In 1999, the Disco Biscuits hosted the inaugural Camp Bisco at Cherrytree, PA’s TuneTown Campgrounds. In addition to multiple sets from the Disco Biscuits, the festival mixed DJs with jamband stalwarts like Sector 9 [as they were known back then], Deep Banana Blackout, the Recipe, Fat Mama, Lake Trout, ulu and Project Logic. Over the years, Camp Bisco has changed its scope and expanded its focus to emerge as one of the country’s largest electronic music festival. On the eve of the 10th Camp Bisco, Disco Biscuits bassist Marc Brownstein discuses the festival’s evolution, Conspirator’s new album and the Disco Biscuits’ busy “year off.”

This will be the 10th time the Disco Biscuits have hosted Camp Bisco since 1999. Can you start by giving us some background on what your initial idea for the festival was?

We wanted to start an electronic music festival—that was the idea. And when we started it we had a bunch of DJs, as well as Sound Tribe Sector 9 and some other bands on there that we were friends with. There weren’t as many electronic bands in 1999, so it wasn’t as easy to build a massive electronic music festival like it is right now. But the idea was unique at the time to have a festival that ran until 6 AM. That wasn’t your everyday festival. Your everyday festival ended at Midnight or 1 AM in ‘99. So what we did to change the paradigm was to add this late-night vibe in. I know it may sound funny to people because late night shows are such a huge part of the festival culture now but at the time that was a new idea. There was no Bonnaroo or big festivals with late nights in the ‘90s. I don’t know if we were the first to do it, but we were definitely one of the first to do it.

The bands went off and then the DJs came on and played until 5 or 6 AM. The idea was to fuse the cultures of rock music and electronic music, which was kind of natural to the Disco Biscuits at the time because we were born out of those two cultures. We were born from our love of rock jambands and our love of electronic music. We were doing the same thing in college in 1997 at different parties. There were raves at the time, but rock bands didn’t play them. But we would play until midnight then our resident DJ would come on and spin until 6 in the morning and everybody would trip out for 8 hours. It was perfect.

They’d start tripping at 8 PM and they’d have a party all the way through until they mellow out at 6 AM. They were these experimental college parties— psychedelic experimental parties. And what we did was we took that vibe and we put it in the festival setting. Over the past few years, electronic music festivals have gotten bigger and bigger but our festival is the biggest electronic music festival in the Northeast.

People might not remember, but in ’99 it was rare for a jamband festival to feature any electric or indie bands.

What’s really cool about that is that it’s like whether Pitchfork wants to admit it or not, the music scene is all fused together. Pitchfork can cover indie, electronic, and hip-hop, but they won’t cover the jamband side of things—it’s just not on their radar. They decidedly ignore it, but it can’t be ignored at this point. This is a merging of cultures that has happened already. This will be James Murphy’s third year in a row at Camp Bisco and his is the King of Pitchfork. Damon Dash is here, Yeasayer is here Wiz Khalifa is here—plus we’ve had Snoop, Damian Marley & Nas and the guys from Wu Tang. We’ve merged the world’s of indie, electronic, hip hop, and jambands.

What’s funny to me is that while people are only now taking about the merging of indie, jam and electronic, Ira Wolf Tuton from Yeasayer is probably one of only people who played the second Camp Bisco [in 2000 when he played with the Ally] and the 10th Camp Bisco.

Actually, I’d say probably the only person to play the first and 10th Camp Bisco who is not in the Disco Biscuit is Dave Murphy (from STS9) Murph, Jon [Gutwillig], Aron [Magner] and I are the only ones to play the first Camp and this one.

It’s amazing that Sound Tribe Sector 9 was there at that first one—now they would be a headliner at Camp Bisco. That’s something we’ve seen over the years—groups go from being the side-stage acts like Bassnectar to be the headliner at the festival, which is really exciting. The festival is growing with the artists—and the Biscuits grow with them too.

Speaking of growing together, your relationship with [hip hop icon] Damon Dash has grown over the years. What are you working on for Damon now?

Well, [singer and Dash associate] McKenzie Eddy’s album should be done and mixed by July 25. McKenzie and I have been working since last July on her album. I’ve co-written all the songs with her except for one. I wrote one entirely and she wrote one entirely. We spent a lot of time in the last year working on an electronic album with female vocals in the forefront. I have always been a fan of Portishead and Massive Attack so for me it is exciting to create something in that world. It is more of an R&B/hip-hop/pop [sound], so I had to shift gears between all these genres.

I’ve never been known for my vocal prowess [laughter], so to sit down and write a song and have a great singer interpret it or write parts on top of the music is amazing. McKenzie is so easy to work with. I can give her suggestions and there’s no ego. She allows me to really produce her and trusts that I’m going to make it the best it could possibly be, and that’s a really rewarding experience for both of us.

On the hip-hop side, we’re also still plugging away, one song at a time, on a Disco Biscuits hip hop album. We’re not doing it like The Black Keys. They went into the studio and made the album at once. We’re kind of just doing it one track at a time as we go along. We probably have six or seven tracks done, including tracks with rappers like Curren$y, Wiz Khalifa and Talib Kweli. Damon has been really great about introducing me to artists and helping me pursue relationships with them. As a hip-hop fan from Brooklyn, it’s been a rewarding experience to step out of my comfort zone and learn how to produce hip-hop. Nicole Wray is also on it—she’s a multi-platinum R&B singer who is a Missy Elliot protégé. I get emails from Nicole Wray saying, “I wanna sit down and make hits with you.” Over the past 18 months, the Disco Biscuits name and my name has been thrown out to people who would never know we existed if Damon didn’t say, “Let’s do this.”

We also remixed 24 Hour Karate School, Ski Beatz’s entire album, and we’re gonna be releasing a remix album in not too long.

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