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From the Touring Desk:
The Revolutionary Impulse and the Interrupting Forearm
(Throwing Down at Camp Bisco)

by Jesse Jarnow

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Prelude

Shortly before the Disco Biscuits took the stage for their first set on the first night of their Camp Bisco All-Star Loon Fest and Rick Rood Alumni Rave somebody flipped a switch. This was a literal switch, mind you, not some metaphoric bullshit. The completed circuit activated a series of arranged lightbulbs in the pediment above the stage. They glowed in the shape of peace symbol. It simply didn't work. Very quickly thereafter, it was turned off.

The stage was a stable one, perhaps permanent, constructed by the owners of the TuneTown Campgrounds in scenic Cherry Tree, Pennsylvania -- the small, almost non-existant town that the Biscuits had chosen to stage their festival at. For most of the Biscuits' fans, the festival couldn't have been closer to oblivion. It was a solid eight or nine hour drive for just about everybody who came. But, as many have written, in void there is paradise. Whereas the "temporary utopia" of the Gathering of the Vibes seemed partially thrust upon a crowd who were primarily indifferent to the whole affair and just wanted to camp and hang out, the bare-bones minimalist set up presented at Camp Bisco to those who made the trek actually fostered something of a small community where people actively looked out for each other and waved sad goodbyes at the event's end.

In light of the recent Woodstock and Dave Matthews Band debacles... this wasn't surprising at all. It was just plain expected. People simply don't break shit if they respect each other. To say that now is to dip too quickly into platitudes. What actually happened was that there was a seething, frothing, drooling crowd ready to burn the hell out of anything flammable, and then somebody turned on that big-ass peace sign above the stage. Yeah, that's exactly what went down.

Friday, August 20, 1999

"Knock knock," Scott asked.

"Who's th--"

"INTERRUPTING FOREARM!" he shouted as he thrust his limb within a couple of centimeters from my face, temporarily blocking my view of the road, which - at the time - was being sucked under the car somewhere in the vicinity of 80 mph.

"Knock it off, butthole." The joke was the last in a series of dadaistic knock-knock jokes, which built in cycles, each of us in the car trying to top the others. Scott won.

Our own drive to Camp Bisco was a comparatively short one -- three hours from the greater Cleveland metropolitan area. The roads were paved with deceased wildlife. Just before we pulled into Cherry Tree, we passed through what appeared to be a darling little town situated upon a river. It was named Oil City. "Huh," we wondered as we drove parallel to the town on the opposite bank. "That's a silly name for a pretty little town such as this." Then, we drove through the town's back door, through a neighborhood of oil refineries and power plants, tangled ducts and electric lines weaving their way around the outside like a skin.

Having passed through a brief industrial zone, we were suddenly shot back into the comparative wilderness of country backroads. Within a few short miles, we were making the turn into TuneTown. Exactly two months previous, the campgrounds were to be - or actually were - the site of the Sshh Festival, a small festival where the Biscuits were set to headline. Van trouble prevented the band themselves from making it all the way to Pennsylvania from the Gathering, where they had an afternoon gig. Several wayward Bisco kids ended up out there, though, waiting expectantly for the band. All reports came back that, besides the fact that the Biscuits themselves didn't get to play, TuneTown was a killer venue. Thus, it was booked.

Camp Bisco was put on by Walther Productions. Exactly three months earlier, the Biscuits' set at Walther's annual All Good Festival had to be altogether cut from the schedule due to a collapsed lighting rig. Combined with another canceled stint at the Feelin' Fine Festival, the Biscuits seemed to be cursed as far as big summer festivals went (minus the perfectly produced Newmarket Productions presentation of Melstock). At shows and in Internet discussion, heads repeatedly referred - and refer - to the Sshhiitt and All Bad festivals. There was a certain stigma noticeable in the campgrounds as we pitched our tent. Camp Bisco was going to happen, dammit. There was no choice. It was going to be in Cherry Tree and it was going to be put on by Walther. All the pieces were in place.

