Festival Recap: The 2018 Disc Jam Music Festival in Stephentown, NY
words/photos: Alex Buschiazzo
The 8th annual Disc Jam Music Festival took place this past weekend in upstate New York with an even stronger cast of non-stop music acts than before, leading to its first ever ticket sell-out. This year the festival stages hosted over 100 musical artists, over 35 food & craft vendors, The Disc Jam Flow Tribe performers, and a massive group of local & regional visual artists stationed day and night throughout the festival grounds. With a skilled and talented festival production team, Disc Jam once again delivered the goods. SiriusXM's funny man, Brett Siddell, served as master of ceremonies and introduced the bands taking the stage coupled with some dry hippie humor. Some amazing sit-ins and collaborations took place at this party, generating some special sounds for our happy ears and creating some special life-long memories.
This year the festival lineup was stacked with favorite jam & funk headliners like Philly's own Lotus and also repping from Philly, Disco Biscuits side-project Electron returned, also with Beats Antique, Moon Hooch, Galactic, The Motet, DJ Logic & Friends, and three separate Twiddle side-project performances including, first, the duo of Gubbulidis (Mihali Savoulidis & Zdenek Gubb), then a set from Brook Jordan solo drum performance, and finally a solo piano set by Twiddle's Ryan Dempesy, with some fun covers like Phish's Harry Hood. Closing out the Innova tent stage was the magical duo of Rob Compa of Dopapod & Mike Gantzer, of Aqueous. Although Aqueous maintains a rigorous tour schedule, this year was the first year Dopapod did not perform as a band at Disc Jam, which seemed to get much more festival mileage out of Winderman and Compa who have kept extremely busy during their current Dopapoad touring hiatus. The festival also hosted a 'Woods Stage' for DJs and Producers who spun tunes into the wee hours in the 'silent disco' format for the EDM lover sub-set of jam fans, fire spinners, and flow artists who populated the area.
This year the festival lineup was stacked with favorite jam & funk headliners like Philly's own Lotus and also repping from Philly, Disco Biscuits side-project Electron returned, also with Beats Antique, Moon Hooch, Galactic, The Motet, DJ Logic & Friends, and three separate Twiddle side-project performances including, first, the duo of Gubbulidis (Mihali Savoulidis & Zdenek Gubb), then a set from Brook Jordan solo drum performance, and finally a solo piano set by Twiddle's Ryan Dempesy, with some fun covers like Phish's Harry Hood. Closing out the Innova tent stage was the magical duo of Rob Compa of Dopapod & Mike Gantzer, of Aqueous. Although Aqueous maintains a rigorous tour schedule, this year was the first year Dopapod did not perform as a band at Disc Jam, which seemed to get much more festival mileage out of Winderman and Compa who have kept extremely busy during their current Dopapoad touring hiatus. The festival also hosted a 'Woods Stage' for DJs and Producers who spun tunes into the wee hours in the 'silent disco' format for the EDM lover sub-set of jam fans, fire spinners, and flow artists who populated the area.
Day 1 Photos
But Disc Jam didn't stop there with veteran jam scene talent, this year Dopapod's Eli Winderman and Rob Compa with DJ Logic and Honeycomb appeared as artists-at-large in multiple sit-ins for songs with the other acts at the festival. Adding major funk to Disc Jam's sauce this year were members of Turkuaz: Michelangelo Carubba, Shira Elias, Craig Brodhead, and the horn section of Josh Schwartz, Greg Sanderson & Chris Brouwers who also sat in with what almost seemed like every set of music, Turkuaz was literally everywhere, and we were all just fine with that! Turkuaz has risen in the ranks as one of the more impressive and most colorful funk bands out there today and have lately also sat in with Winderman's Funk N' Bowl jams at Northbowl in Philadelphia.
Joining in on the heady jams flavored in funk, jazz, and livetronica were Aqueous, G-Nome Project, Shwizz, Swimmer, Space Carnival, The Nth Power, Kung Fu, Cousin Earth, Funky Dawgz Brass Band, Ghost-Note, Brandon 'Taz' Niederauer, Dizgo and Friday night we were treated to a special acoustic set with banter included from Jon 'the Barber' Gutwillig of the Disco Biscuits at the Innova tent stage. By Friday evening the festival grounds began to fill up even more then we've seen before and it was sure this would be a big fun party with lots of familiar faces. If you've been to any festivals in the jam scene, you know that Saturday night is prime time for jams under the stars with lots of spinning and glowing things, camped out next to a big green field and with perfect temps.
