Sinking stages, unicorn men in speedos, everything quesadillas, rage sticks, freefalls, broken lawn chairs... if you were at this year's Camp Bisco, you would understand why it's taken me a week to get this video up. Whether you're a basshead that's only interested in DJ's, or an old school Biscuits fan like myself, chances are you had a pretty fun time. Props to MCP Presents for soldiering through some tough technical difficulties to make sure we saw some music on Saturday. I also have to thank the PR girls for being nice to me even when I was shooting where I wasn't supposed to. Check out the video recap below, and stay tuned for more! Music courtesy of The Manhattan Project, who played an awesome set in the label tent on Thursday.

Our spotlight series for this year's Camp Bisco continues with Vacationer. The Philadelphia based four piece has the beach ready, summer vibe you'd expect from a band named Vacationer. Kenny Vasoli has a breathy vocal delivery that floats over light synths and island instrumentals like breeze over sand. Mac mentioned that the vocals reminded him a bit of Grizzly Bear and I agree, I also think the band would make a great co-bill with Dent May. Camp Bisco is heavy on the electronic side, but bands like Vacationer serve as a welcome detox from all the button pushing. If button pushing is your thing though, the band boasts some impressive remixes on their Good As New EP from the likes of Geographer and Data Romance. Every year I discover a hidden treasure in the lineup where I'd least expect it and Vacationer very well may be that band.

In a surprise announcement today, Camp Bisco revealed that Zeds Dead will be joining the 2013 lineup. The Canadian duo, a collaboration between producers DC and Hooks, have been performing since 2009. No strangers to the Buffalo music scene, the pair have become a touring and festival powerhouse, from their Living Dead tour with rapper Omar Linx to their recent performance at Lollapalooza Chile. Also added to the bill, much to my delight, is drum 'n bass pioneer LTJ Bukem. This addition is sure to please fans who have seen that genre underrepresented at the festival in past years. His Logical Progression series wore out my CD player for a long time, with it's lighter, jazzier approach making for great armchair listening in addition to rattling dance floors. Also added to the bill are Destructo, Samo Sound Boy and Gravity A, bringing together one of the more well rounded lineups Camp Bisco has seen in a while. VIP passes are still available, as well as layaway options, so go ahead and order that second Big Mac, treat yourself!

We're now less than two months away from the 12th incarnation of Camp Bisco. While much has been written of this year's headliners (full lineup here), we'll be spending the time from now until July 11th highlighting some of the up and comers on the bill. If you weren't worried about scheduling conflicts before, be prepared to face some tough choices.

With all the hemming and hawing over the new Daft Punk album, it seems only appropriate that we kick things off with a disco act. Chicago based producer Pete Dougherty, a.k.a. Moon Boots, has spent the past few years pumping out upbeat disco jams for Dallas based blog turned House label French Express (yes, that Dallas). His career received a recent boost after his remix of Bondax's "Gold" was featured on The Magician's Magic Tape Thirty. His approach is very mature, like the slick soundtrack to a suit & tie nightclub you shouldn't be allowed in, yet fun enough to remain unpretentious. Check out his newly released single "Love Strong" below, and be sure to catch his set at this year's Camp. Suit & tie not required.

The 12th incarnation of Camp Bisco is already boasting an impressive lineup, featuring performances from Passion Pit, STS9, Squarepusher, Animal Collective, Flux Pavilion, Lotus, Bassnectar, Umphrey's McGee, and much, much more (full lineup here). The ever evolving festival has just released it's second round of artist announcements. Joining the current lineup will be Destroid Live (a live band version of Excision), KJ Sawka & Downlink, Digital Tape Machine (an Umphrey's Mcgee side project), Madeon, Danny Brown, Seven Lions, Bondax, Moon Boots, Perseus, Strip Steve, Autobody, Alpha Data, and Rochester's own Manhattan Project. Manhattan Project are fresh off a hugely successful release party for their Atomic Bomb Party EP, so be sure to drop by their set to show some local support. As is tradition since Camp 10, curated tents will be showcasing talent from various labels, including OWSLA, Skrillex's label, along with BoyzNoise Records. Other curated tents will be hosted by deep house label French Express, as well as a lineup hand selected by electronic music blog This Song is Sick.

The curated tents have been a great way to let concertgoers focus on the acts they are interested in, without alienating other festival attendees. Catering to the fickle tastes of electronic music fans is like navigating a mine field while holding a rattlesnake, so it's nice to see Camp once again staying ahead of the pack as far as making it easy to see what you want. As always, the Disco Biscuits will play six sets throughout the weekend, and seeing as Biscuits shows are becoming fewer and far between, these sets are becoming more and more unmissable.

Tickets are currently available at $185, so get on that shit before the price goes up.