By the time we had arrived, Sector 9 had already finished up their set. No bother. Or, not a big one anyway... they were scheduled to play again on Friday. The Recipe grooved through a set of bluegrass and folk tinged jams that were a little too bland for my taste. Deep Banana Blackout - who were actually playing on stage at All Good when the lighting rig fell - ran through a tight set of deep funk to an unusually sparse crowd. Still, they managed to keep the energy level of those who were there - including themselves - high, which is always good. Many, I think, were saving themselves for the Biscuits. At least, I was.

As we sat around the non-existant campfire gossiping, the aforementioned peace light was turned on. We took this as a sign to head towards the stage area. One of the nice things - in theory, anyway - about Phish's summer festival events is that one can walk back to his campsite in between sets... except for the fact that, on an air force base, it's not unusual for one's tent to be nearly a mile - if not more - from the stage area. At Camp Bisco, we could actually make out people on the stage from where our tents were. To get to the concert field, we walked 20 feet down a path, through a small row of vendors... and we were there -- a sprawling, perfectly flat grass field. On either side of the light and sound tower, there were two huge geometric shapes -- biscohedrons, I guess. In essence, giant trip toys.

Various band members milled around on the stage plugging in instruments and untangling patch cords. We gaped at Marc "Brownie" Brownstein's new deep blue Richenbacher bass (an unpsychedelic version of the bass Paul McCartney played in "Magical Mystery Tour") so much that we didn't notice Jon "Barber" Gutwillig's new toy. With the stage lights off, Barber stood with his back to the crowd, tuning. As the lights went up, Barber spun around - playing the introduction to Stone - revealing his double-neck Gibson SG style guitar.

My friend Bill is fond of saying "the Disco Biscuits are about excess" (or some variation thereof). This is true. A double-neck guitar calls to mind endlessly spiraling Jimmy Page solos from "the Song Remains the Same" -- the epitome of 70s musical decadence and flamboyance. Forty minute Biscuits' jams have never been uncommon. The band wrote a fuckin' ROCK OPERA, for "Bob"'s sakes. "Oh, well," as Bill also says. "What're you gonna do?"

When I looked up somewhere during the set opening Stone > Devil's Waltz, I realized that the peace sign had been turned off. Like I said before, it made sense. It's not that Disco Biscuits are against peace or, for that matter, in favor of violence - that should go without saying - it's just that the statement's been made. It's a norm for rock music - or any other kind of art, for that matter - for this to be the case. It's accepted that musicians are against, say, war and for, say, relief efforts to feed starving people. If you don't think so, think about how odd it would feel to have a band make a stand for military action somewhere in the world. This is exactly why people like Ted Nugent are looked upon with a bugged eye.

Intimately connected to this - the nearly exact flipside, in fact - is the age-old rock tradition of revolution. It's not just rock - or music in general or art - that falls into this category -- it's everything. You name it and the revolutionary impulse is embedded at the core of it. In a flash: something within some medium develops which is completely different from anything which has come before, it becomes the norm, and it's time for something else to be developed. Ideally, one can call this evolution. Evolution, though - in the scientific sense - is subtle and unconscious. In practice - specifically with rock music - it's usually much more active.

"Rules are made to be broken" is an old rock cliché. The rules are many. And while, in reality, the rules are no more than fictional constructions designed for listeners' to get ahold of what, exactly, it is that they're listening to, they become completely accepted. Think about how radical it is when a band does something to alter the basic form they're working in. The term most often used - at least by wankfully wordy people - to describe this conscious adjustment of frame says it all: "deconstruct". This implies that there is some sort of structure to be taken apart piece by piece and examined.

