VEGANGELICA

Hello, All! This is Erica, a songwriter and novice singer, guitarist, and currently also percussionist, who is making vegan vegetarian music under the name of Vegangelica. I finally looked past the “Artists’ Corner” and saw there was an Introductions section and so am finally posting information about myself here.

I joined the forum for two main reasons:
(1) To share my song lyrics and find out how other vegetarians as well as non-vegetarians perceive them, as well as listen to any changes they recommend.
(2) Although I’ve played classical violin for 32 years, I am new at the electric guitar (6 months) and at drums (1 month), and so have had some technical issues with recording that I hoped to get answered.

I’ve discovered by reading the posts that there are a lot of funny and helpful people on the forum who offer constructive criticism, suggestions, and support for other musicians/songwriters, whatever their skill level, which is wonderful. -- Erica

Antonio

welcome, what music do you like?

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VEGANGELICA

Hi, Antonio! Thank you for asking. Since I grew up in the 70s - 80s I find I gravitate toward groups from that time...though I hear some songs on the radio in the last several years that I love (I just can't remember their names!). In general I like alternative rock music the best, but my tastes are fairly broad. Here's a list of a few groups and particular songs I like:

Depeche Mode ("Personal Jesus")
Vivaldi (violin concertos)
Seitz (violin concertos)
MGMT ("Indie Rokkers," "Time to Pretend"--I like it that they say they just play what they like, regardless what others feel)
Bread ("If" and "Diary"--very sweet; always make me sad)
Sweet ("Love is like Oxygen"--the first rock song I remember stirring me)
A. Corelli (Sonata for Violin "La Folia"--great repetition of theme with variation)
Naked Eyes ("There's always something there to reimind me")
The Recanteurs ("Steady as she goes"--very easy guitar part; fun to play; I like the intensity of it)

How about yourself, Antonio?
--Erica

VEGANGELICA

Hi again, Antonio...I just visited your youtube site and read that you like a wide range of music, from rock to metal to jazz and beyond. Your guitar playing is lovely...very light and quick and playful (from the two pieces I've listened to, so far)! Then I visited The Success Story band's myspace page. Your group's two uploaded songs both sound very upbeat with a good driving pulse. They sound to me like an infectious smile, if you know what I mean :-) --Erica

Antonio

well i've got too many artists that i like to name, so i'll post my Last FM page:

www.last.fm/user/kweejibo

i usually go for rock, metal,and alternative, but i'm always looking to expand my tastes


EDIT:oh and thanks for listening, those two newer songs are more newer things that i'm working on, but i'm not so sure if you can get the gist of what i do from just those. idk, i try to do different things with music i guess

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333

Welcome! Another Erica, I see. I didn't know Veridical Fiction was a band. I thought it was just the name of an MB scumbag. :P

VEGANGELICA

Thank you, 333, for the welcome.
Do I understand correctly that you are a biologist? I think I recall reading this in the thread of another new member. I ask because...amazing coincidence...*I* am a biologist!

Say...who is the other Erica to whom you refer?

Guybrush

Welcome to MusicBanter, Erica!

I think I'm the only one here except you with a degree in biology (not 100% sure though) and I'm currently working on a master thesis on wind dispersal of terrestrial invertebrates like mites and springtails on Svalbard (norwegian high arctic). What is it you do?

edit :

By the way, people are gonna ask you about this for forever, so I might as well be the first to do so here Why did you become a vegan?

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Something Completely Different

VEGANGELICA

Hello people,

Thank you for all your unique and interesting ways of welcoming me. I’ll respond to your recent comments in the order in which they were made.

DAC, you said “wat?” when learning about a vegan vegetarian band. At the bottom of this post, in answer to Toretorden’s questions, I describe what it means (to me) to make vegan vegetarian music. If you’d like to learn more, please scroll down (and down and down and down).

JACKHAMMER, thanks for the welcome. You are correct--there isn’t much meat to my music. It’s more like boiled kale...kind of tough, makes you chew a long time, and tastes rather bitter, but (I feel) is actually very healthful when digested!

THE UNFAN, you wrote: “Every time you sing a song about how precious a cow’s life is I’m going to eat a hamburger. Edit: Jesus Christ, get out of my state please.”

Ahhh...this was an interesting comment. As an atheist, I am flattered that you have apparently mistaken me for Jesus Christ, since many people think he was quite admirable...someone who cared for the meek, the children, the women, and all those given little social regard back when he apparently lived.

I am rather taken aback that I will from now on have so much power over what you put in your mouth. That is a great honor. It is a little unsettling, though, to know that I could make someone’s stomach explode!

Of course, in reality if you want to eat a hamburger, it is your choice to do so or not. It is still legal to eat hamburgers...at least for *NOW*, that is...bwaa haa haaa, BWAA HAA HAAA, BWAA HAA HAAAAA!!!! (Evil vegan laughter). Seriously, though, I am curious, Unfan...if my singing about the preciousness of a cow’s life causes you to eat a hamburger, then when I sing about the slaughter and eating of dogs in China, or primates and other “bush meat” in Africa, or human children in North Korea during the 2002 famine, will you also be searching for these foods to consume in retribution? And if not, what are your reasons?

Your comments are a common negative response one hears when some people are confronted with veganism...that is, by someone who is pointing out that people have the choice not to eat animal products, and there are many good reasons to make this choice. I understand that no one wants to be told what to do/eat. I agree it is unpalatable to be deprived of autonomy. If that is the case for you, Unfan, then I should think whatever anger you have toward veganism should be magnified at least 50-fold and directed at all the people who, I assume, gave you no choice at all about becoming a meat-eater. If you are like the typical omnivore, then family members and schools probably gave you meat without any option. Similarly, the animal industry has been telling you repeatedly to eat meat, dairy, and eggs.

