RTP-area local music and culture

["mattt317 AT yahoo.com" <matt.thayer AT gmail.com>]

since food and rock and roll go hand in hand on altmch, i thought this
would be of interest to some:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/dining/24vega.html

Strict Vegan Ethics, Frosted With Hedonism

"Wearing a black "Made Out of Babies" T-shirt (it's a friend's
band) above a red-and-white checked apron, she bent maternally over a
batch of strawberry cupcakes. "Don't you just want to pinch their
little cupcake cheeks," she said.

But can a cupcake be cute and punk at the same time? In the early days
of punk, bands like the Sex Pistols were notorious for nihilism,
anarchism and epic consumption of drugs and alcohol - none of which
would seem to lead to tofu and chamomile tea. But as punk became more
political (and as bands self-destructed) in the 1990s, many punks
adopted a more profoundly rebellious stance: against drugs, against
alcohol and against the whole habit of mindless consumption.

"It was about purifying the movement, about being poison-free,"
said Ted Leo, of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, who led the band Chisel
in the 1990s. He became vegetarian in 1988 and has been vegan since
1998. Many punks became vegetarian to protest corporate and government
control of the food supply. Veganism takes vegetarianism farther into
cruelty-free territory by avoiding anything produced by animals: milk,
cheese, eggs, honey, etc. " ......