Sustained note

While some protesters against Interstate 69’s extension through southern Indiana are maintaining a demonstration at a construction site north of Evansville, enduring the elements from an encampment suspended more than 30 feet off the ground in a clutch of trees, others are opting for harmonies rather than heights.

This Friday and Saturday, at its farm just northwest of Spencer, Ind., the Deep Roots Animal Sanctuary will play host to the Stop I-69 Pledge Camp and Music Festival — a gathering of musical acts and activists that seeks to combine entertainment with education. Featuring seven bands and offering workshops on subjects ranging from non-violent civil disobedience to tree climbing, the festival is also offering free food and space for camping (although its organizers are requesting a $15 to $20 donation to help cover costs).

For Bloomington musician Clare Hubbard — who, as Caethua, performs a mixture of Celtic, folk and drone music — concern about the current state of the world moved her to play the festival.

“We are rapidly losing land to development, and some of us are quickly destroying the land that created us,” Hubbard said. “Developers and supporters of I-69 are contributing to a global crisis affecting the economic, social and environmental health of communities by creating this highway.”

In her role as a musician, Hubbard said that she felt she had to employ music as a means of communicating the pain of the earth and its creatures, and “to help people feel and understand what is happening beneath the surface of every ‘truth,’ beneath the surface of ourselves and the ground we walk on.”

For others, the motivation was more specifically local. Ben Rector (aka Brenn Bone Reectumm) of Bloomington indie band Dust From 1000 Years said that he objected to the seizure of property through eminent domain and deforestation that I-69 would bring about, as well as possible changes to the surrounding area.

“I don’t care much for politics, but for personal and aesthetic reasons, I wouldn’t want an interstate to run through Bloomington, or any of southern Indiana for that matter,” Rector said. “Plus, (the festival) sounds like it will be very fun.”

The potential for fun was very much a motivator for Samuel Steelman of Nashville, Tenn., who will be performing both nights of the festival — first in the rootsy folk-punk group Mother’s Best, then in the experimental garage/country band Looks Like A Snake!

“I’m looking forward to the audience — you know, hopefully we can get these people up and on their feet, having a good time while (they’re) there for a good cause,” Steelman said. “The audience should expect strings flying, and for their legs and arms to be tired by the next morning from swinging and dancing.”

Rector was a bit more modest regarding what awaits the audience, noting that Dust From 1000 Years would be performing without electricity for the first time in a long time — but expressed excitement about performing outside. Likewise, Hubbard touted the venue’s unique qualities.

“Playing in the woods is an intimate setting, one in which the acoustics lend to a very particular emotional experience,” Hubbard said. “Everyone has a deep attachment to the woods, whether it’s memories from childhood — as in my case, where I would spend most of my time — or some primal recollection that this is where we came from: what the world was before we began to develop it.”

But for Hubbard, the festival represents more than just a chance for a moving performance. Rather, she said that she looked forward to the opportunity to “learn from other people how to make my voice stronger, and how to combine our voices and efforts to incite change.”