might even have copies of their absurdly cute 2007 Vegetable Bikini Calendar.

The Ditty Bops are activist standouts, but even the Ditty Bops need to pay bills. Increasingly, the push toward green is pulled by groups like the Ditty Bops and pushed by business. The commercial sector, with green businesses leading the way, are pushing bands and festivals to be more green.

It's no longer a surprise to hear of environmental initiatives and wind credits. Going green is about as new as going anywhere else. Part of the reason why change is snowballing is because the push is coming from a new direction.

"Carbon neutral was the 2006 word of the year" said Steve Szymanski, co-owner of Planet Bluegrass, which runs the Telluride Bluegrass and RockyGrass music festivals. "It does seem there's awareness in the mainstream about global warming now. Almost every morning on NPR there's a story about global warming now."

This year, Telluride Bluegrass announced it would offset all of the carbon emissions of the festival and the travel to and from the festival of musicians, crew and festival-goers. Five years ago, the festival started a relationship with New Belgium Brewing, and the company pushed a green agenda that the festival was more than willing to embrace.

"We're being so bold as to say we're carbon-neutral," said Szymanski. "To everyone throwing an event, they should know that the majority of the carbon being generated is from people driving to and from the event. Ninety percent of the carbon is being generated by driving to and from Telluride."

Szymanski readily admits that New Belgium is largely responsible for the greening of Telluride this year. Though one might assume the green push came from musicians, he said many of the musicians are actually being educated by Telluride and the business sponsors working with Telluride.

"In some ways, [musicians] are insulated from it," Szymanski said. "They're driven in, do their thing and drive away. Last year Bonnie Raitt and the Barenaked Ladies were very gracious about mentioning what we were doing onstage, but they were some of the first to mention it directly from the stage. They both ran biodiesel buses and were working on sustainable practices."

The Ditty Bops' Barrett said the commercial sector is invaluable even to artists who are driving the environmental push. For the bike tour, the Ditty Bops had sponsors, many of which are the same sponsors for Telluride.

Clif Bar and New Belgium Brewing are two of the companies leading the push.

"We think they're for real," Barrett said of a visit to the New Belgium plant on the cross-country bike ride. No small praise from a woman wearing plastic until her petition gets the necessary signatures.

In 2005, Clif Bar started supporting musicians and festivals (such as Telluride and Bonnaroo), and in 2006 they named the partnership Clif GreenNotes. They've hooked up with bands like Gomez and Hot Buttered Rum and helped get Martin Sexton into a biodiesel bus.

When Sexton spoke about the new bus back in February, he talked it down to a certain extent and said he wasn't really the impetus behind it. He had hoped to do something after watching Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," and ended up in touch with Clif Bar.

As part of the program, all of the T-shirts for this summer's tour will be made with organic cotton, and his tour bus will run on biodiesel.

Szymanski thinks the green revolution has gone so far into the mainstream that they might even be behind the curve. And of course, he's hoping Telluride will continue taking forward steps as the festival moves on.

"There is a whole activist group of musicians out there and they're out there, they're on it," Szymanski said. "Franti, he's all over this kind of stuff. They've played Telluride."

Those are the folks who got the ball rolling, but by many accounts, it's rolling. Now the music world has to see if that will rock the boat.

"Everyone wants to look green," Barrett said. "It has potential to be incredible."

The charming, talented and eco-friendly Ditty Bops gave two sold out shows Saturday night at McCabe’s in Santa Monica. Twenty-somethings Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald perform old-timey string band music with an environmentalist flavor. And they don’t just sing about it.

Last summer they rode 4,502 miles from Los Angeles to New York on their Moon Over the Freeway Bicycle Tour.

"We wanted to promote cycling, get in the habit, and experience the country in a different way," said Amanda. Neither woman owns a car, preferring to get around their home city of LA via their new Xtracycles. They even offer discounts to their shows for anyone sporting a bike helmet.

Saturday’s shows featured special guest Ruth Barrett, Amanda’s mom. She is an internationally known fretted dulcimer recording artist, singer, and songwriter. Listening to her soulful The Heart is the Only Nation leaves no doubt where Amanda got her earth-loving values and her lovely voice.

The show opened with some signature camp. Amanda and Abby, dressed in frilly vintage gowns and long flowing wigs, sang a gender-bending version of “Stand By Your Man.” As they harmonized on the Tammy Wynette classic, they stripped off the wigs and long dresses, revealing boys underwear, muscle tees, suspenders and striped ties.

With voices as sweet as honey and harmonies to match, they call their shows "pagan-vaudeville." Accompanied by guitar, mandolin, piano, fiddle, stand-up bass, and lots of wild costume changes, their music blends ragtime, western swing, bluegrass and folk.
Another musical theater number accompanied the new song “Paper or Plastic?”. Abby, Amanda, guest artist Jesca Hoop and several other friends of the band tromped onstage wearing a variety of plastic trash, including a bubble wrap apron, a laundry basket skirt, and a Whole Foods carrier sack hat.

Singing “Plastic knives, plastic spoons, plastic forks and plastic boobs!”, the bubble wrap was torn away to reveal fake plastic breasts, complete with nipple ring. Longtime clown and friend of the family Tuba Heatherton then did a tap dance solo on top of the bubble wrap, accenting each step with a pop pop pop.

“Plastic cars, plastic dogs, plastic rain and plastic smog!” sang Amanda. A cascade of styrofoam packing peanuts rained down on her vinyl umbrella as the rest of the gang tried to cover a blow-up earth ball with plastic food wrap.

“We don’t want paper OR plastic!” they declared. This kind of authentic zaniness encourages their growing cult following.

Bops related products on sale in the lobby included homemade-by-Amanda reusable produce bags. According to Abby, Amanda had whipped a bunch of them out on the sewing machine the night before (using unbleached organic cotton no less). They were selling them for $1 each and encouraged everyone to make their own.

“Put your lettuce in it so you never have to use a nasty plastic bag again!"

The Ditty Bops, made up of couple Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald, are more than just one of the most inte