To prove just about anything, you must first measure the thing at hand. How much energy do you use at home? At the Redwood Coast Energy Authority on Fifth Street in Eureka, they'll let you borrow monitors at no charge from their “Tool Bank,” so you can find out which appliances in your home cost you the most in energy dollars (http://www.redwoodenergy. com). How many miles per gallon does your car get? To measure go to http://www.calculatenow.biz. How do you convert ounces to cups in a recipe? Go to the USDA's Web site, http://www.nal.usda. gov, and find out. Yes, there is a way to measure just about everything we humans do on this planet. Which brings me to my next question: How big of a carbon footprint do you make on the Earth? Not familiar with the term yet? Not too worry: Here's a “Carbon Footprint 101” from http://www.carbonfootprint.com: A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our human activities have on our environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide. Simple. Say you're planning a road trip across the country, and you'd like to find out just what kind of damage you'll be making to the environment in driving that motorhome from sunny California to the rocky shores of Maine. At http://www.carbonfootprint.com, you can find out just what kind of impact you personally make via your ZIP code.

Recently, I received an e-mail from the promotions guys of a band called Perpetual Groove that was in town a few days ago at the Red Fox Tavern. Now, when you think of a band touring the country, huge tour buses come to mind, and following the buses, huge big rigs with all their equipment. On an average 20-city tour, the carbon footprint made can be astounding. Not so for this band, as it is following a new trend by making up the difference in other ways. I liken it to a “Friends” episode in which the pregnant vegetarian Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) is craving meat and the carnivore, Joey (Matt LaBlanc), offers to make her difference for her by sustaining from anything that was once alive. Perpetual Groove has signed up with the Green Mountain Energy Co. and has offset its emissions with renewable energy credits. In 2007, the band purchased enough energy credits to offset 100 percent of the calculated carbon emissions associated with last year's tour (16 metric tons), which they say is likened to not driving your car for more than 39,000 miles, or the annual carbon absorption of 2,000 trees. Making your difference. That's really what it's all about. Just for tickles and giggles, I found the carbon footprint for Christmas in the United Kingdom online, as follows:

* Christmas food: 26 kg
* Christmas car travel: 96 kg
* Extravagant lighting displays: 218 kg
* Christmas shopping: 310 kg

What does this mean? Well, first off, it's sad to me that most of the work done in measuring these amounts is being done in the United Kingdom, not the United States. Hopefully, that will change with time and we can get on board as a country in the near future. The other thing these numbers tell us is that the total amount of carbon dioxide produced by Christmas activities in the U.K. checks in at 650 kg per person -- equal to 5.5 percent of the U.K.s annual carbon footprint. Imagine that! Five percent of their total for the year is derived in just a few weeks, and I think we can safely assume the U.S. is no different. Now, for those of us who are at a loss and hated statistics in college, the whole idea of measuring may seem overwhelming. A simpler gauge day to day may just have to suffice. Rather than tout the overused word “environmental,” how about the good, old-fashioned word “conservation”? Back in the day, that's just what this was all about. Don't be wasteful, plain and simple. As my good, old-fashioned mom would have said, “Waste not, want not.” Still good advice, Mom. Sharon Letts is a staff writer in the Times-Standard's Lifestyle section. Her Nesting column appears every Thursday in the Home and Garden section. Contact her at 441-0512.

This is Perpetual Groove and they're nothing short of the divinely-inspired deliverers of both enlightenment and endarkenment that is promised by their moniker. Think M.C. Escher spawning with Bob Dylan and one might get an inkling. Perpetual Groove began their first of two sets Monday at 11:30 p.m. at the Red Fox Tavern. The four members appeared on stage as smoothly and quietly as water over moss: It took their warm-up sounds to draw the crowd. The band warmed up like an orchestra, their notes and beats emanating out from the front of the newly-raised stage and through the mellow ferocity that is the Red Fox Tavern, like the appreciative hum the forest must make when it is finally bereft of humanity. The sound built slowly, magnetizing the audience to to the stagefront as irrevocably and steadily as raindrops running down a window pane: No deluge of star-crossed fanatics there. We all kind of just ... gravitated. But tha's what PGroove can do to a person. This group of four quietly blazing, musically gifted men from Athens, Georgia, imparts what can only be described as a love affair between the beauty of the solitary soul and the spontaneous combustion which occurs in a particle accelerator: A supremely interesting, wholehearted union, that at rides the quark between piercing melancholia and lightness of being that winds out into the aural equivalent of floating. And tight? You bet.