If you feel your freedom of choice is being attacked when people simply sing about the positive reasons for eating plant-based diets, and the negatives of eating animal-based diets, then why are you not angry at all the people who have forced meat and a meat-eating culture on you since you were a baby? And, are you really from Iowa? Do you know other MB Iowans?

URBAN HATEMONGER...I agree with you that “vegangelical” does flow better than “vegangelica." Vegangelical is a recent (pejorative) term for a vegan who is trying to inform people about reasons for choosing a plant-based diet (among other lifestyle choices)...which is the motivation for my songs, so in that regard it would make sense to name our band “vegangelical.”

However, we picked “vegangelica” because...
(1) Angelica is a genus of fragrant herbs with edible roots often considered a protector of children and women, and is within the carrot family...carrots, of course, being the universal symbol of vegetarianism;
(2) Angelica is also a sweet dessert wine made from grapes, the universal symbol of earth’s fecundity and bounty.

POBODYS NERFECT (clever name!), BBQ sauce, which you are wiping from your mouth, is actually usually derived from inorganic compounds and plants (herbs, etc), and is...VEGAN! I know, I know...shocking. Maybe you are a closet vegan if you are enjoying BBQ sauce. It’s okay...you can confess it to me. I’ll understand.

Last, but not least, TORETORDEN: thanks for your welcome and your questions! I looked up mites and springtails in the tundra and was surprised to learn that mites are one of the most common invertebrates there. Plus, they are a wonderful example of natural selection with their ability to synthesize glycerol as a natural antifreeze to survive -40 C temperatures! What amazing and tough little animals you are studying up there in Norway. I remember sitting on some rocks in windswept, grassy areas somewhere in Norway and observing lemmings when I was 18. I didn’t realize it was probably crawling with mites.

You asked about my biology work. I’m a research associate at a university where I study the genetics of maize cultivars that have amino acid ratios similar to those of cow’s milk. These maize cultivars are grown in some developing countries to help combat world hunger, because in many parts of the world people rely on maize as their main protein source. Plant-based diets with few animal products in them are very efficient, maximizing the number of people who can be fed off a given area of arable land, and minimizing freshwater consumption. We are trying to learn more about these cultivars so that it is easier for people to breed them to suit their local climate needs.

Toretorden, you asked why I became vegan. Thank you for asking. In order to make sure we’re talking about the same thing, I first want to clarify what being vegan means to me. As a vegan I try to reduce the suffering of sentient beings and also help them live their lives with autonomy as long as their lives can naturally extend. I nourish myself with plants and synthetic vitamin B-12, and use products made from plants rather than animals.

I also try to treat human beings (who are animals, after all!) with kindness and respect. For example, I support genital integrity for children, which means that I oppose non-therapeutic genital cutting (i.e. circumcision) of all children, both boys and girls, so that they can grow up to make their own choices about their most private of body parts. I support equality for people regardless of ethnicity, gender, gender identity or lack thereof, and sexual preference.

All of these causes, which are described in my song lyrics, are part of veganism as I view it. Being vegan is simply trying to treat others kindly. I believe everyone, when singing/making music, has some message or emotion s/he wishes to convey, and usually some reason for wishing to share it through music, one of the oldest forms of emotional communication. In my case, the motivation and the content of the songs is based on veganism. Living in Iowa, the home of animal agriculture, I always have a lot of inspiration for writing songs.

Toretorden, you asked me why I become vegan. The answer: I realized that other animals have feelings and lives that are important to them, and so I did not want to be responsible for ending their one chance to live. Because I enjoy living so much, I do not want to deprive another sentient being of this joy.

If you think about how you may have felt about some animal (such as a dog or cat) whom you cared about and wished well for, for her own sake...and then broaden the sphere of compassion to more and more species, this is the process I think many people go through as they choose to become vegan.

My first vegan leanings began when I was 5 years old. Some French relatives took me to a aquaculture fishery and told me to scoop up a fish using a basket. I thought we were getting a pet and so, looking into the murky, fish-filled water of the artificial pond, I naively scooped up a fish and took the fish to a woman employee. The woman grabbed the fish and, to my horror, took out a hammer and WHAM WHAM WHAM bashed its head in. I was appalled that she had killed this poor fish, who had done her no harm and was no threat to her.

That night I told my relatives I did not want to eat the fish for dinner. They told me I either had to eat the fish or have no dinner. I chose to have no dinner.

I never lost that basic, intuitive feeling I had at age 5 that it is unkind to kill someone who has feelings. I became ovo-lactovegetarian when I was 18, and vegan at 28. Before I became vegan I remember thinking vegans were far-out and extreme. Then I realized that a 25-year supply of vitamin B-12 costs only 4 dollars. Rather than support the killing of hundreds and hundreds of animals to get vitamin B-12, I could simply eat synthetic vitamin B-12. Ironically, pig producers actually feed synthetic vitamin B-12 to pigs...whom people then claim you need to eat to get vitamin B-12!!

Now that I’ve been vegan for 12 years, the fact that I once felt vegans were extreme always makes me smile. I would say that the lengths to which the animal industry goes to raise, slaughter, chill, package, and ship animal products...and try to convince consumers that they need them...is much more extreme than buying a $4 bottle of synthetic vitamin B-12.

–Erica

Freebase Dali

It's me, you nonce. lol...
I make music.

BTW, Erica, thank you! I guess you heard my track on the Myspace thing? I should really update that page.

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