Whether or not there are any rules to speak of, the music of the Disco Biscuits - at least, when one stops dancing long enough to think about it - raises some questions about the nature of the genres they are melding: techno and rock. As is the case with most every kind of music, most of those who listen to the band come through some sort of gateway. The Biscuits' have some connection to some other kind of music (or band) that the listener already likes, or their music has some emotional link to something harbored in the listener. When one first listens to a band, the only thing he has to go on is association; association with other music, experience, etc.. For most of those who listen to the Biscuits, that gateway is rock.

Rock, as always, is a general statement. If rock is "a series of hybridizations", as Jann Wenner suggested, then the Disco Biscuits represent the latest and greatest. It's a good definition, and a good starting point for the Disco Biscuits. The basic building block for the Disco Biscuits sound is jamband music as a genre - a form of rock and roll - which is an amalgamation of styles. This lies at the core in terms of the band, their sound, and their audience. Members of the Biscuits have often spoken of going to the Wetlands Preserve in New York when they were younger to check out up and coming bands. It was an influence. And, for that matter, it's where most listeners to the Disco Biscuits come at them from.

Seeing as how it's where the Biscuits began, jamband music is the first thing to be called into question when they begin playing their version of human techno. At Camp Bisco, their first movement into this was the jam out of M.E.M.P.H.I.S., a rollicking slightly off-kilter Gutwillig tune. If one had to classify it, it would fall squarely into the jamband genre, sounding like a combination of different styles: primarily rock, a little ragtime, a tiny bit of funk, and wacky lyrics. The band moves through two verses of the tune and drop down, keyboardist Aron Magner dropping out totally for a moment. Then, some synth washes and things begin to get a little bit more confusing.

The keyboard part sounds computerized. Though the rest of the parts are exactly the same as they were when the synth came in, they now sound computerized as well. It's not just the context. When one listens a little closer, he discovers that it's what the musicians are playing as well. The guitar, drums, and bass are all looping -- that is, one phrase, repeated several times in a row before changing into something new which, in turn, is also repeated. The jams themselves are built on these loops. Not all musicians are changing at the same time. Piece by piece, things get altered and the shape and color of the entire thing begins to shift. Why computers? Because, in theory, no band in their right mind would structure their jams like that -- possibly bits and pieces for an emphasis just before a climax, yes, but never the entire thing. The parts repeat. Perfectly.

Musically, people are scared of computers. Fans cherish improvisation in music. Bands, at their best, take chances and succeed. At their worst, they take chances and fail. Either way, it is something spontaneous and unplanned. The human element is the very opposite of sterile computation and calculation. Computers are precise. They don't make mistakes. Music created with computers, or with the aid of computers, is often looked upon by many "serious" music fans as soulless and cold -- even if it is humans running the machines. Machines, it goes, can't have emotions or produce emotions. Humans do. So be it.

My own complaint with techno music, or what little I've heard, is that much of it is a drone. Admittedly, I have not experienced too many DJs spinning live. The stuff I have heard has been musically interesting, but there seemed to be little dynamic to what was going on. There were no peaks. There were no quiet moments. There was just an unrelenting pulse -- which is all well and good for one kind of listening (or dancing, more precisely). Behind all is a steady drone, distinctly connected to the beat, that somehow directly linked to the idea of an unending form of ecstasy. Listened to long enough, it's certainly dizzying. However, it is a purely physical ecstasy. The Disco Biscuits do not play techno -- at least in that regard.

In short, their version of the hybridization between techno and improvised rock is to take the basic form of a jam - point A building ultimately to point B (or some variation thereof) with some stops at scenic overlooks along the way - and put a techno drone behind it. It is this drone that repulses some and attracts many. One of the ways the Biscuits achieve this is through a sort of pixelization of their music. Loops do this. What does the integration of techno and improvised music bring to the jamband genre? For one, they introduce the idea of trance-inducing rhythms into the music proper.

