Author: Gregory Wilcox

Equaleyes, a jam-rock band from Idaho, will be gracing Salt Lake City soon with their diversified sound. Their music, as lead singer and guitarist Jeff Crosby says, is centered on creating positive experiences. “With our music, we try to convey a sense of togetherness, having a good time and freedom,” Crosby says. And certainly freedom is expressed in their music, which utilizes a wide array of styles and themes to deliver a distinct sound. The music they play is themed on genres from dance to reggae to jam-rock and more. “We all have a bunch of crazy influences, which may be why we have a diverse sound,” says Crosby. “But Phish is definitely a big influence. Bands like The Allman Brothers and other good 70s rock are also highly influential to our sound.” Though playing based on numerous influences may lead some bands astray, Equaleyes appear to be doing quite well for themselves. So far, they’ve opened for such notable acts as The Wailers, The Jerry Garcia Band and others. They’ve also toured extensively across the west, and have played multiple music festivals, including The Squaw Valley Earth Day Festival in California and Hempstock in Oregon. Equaleyes started as a trio a couple years ago, but soon took on another band member to achieve a fuller sound. Like a lot of bands, they do not have a label, but...

What is natural and what isn’t? This is an interesting question because within the public sphere there are many assumptions about what constitutes natural behavior, and many attempts to justify arguments by appealing to nature. Unfortunately, this is often an incorrect usage of the word. One reason for constant misuse of naturalistic arguments might be because “natural” has numerous definitions. Its core connotation, however, is best defined simply as “conformity with the ordinary course of nature.” The problem is when appeals to nature don’t actually align with processes in nature. For example, much of the justification for anti-gay sentiment hinges on the belief that marriage or sex between a man and a woman is natural, whereas it is unnatural between two men. Yet, zoologists and anthropologists have shown that this is a naturally occurring behavior found in many different animals and across cultures. Thus, it can’t be said to be unnatural. This isn’t to discredit the value of marriage. Indeed, that it’s not natural is sort of the point of it. What a man and woman are saying is something like, “I really like you, and I know as time goes on I may be tempted to go off with someone else, but I promise I won’t!” The natural impulses toward infidelity that may arise are willfully and unnaturally resisted. Many also misattribute the word natural to mean the...