Former cop releases Vegan-themed CD
Oakland Tribune, Sep 17, 2007 by Ben Aguirre Jr
FREMONT -- Maybe Jimmy Buffett was on to something.
While many music groups in the late 1970s were singing about cutting a rug at a local disco, Buffett had a hit with "Cheeseburger in Paradise," a song in which he expresses his desire for a double- thick burger.
Now, almost 30 years later, as musicians of today sing tunes of anger and frustration among other things, one local man is singing about burgers, too, only from the perspective of a cow.
Former Newark police Capt. Lance Morrison, a self-proclaimed musician at heart and longtime vegetarian, recently completed his first CD, titled "Pasture Prime," a 15-track album in which he examines the carnivorous world through the eyes of animals.
"I wanted to get out all the thoughts I've had and share the complexities of living in a meat world," said Morrison, who retired from the Newark Police Department in 2006 and has since taken up a post with the Contra Costa Sheriff's Office.
From a barnyard discussion between two cows who have witnessed their cousin's slaughter, to a cat who fears for his life every time his owner's refrigerator begins to go bare, the light-hearted album delivers track after track of Morrison thinking outside the box.
But if you ask Morrison what he's trying to accomplish with his music, he'll tell you that he is not trying to convert anyone. His only goal is to express his thoughts and create music that others -- vegetarian, vegan or different -- may enjoy.
"I'm not trying to push this on anyone," he said. "I don't look down upon people who eat meat."
Banging spoons
Lance Truscott Morrison was raised in Newark, a city in which he later became the second-highest ranking police officer. But from an early age he knew music was what he truly loved. Heck, his father, also a police officer, was known as the "Singing Cop."
"Apparently his vocals skipped a generation," Morrison jokingly said recently, admitting that his skills with several instruments are stronger than his singing ability.
From the time he was in elementary school, Morrison remembers being infatuated with creating music. He used spoons to drum on the carpet of his family's home and then record it on a $25 tape player. Then he'd find another way to make sounds and record that on a different tape player, ultimately creating a multilayered track.
"I always wanted to know what it would sound like recorded," he said.
Morrison's interest in music has continued. He is a big Beatles fan, and he's learned to play several instruments, including different types of horns, guitars, keyboard and drums. Even when he decided to follow in his father's footsteps and go into police work - - he realized that it would be difficult to make a living playing music all day -- Morrison continued to play in several bands in his spare time, including the city's employee band, Yowza, and several mariachi, Latin and jazz bands.
"Some people have a need to write to express themselves, I like to melodically put my thoughts together," he said.
The Veggie Cop
It's 2 a.m., lunch time for police officers working the night shift in Newark, and the pickings are slim for an officer on the go. Unless you've brought your meal with you, you're left staring at the neon lights of a fast-food restaurant glowing in the dark of night.
"Some guys would talk about wanting a juicy steak, and I was going through the drive-through at McDonald's ordering the two cheeseburger meal without the meat," he said.
By nature of the job, police officers are observers, Morrison said, so after a while they caught onto his lifestyle. And he took his fair amount of good-natured ribbing because of it. After all, in a testosterone-fueled world where guns are held in leather holsters and steel-toed hide boots are the norm, Morrison was the odd man out with his plastic holster and fake leather boots.
"I bought cruelty-free items whenever I could," he said.
But through it all he remained true to his beliefs -- meat and animal products just weren't for him.
Pasture Prime
The idea for his CD came to him less than four years ago as he wrapped up his degree in liberal studies at St. Mary's College in Moraga.
He was asked to submit a senior thesis, but he did more than just write one. He sang one, too, creating a song -- which is not on the album -- about being vegetarian.
"It was well-received," Morrison said.
Though the idea had been born, it wasn't until earlier this year that he decided to get serious about his music and create the CD.
From time to time he'd kiss his wife, Debra, goodnight and tell his 14-year-old daughter, Michelle, a bedtime story before sneaking out of the house. He retired to his studio, a small structure in his backyard where he wrote, sang, played and recorded every track on his album using only his instruments and a 16-track recorder.
The only outside assistance he's had is from his wife, who took the picture that appears on the CD's cover, and Michelle, his youngest daughter, who lends her vocals to an anti-animal-product track titled "Pleather to Meat You."
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April 1, 2008 -- Vegparadise News Bureau
Hippie Musician, Police Officer, Vegan--
Lance Morrison Is an Unlikely Combination
"You're under arrest. But before I take you down to the station, I want you to listen to this song."
Not a likely scenario, but it points to the lifestyle of Lance Morrison who combines two divergent careers--police officer and musician/songwriter--to add to his profile, he's a committed vegan, too.
Morrison, sporting a beard and long-hair and looking more like a hippie, could be seen going to one of his California musical gigs in a split-window VW bus with his trademark, a cactus growing in an ashtray.
That was before he realized he had to get serious and make choices about a career. He decided on police work and worked his way up to captain before he retired. He currently works as a full-time deputy sheriff. Academically, he has a Master's Degree in Liberal Studies from St. Mary's College in Moraga, California.
A gifted musician, Morrison plays guitar, bass, piano, drums, trumpet, flugelhorn, valve trombone, and mandolin. And he sings, too. He's the entire band and vocalist on his CD Pasture Prime that he describes as a "culmination of my lifelong desire to make music coupled with my musings about life as a vegetarian."
