I've seen alternative & sustainable energy technology evolve tremendously in my lifetime, and yet I know there are applications, like hydroelectric energy, that continue to be valuable contributors to our world. One that, sadly, has diminished mightily in most of our eyes, is the water-pumping windmills. At one time they were spread widely across our country, but now they are mostly broken, non-functional, and rusty relics seen here-and-there.

Yata has been a decades-long feature of the music scene in the Chippewa Valley region of Wisconsin, and an inveterate collaborator with so very many musicians of the area, enhancing his own songwriting, guitar, and wonderful singing skills with all kinds of instruments and harmonies.

The effective struggle to protect us against the destruction and desecration of the Earth draws on the powers of both mind and heart, and little can capture our hearts and open us to realities like a powerful song. We draw on the music and messages of Sarah Pirtle, David Rovics, Brian Bethke, Sara Thomsen, & Bryce Black to shine a light exposing the wrongs of fracking, mining for frac sands and copper, piping tar sands, and more.

Bryce Black is a whimsical and profound singer/songwriter from the Chippewa Valley. His day job as LoTec Windmills provides him with time to turn the events of every day into verse and then into song. Bryce is Lutheran raised and Quaker enduring, with a trip through Evangelical Christian circles along the way, but mostly he's an original.

Bryce Black, Timothy James Young and Yata teamed up in a concert bursting at the seams with Spirit on May 10, 2008, held at Unity Christ Center.