This kind of hypnotic beat has long been a part of jamband music - check out just about any drum duel between Mickey Hart and Billy Kreutzmann of the Grateful Dead - but has never fully been integrated into the jamming of an entire band. It's an odd connection. When Hart and Kreutzmann practiced what they called "entrainment", it was firmly in the vein of traditional African drumming -- a deep connection to the spiritual past. When the Disco Biscuits do the same - and for me, anyway, the idea is the same - it is firmly in the present and future. Does this prove once and for all that music is timeless? Or does it prove that nobody has really progressed past primal instincts? Or is that the same question? I guess man can be neanderthal and upright at once.

Make no mistake, though, the Disco Biscuits are not all head-fucking techno. No, they can play quite normal head-fucking music as well -- things that range from the glorious improvised peaks of the second set opening Magellan to the grand composition of one of the band's newer numbers, the Barber-written Halcakala Crater (which integrates an earlier number of the band's, My Lady Survives). Out of the gently trickling smoke of Halcakala came the reprise of Magellan, a quietly strong statement. During the introduction of the reprise, a DJ (who was playing at the rave the followed the Biscuits' sets) accidentally sent several large clumps of distorted beats filtering through the P.A.. It sucked.

It sucked, but it didn't work. It temporarily overpowered the Biscuits. In what techno I've heard, the introduction of a new beat, entirely foreign to what is already being laid down, results in some sonic cancellation but, ultimately, adds to the swirling digital chaos. In techno, as a college of sound, it's almost impossible to make something sound wrong because everything has that driving 4/4 force behind it. Not that the Magellan reprise was anything resembling the Biscuits' techno. That in itself is the point. Where the Biscuits can, at times, bring a one-minded trance approach to improvised music, they also bring dynamic to techno.

Does this mean anything relative to the two cultures, raver and hippie (which were never too far away from each other to begin with)? After all, the event was billed as "Camp Bisco All-Star Loon Fest and Rick Rood Alumni Rave". Word has it that, at least at the first night of the rave, there were virtually no people there. The second night, things were a little bit different. In general, the blasting techno sounded like a distant drum circle -- albeit one with slightly more blips and bleeps than are normally emitted by the djembe and talking drum set. Instead of being a throbbing beat to continue to party to, the rave acted more as an ambient sound to ease one's way into sleep by -- again, much like drum circles at typical summer festivals. It was nice. It was a sound not entirely removed from the Biscuits, but without the urgency.

Saturday, August 20, 1999

Saturday morning saw a brief excursion back into Oil City for some forays into the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and other fine places of business. All in all, some vinyl was procured, some fresh corn was bought, and some local color was taken in. Meanwhile, I suppose, the locals took in some foreign color. There is something interesting about driving to the middle of nowhere, dropping tent, and settling for a few days. The "middle of nowhere" generally means some sort of large open space in proximity to several small towns -- the kind of which, perhaps (in a romantic vision of them), true community still exists. Maybe not, but it's one way to look at things.

Meanwhile, at the aforementioned site, tent cities are erected. A temporary coagulation is built, quite literally, from the ground up. People, at smaller affairs, are generally extraordinarily friendly to each other. Many attendees will already be friends with most of their neighbors -- there are almost never more than two or three degrees of separation between anyone there. Is it utopia? Maybe so, maybe not. It isn't all heavenly wine and roses, if that's what the phrase implies. At festivals, there is a sense of common purpose, even if that "purpose" is just the music that is being performed.

Without denigrating the music performed at Camp Bisco in any way, shape, or form, the "purpose" at Camp Bisco was just as much camp as it was Bisco. That's not to say that the music was bad, or even can't be understood outside of the context of what was happening, but seemed to be an equal part to the proceedings. At larger festivals - and I suppose I'm referring to the Gathering here - sometimes the sheer amount of music is overwhelming. There's too much and it's not all very good. The result is a numbness where one feels guilty hanging around the tent city with friends because he's paid a large amount of money for a ticket and there's music going on... and feels bored hanging around the concert area because the funky three chord vamp sounds just like the last one.