Morrison turned to vegetarianism when he was in his teens. "I never enjoyed the idea of killing any animals. Hunting or fishing was never an interest. By the time I was 17 years of age, I knew that I would never eat meat, fish or fowl again. I haven't. Although police work is not a fertile field for vegetarians, I found it worked real well for me. It kept me in touch with my humanity, and it ensured I would be the brunt of jokes regarding my synthetic shoes and leather duty belt," says Morrison.
Despite the challenges of being a vegan in police work, he managed to utilize his music in making a contribution to his public service. He wrote seven songs as part of a CD on traffic safety that was distributed nationwide.
"Music was just another way to balance some of the trauma associated with police work. I had already played the trumpet through college, and I decided to teach myself some guitar, bass, and keyboard skills. I bought a drum set and a modest 16-track recorder. This allowed me to make one track and then add one instrument at a time as I listened to the growing 'band of one,'" Morrison says.
Pasture Prime is Morrison's way of delivering the vegan message in a musical format. Its 14 tracks were assembled on his 16-track recorder in his home studio to create a CD "designed at home to hit home, with the vegan music lover in mind."
"Writing the tracks for the CD was based on a desire to share the experience of vegetarian life. I wanted to layer the theme: Humor on top--meaning seeping upward. I hope that works. It was so fun to do," he says.
The beard is gone, but Morrison still drives a 1965 VW bus with a cactus in the ash tray.
Pasture Prime can be ordered on Morrison's website http://www.vegantunes.com/ that "exists to serve home-fried vegan music to those hungry for something new and different." Visitors to the website will hear the song "Parental Consent" that features the amusing line, "Please don't let my kids grow up to be a vegetarian."
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(VegE News, 4-2008)
Being veggie is music to his ears!
Lance Morrison, a California police officer, has set his passion for being veggie to music in an 18-track CD called "Pasture Prime." He says his songs are designed to create a smile as they inspire. Several songs are from the perspectives of the animals.
www.vegantunes.com
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Where’s The Beef? Not On This CD
By LISA SOKOLOWSKI
cactusiv(at)gmail.com
You may still be stuffed with turkey from Thursday. It’s all fill yourself with as much bird as possible, it seems.
I had some, sure, but I’m not a fan of turkey. I’m a fan of chicken. But you know who likes chicken — and not in a deep friend KFC way — more than me? Lance Morrison from vegantunes.com.
Morrison, a 55-year-old Livermore, Calif. resident has been Vegan since he was 17, so he’s coming up on the four decade mark. His anti-carnivorousness isn’t what makes him interesting, but rather the fact that he recorded an album completely dedicated to not eating animals.
“In no way would I ever think about changing folks, and I have no illusions about how kooky I might appear to some,” he said in a recent e-mail interview. “I would hope that meat eaters would find the music interesting or unique. My next set of songs is much tighter musically — I am learning as I go!”
Let’s stick to the latest tunes for now. Lance has released Pasture Prime, a 14-track album that gives animals a voice, literally. It gives them names and personalities, and inadvertently makes some meat eaters [[well, at least me]] feel a twang of guilt about eating at Burger King.
See, The Tail End of Innocence is about two cows are talking about how humans are so good to them because they erected a billboard to give the cows shade. Really, it’s an ad for Burger King. The cows talk about watching their buddies go into the slaughterhouse, and they’re going to talk to the King about it.
“The Tail End of Innocence is from a true story, in that I WAS driving down a CA highway on a 105 degree simmer day, and I saw a herd of cows shading beneath a billboard — a Burger King billboard! I know this — we don’t tell our very young kids they are eating cows… we use “burger” or “nugget” etc. I think the notion would shock them,” Lance wrote.
He adds pop culture references — Angus does an interview with Bill O’Reilly — and makes the songs very easy to purge emotion. Do I like the thought of my fellow humans eating “pure snow” that has been urinated on by animals? No. But do I find the emotion in the animal’s defense? Yes.
But, I had to ask: Does Lance think animals really know what’s going on?
“The question about ‘Do animals know what is coming in a slaughterhouse?’ is really interesting,” he began. “I operate from the premise that the shame is that WE do. If you strip away the emotion that some may and others may not feel about the killing and butchering, I am still left with this. There is no majesty in how we feed ourselves. At least ancient tribes gave grace to the earth for what farming and the sun could push up for subsistence. At least hunting parties revered their prey, and ancient rituals all seemed to give thanks for what was afforded them. There was a bit of anxiety about whether or not everyone could be fed all year. That kept our connection to nature, to thanks and to grace ever present. Now, we duck into 7-11 for the newest flavored Doritos and speed off.
“We have enough soy protein burgers, etc to feed the country, and I do understand that many find that laughable, but at least realize we’re gifted dinner by an animal if that is your deal. Otherwise, YOU are like the stereotypical cow… grazing without a thought.
“I do think all living things matter and have a spirit. I think all living things sense fear and fearful situations — if there were a line of cows getting their throats slit one-at-a-time, I bet a blood pressure reading would be revealling.”
Lance plays every instrument on Pasture Prime and sings each word — except for Pleather to Meat You, where his daughter Michelle Morrison sings lead.
So what’s next?
He’s recording new songs, which will swap in for songs already on the album. Pasture Prime, if you’re interested, is already on sale at vegantunes.com. Two dollars from every album is donated to Lance’s local SPCA. But it isn’t about the money.
“I love the idea of having a niche CD,” he wrote. “The money is very unimportant. If someone mailed me a dollar, I’d mail them the CD. It is simply fun to say something that others vegetarians can relate to.”