From the first precursor to sound these gentlemen are together. One can only imagine how they prepare themselves, it's as if they've been playing for hours instead of seconds. No stiff fingers or hesitant vibe from this crew. What followed thereafter was approximately two hours of mind-bending, soul-rending, heart-upending true music that took strands of blues, funk, soul, folk and techno and wound them into a gorgeous web that can only be described as PGroove. Just what is it that makes Perpetual Groove so special, that sets them apart from the myriad other bands careening through the tour scene? Is it perhaps that, in a world seemingly overrun with flash and dogma, there still exist those who are, what, brave enough? Reckless enough? Inspired enough? To say what's on their minds without dramatizing or seeking to capitalize on it? Could it be that when one listens to Perpetual Groove one is actually getting close to some section of the overall truth and in getting closer to that truth is calmed rather than incensed by it? (How many truths have come out recently that are nothing short of incensing: WMDs anyone? The troubling fact that for every pasty, old, white and dashing young politician in Washinton there are some 30 or 40 lobbyists buzzing around them like fruit flies picnicing in the People's breadbasket?) Verifiable that, all in all, truth, like art and music, is a subjective concept but between the crowd, the music and a lovely conversation with the band's frontman, Brock, when everyone else was packing up to go, one gets the impression that Perpetual Groove may be that rare manifestation of being who, although they find themselves in a position to do so, refuse to lie to us. Check them out on the Web: http://www.pgroove.com

Listen to some of what they have to say and close your eyes to drink in the eloquence of how they convey it. You might just be glad you did. Mary Masucci can't be reached; she's way too far out there. However, if you have a band you'd like her to review, you can contact the Entertainment Editor at the Times-Standard, Chris Durant. (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Complaints not accepted: If you can't say anything nice, keep it to yourself.

The jam rock group Perpetual Groove doesn’t just talk about change. During the past four years the group’s popularity has steadily risen. Its sound has gone from funk-laced neo-psychedelic to a more structured rock tone. Although the sound may have gotten a little harder, the group has never abandoned its tree-hugging tendencies. The band comes to The Blue Note Sept. 25 in support of its latest release, LiveLoveDie, which was produced entirely with renewable energy. “The band showed an interest a long time ago in wanting to be as environmentally friendly as we could be without being preachy from the stage,” says keyboardist Matt McDonald. “If you feel strongly about something, then let your actions speak for it.” The Athens, Georgia-based group, which includes McDonald, Adam Perry (bass), Brock Butler (guitar and vocals) and Albert Suttle (drums), points to its record label, Tree Leaf Music, and Tree Sound Studios, as being instrumental in making its green-friendly philosophy a reality. The studio receives 50 percent of its energy from a methane gas-producing landfill while the other 50 percent is purchased through renewable energy sources. Packaging is made from 100 percent recycled papers printed with soy ink and no plastic casing. While touring, the band teams with Sustainable Waves and Green Mountain Energy to counteract its carbon output. “We can look at the band’s entire tour and figure out how much carbon dioxide they’re causing through their bus travel as well as any flights they take,” says Mark McLarry, co-founder of Sustainable Waves. “Basically we look at the entire carbon footprint of the tour, and from there, Perpetual Groove purchases renewable energy from Green Mountain to offset those emissions, so it’s carbon neutral.” Sustainable Waves also provides solar-powered stages and sound systems. For its fourth and latest release, LiveLoveDie, the group incorporates a more traditional rock feel to its sound. “Each year we get maybe a little darker or a little heavier with subject matter and with songwriting,” explains McDonald. “It seems to be a good snapshot of where we decided to go, (with) a lot more structure.” The band, however, has by no means abandoned the spontaneity that earned the group its core fans. McDonald says that the jam element is still a priority. “Some songs have sections … left open for more improvisation.” McDonald says Perpetual Groove’s message is personal responsibility. “It’s not as overwhelming to get involved as people talk about. We kind of show them and hope they follow our lead.”

Tonight you can listen to some cool music by the popular Athens, Ga.-based jam rock group Perpetual Groove - and make a positive impact on the Earth. The group is on "The Serious Business Tour," powered by Green Mountain Energy Co., and performs tonight at Crossroads. P-Groove also has partnered with Tree Sound Studios and Sustainable Waves to help fight environmental threats such as global warming. "The band and the label both feel strongly about doing things to help the environment," keyboard player Matt McDonald said in a phone interview. "As a band, someone in our profession produces a lot of emissions. We burn a lot of gas on tour and use a lot of energy to power up our lights and instruments. We calculated it for our fall tour, and it was shocking the amount of energy we use daily for hotels and gas." McDonald said the band is looking to get a bus that uses biodiesel fuel, but they're hard to come by because there are still only a few biodiesel stations nationwide. But to help offset its emissions, P-Groove partnered with begreennow.com, which for a fee helps reduce your emissions and contributes to "green" companies that use solar and wind power with renewable energy credits. P-Groove printed promotional materials and album covers with recycled materials and will plant a tree for every ticket bought through the band's Web site, pgroove.com. "Green Mountain Energy has been around for a while," McDonald said. "There are a lot of startup green companies, and you have to be careful. They purchase more solar and wind power, and while that might not impact us in Georgia or the Southeast, you have to have a global mentality. It might not necessarily affect your county, but it will affect the movement." P-Groove is just as passionate about its music. A celebrated international touring act for more than four years, P-Groove has built a reputation on intense, emotional music that fans call "trance arena rock." The guys are veterans of Bonnaroo and play a funky blend of jazz-rock, neo-psychedelia, R&B, "trance electronica" and progressive rock. Their most recent album, "LIVELOVEDIE," released in March, has a stronger focus on lyrics and heavier overall sound.

We regret to inform our fans that Perpetual Groove will not be performing this evening in Wilmington, NC. The tropical storm that is making landfall today has made it impossible for the event to continue. Please look to http://www.ziggyrock.com for any further announcements. Thank you!