Camp Bisco was better because there was less music... and what bands did play were, quite simply, better. There was more room to breathe in general. The reason for so much activity at festivals of late is the simple fact that the genre of jamband music is big. Really big. There are a lot of bands playing it. On some levels, it's come into its own. At the same time, as a music that has come into its own, it has reached some degree of stability... and one might argue that it's time for a change. There's that revolutionary impulse again. Or not.

The genre stands at something of a fork. On one side is the road of newness -- to continue to morph the style. On the other side is a perfection of the sound that already exists. Jazz reached a similar point in the 60s, with the introductions of fusion and free jazz. One direction was to linearly refine the severely hybridized form as it already existed. The other was to push it in new directions.

On one hand, now, there's the moderately traditional radical inclination of rock and roll -- that it has to be new, shocking, and exciting in most regards. Innovative. This (along with the commercial idea of separating one's self from the pack) is what leads many bands to add as many genres as possible to their already murky broth. That's okay, I guess. In the bargain, jamband music has become a genre. It's the hip young genre, as a matter of fact -- just as ska was a couple of years ago. People in high school form jambands: the stuff rock and roll dreams of youth are made of. That's what young forms are supposed to be, revolutionary.

The rebellious fork isn't likely to be caused by any of the bands currently popular on the scene except, maybe, the Disco Biscuits. The fork will be a new path, only marginally related to jambands -- just as jamband music is only marginally related to the genres that spawned it such as a classic rock or bluegrass. It will still be called jamband music but, more accurately, it will be a derivative thereof. Ninety percent of jamband music itself, for that matter, falls into the category of rock and roll - like other subdivisions: metal, punk, etc. - and can be referred to somewhat accurately as such. Whatever comes next will be jamband music at the same time that it won't be, dig?

Revolution, by definition, is a reaction to the old order. This, in part, will define the new. If jamband music as it currently stands is about the integration of dozens of genres into a common sounding medium, then what will follow will likely see bands focusing in on specific sounds. This is both an extension of and reaction to what already exists. Of the bands at Camp Bisco (remember Camp Bisco?), Sector 9 and - possibly - Lake Trout, seem most primed to do this. Sector 9, from Atlanta (I think), is a strange conglomeration that come at improvised trance music in a slightly different way than the Biscuits do. Dividing up jambands up into two pretty loose categories - those derived from the cerebral Phish sound, and those derived from the groove-oriented MMW sound - the Biscuits approach trance from the Phish angle while Sector 9 come from the MMW side.

While their sound isn't quite as aggressive or as hard-hitting as the Biscuits, there is a pliable flexibility to it all. Where the Biscuits sometimes seem to be running full speed down a mountain side with no choice but to play what's gonna come out anyway, Sector 9 seems to be slightly better at manipulating their grooves. The impact isn't quite as heavy, but it works. Their debut album, "interplanetary escape vehicle", catches the band early on in their evolution -- on the tail end of the band's move from fairly typical jamband instrumental music to full-on trance mode. It might well be the initial launch in the next progression.

The sound on the disc is still very clearly rooted to their forerunners, but it is only the beginning. Once the vehicle departs from terra firma, the individual elements can begin a separate development. Even the title suggests something like this, if one wants to read (probably) a little too deeply into it. The vessel, while leaving Earth (or, at least, its home planet), is only escaping its immediate point of origin. It is not an intergalactic escape vehicle. While it does, in fact, make a departure from the sound of jambands - or is beginning to, anyway - it does not entirely break free of their galaxy.

A long running debate in whatever circles would stoop to have it is the one of multi-culturalism versus the ideology of the melting pot. In a nutshell, the multi-culturalists believe that culture should be a patchwork of unique fabrics, all retaining their own identity. The melting-potheads argue that everything should come together into one, bra. It's another way of looking at the oncoming split in jambands. The melting pot seems to be how many bands function right now -- a combination of dozens of genres. The present push actually seems to be towards a hybrid of the melting pot and the multi-culturalists.