Day 2 Photos
Saturday hosted acts like Big Mean Sound Machine, Of Tomorrow, DJ Jojo Mayer & Nerve, Congo Sanchez, West End Blend joined by the Turkuaz crew, Space Bacon, Formula 5, The Clock Reads, Of Clocks and Clouds, and Ghost Light, with various sit-ins from drummer Michelangelo Carubba, Shira Elias, the Turkuaz horns, Eli Winderman and Rob Compa. We closed out a hot sunny day with the always entertaining Beats Antique, as we rolled into the night with jam kings, Lotus, who recently were coupled with Beats Antique last September here in Philly at the Mann Center. As the two main stages closed their sets of music for the night, the Innova tent stage saw a quick in-flow of people for a much anticipated set from Electron who were joined for a tune by Rob Compa and by Shira Elias with the Turkuaz horns, which some fans told me was the one of the best sets they've seen from the band. Directly Following Electron was a special un-announced set which was revealed to be Octave Cat, who were joined by Rob Compa on guitar for a tune. The power trio formed by Eli Winderman of Dopapod, Jesse Miller of Lotus and Charlie Patierno just last march have a newly released album and theses cats definitely seem to have a future. I, for one, can't stop listening to the new EP, Live from the Simulation...check it out here.
Day 3 Photos
Sundays at Disc Jam are always relaxing days...not a 'rager' and for good reason. A day to take it easy, reflect on the weekend, connect with friends before they head back out on the road, have breakfast from one of the vendors on the concert field and hang in a comfy chair while catching some early afternoon bluegrass or jams under the tent, and if you are feeling that lazy Sunday vibe, you can hear all the music on the main stage right from your tent on this cozy farm property..or test your skills and toss a few rounds of disc golf. Personally, I chose to go visit the cows grazing Gardner's Farm at the edge of the festival property. Sunday is also a great day to take a look at the finished works of all the visual artists at the festival, some who spend all weekend on their colorful and complex art that was on display throughout the festival grounds, created much like the music we heard all weekend, in improvised format.
The last day of Disc Jam tends to be a great day of music like the others, but with a lighter schedule and concluding at 9pm. Day 4 acts included The New Motif, Floodwood, Russ Lawton & Cabinet's Pappy Biondo who were joined for a number by Rob Compa and Craig Brodhead. Sunday also saw the likes of Goose and Wiley Griffin Band jamming out under the tent stage, we caught the always entertaining Bella's Bartok, Scott Metzger's WOLF! on the main stage, then Let's Be Leonard and Lord Electro back under the tent, and finally Amfibian on the main stage to close the day up, cranking out some Phish and Grateful Dead jams. Once again this year at Disc Jam the duo of Ryan Montbleau and Hayley Jane performed as Yes Darling, closing the festival out with an adorable and humorous set of acoustic music layered with witty banter from this clever duo.
Day 4 Photos
As a smaller home-grown festival uniting artists and bands with hand-picked food vendors, craft vendors, Flow Tribe/fire performers, and visual & performing artists, Disc Jam is still a winner on the jam/funk festival circuit. Heard on Sunday by festival fan and volunteer, 'Can't we just live here??'...I think you'll find that many of the other festival goers this past weekend would say the same. That's the life, of course: live jams, great weather, delicious home-made food, a little disc golf, inspiring art and some good friends. Weekends like this are we exactly why we do what we do. Big Thanks to the Disc Jam Festival PR and media team for having us on-board to cover the event and for the great hospitality. We can't wait to go back and hope to see you next year at the 2019 Disc Jam Music Festival. Check back here for more videos below as they come in from the festival captured by MKDevo.
Lotus 6/9/2018
Galactic 6/8/2018
The Motet 6/8/2018
Ghost Light 6/9/2018
Beats Antique 6/9/2018
Consider The Source 6/9/2018
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