Techno, trance, looping, and sampling in general are the big things. To some degree, the Biscuits do it. So do Sector 9, Lake Trout, and Project Logic (all at Camp Bisco). In one of their opening numbers, for example, Lake Trout featured a repeating - looping - soprano sax part (played live, of course) that was distinctly klezmer. Ideally, it's possible for each band member to play his part in a different style and have it work. If the band segments, then each musical type will retain its identity as a part of a style, but can still be incorporated into something else without compromise. It's diverse, but not schizophrenic.

Here - here - is where the interrupting forearm comes back into play. It will place itself between the ongoing development of jamband music and what exists presently. This other fork is one that is likely to be less popular in some senses.

Writing about the punk and No Wave scene in New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Village Voice music critic James Wolcott wrote: "What's changed is the nature of the impulse to create rock. No longer is the impulse revolutionary - i.e. the transformation of oneself and society - but conservative: to carry on the rock tradition. To borrow from Eliot, a rocker now needs a historical sense; he performs 'not merely with his own generation in his bones' but with the knowledge that all of pop culture forms a 'simultaneous order'. The landscape is not longer virginal - markers and tracks have been left by, among others, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and the Beatles - and it exists not to be transformed but cultivated".

There are markers here, too -- the Dead, Phish, MMW, and others. Each of these bands has combined genres in a way that has created something of a signature sound for them. Each of these sounds can be seen as a starting point now, frozen in amber. If one side of the fork is going to focus in on styles of music that've never been heard before, the other side will do something almost more revolutionary -- get really damn good at what already exists and stay there. Despite a multitude of innovations, traditional jazz and blues are still played (and revered). With jambands, something similar is on the horizon.

A maturity of sorts is needed - not to stay revolutionary and not to stay sedentary, but to do something in between - to develop and evolve without taking revolutionary measures. Pushing boundaries is an important skill to learn -- one can't start off as something confined by definition. How quickly will young musicians fall into being jamband purists? It's a funny idea. Though, when one is young, he wants to do something completely new and out there. Rare is the upcoming musician - at least, within the sphere of improvised music - who wants to focus on being good at something traditional. Note how few genuinely young jazz and blues bands (and individual players) there are. Of course, maturity and youth aren't often combined.

When they are, the results can be stunning. Take Fat Mama, founded in Boulder but recently relocated to Rhode Island, for example. They fall decisively in the area of MMW-derived jazz/groove jambands. Their music is a mix of heavy oddly-timed jazz (charts 'n all) with swirling loops, DJ samples, and programming. While it isn't necessarily the newest thing in the world, it's amazing. They are a large band -- at Camp Bisco they featured eight pieces. The trick, though, is that only on very rare occasions were all eight members playing at once. Instead, during the improvisation, they broke down into solos, duos, trios, etc. in just about every imaginable combination. They knew exactly when to lay back and relax. Above all, the music breathed.

A light drizzle began during the tail end of Fat Mama's set. As the band went off, the sky opened up into a huge downpour. Most fled the stage area for the relative safety of their tents. By the early evening the skies were clear again. People emerged from their tents to find waterlogged camping supplies and cold air. Thankfully, there wasn't enough mud to make the experience unpleasant. Throughout the afternoon, heads began to start fires -- not the angry, raging, dance-around-primally Woodstock kind but the warming, crackling, sit-around-and-chill kind.

By the time Deep Banana Blackout went on, a deep fog had settled over the campgrounds. As thick as it was, there was crystal clear sky above it. From a fence in the back of the field, we watched the lights cut through the visible condensation as the music pulsed in the distance. When the Biscuits went on, new lighting designer Matt Iarrobino used the fog as a canvas -- as if he had triggered a thousand discreetly placed smoke machines. From the back of the field, the musicians disappeared, leaving only the sound and the air -- computers or humans, new or old, improvised or rehearsed, it didn't really matter anymore.