After last week's Festival Bands, Man! feature, I got a friendly email from Mike Siemens of Psychic Rites, thank you. Good luck with your music video! 

Band: Psychic Rites

How will experimental music be organically composed from relics of pop music and translated to live performance? Well that's exactly the question we seek to have answered tonight on our road trip to Toronto to see Dan Deacon and Animal Collective. Both artists have earned their acclaim by reshaping conventions.

Continuing with our Camp Bisco Eleven artist spotlights, today we focus on The Manhattan Project.

The Manhattan Project is listed as a live band that plays "intelligent dance music" using analogue/Digital, Organic/Electronic and armed with an arsenal of keyboards, synths, electronic and acoustic percussion. The bands influences stem from dance hall, house, dub, drum n bass, techno and lounge to bring a whole new experience to the stage with incredible live visuals as well.

The Manhattan Project has opened for the likes of Lotus, Conspirator, Future Rock, BioDiesel, Ozric Tentacles, Ludachrist, Communist Party and more. Their Debut EP "Atomic Bomb Party Vol. 1" was released in late November 2009 as a free download and Vol. 2 was released in April of last year, also as a free download. The Manhattan Project is scheduled to perform Saturday at this years Camp Bisco, full schedule and times should be coming shortly.

In the overly crowded sea of male DJ's that exist in the EDM scene, it is always nice to see a female DJ emerge and make some waves. Star Eyes, known as the queen of Brooklyn bass and a 15-year veteran of the decks, was one of first female drum & bass DJs in the US, and a member of the B.A.S.S. Crew, Eklektic, and genre-bending DJ duo Syrup Girls (once called “New York’s best-kept secret” by New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones).

Since 2006, Star Eyes has been a founding member of the world famous Trouble & Bass crew. In June, Trouble & Bass released her first EP, Disappear, featuring original vocals, songwriting, and a mix of goth and rave influences combined in to a style she calls “haunted house.” Star Eyes has opened for such acts as Diplo, Moby, The XX, The Streets, and Girl Talk. She is currently writing songs for her next EP, working on remixes, and traveling the world with her hard-hitting DJ sets.  Star Eyes will be performing on Thursday at 6:30pm at Camp Bisco Eleven.

Continuing with our artist spotlights for the upcoming Camp Bisco Eleven music festival, todays artist is The Knocks. 

After meeting at The New School in New York City, Ben "B-Roc" Ruttner and James "JPatt" Patterson both found themselves in need of a place to live. Deciding that living together just made sense, the two began to make loud music and pissing off the neighbors. "Our apartment is this small, shitty Avenue C apartment with paper thin walls. We both had studio set-ups in our rooms," explains B-Roc. "It would be loud as hell, and the neighbors hated it. They'd knock on the walls and bang on the ceiling. We would go into each other's rooms and say 'I just got the knocks.'"

Since making their neighbors despise them, the duo have been on the up and up and were labeled as one of the "20 hottest producers in music" by NME. The Knocks have remixed a wide of range of acts like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Ellie Goulding, M83, Chiddy Bang, Foster The People, Passion Pit, Marina and the Diamonds and Britney Spears.  Their debut EP Magic is currently available and are at work on a full album.

Every year at Camp Bisco there is a hidden funk band to mix things up with all the electronic sounds you hear. Last year, we got down to Lettuce and this year it will be the one and only Kung Fu. You may not have ever heard of the band Kung Fu but you may have heard of some of the bands these musicians come from. Kung Fu is Tim Palmieri (The Breakfast - guitar) Todd Stoops (raq - keys) Dave Livolsi (Scofield/Jazz is Dead - bass) Rob Somerville (Deep Banana Blackout - sax) Adrian Tramantono (The Breakfast - drums).  I first saw them perform together in this supergroup last summer at Mountain Jam and was thrilled with what I heard.  The music is almost entirely instrumental with some scattered vocal parts.  Every musician in this band is extremely talented and will provide the crowd with some earth shattering funk music. Super funky and super good.  Do not miss them! I repeat.... DO NOT MISS THEM. I'll be up front dancing!

With just over a month left until Camp Bisco Eleven, we here at buffaBLOG, will be providing artist spotlights right up to the festival. This year, CBXI, has a really phenomenal lineup, with a mix of electronic and indie, to quench all tastes in music. The entire lineup can be found here, but today we will focus on Tycho.


Scott Hansen, better known as Tycho, is an artist/produceer out of San Francisco, California. After debuting in 2002 with a self-released four track EP, The Science of Patterns, it was very clear what type of music Hansen had set out to produce. Dream pop and electronic muses reign supreme in Tycho's tracks and if you were to close you eyes, you'd be sure you were listening to a whole band.


For his third release, Dive, Hansen emerged as a much more diverse and complete artist. Labeled as Chillwave and compared to the likes of M83 and Neon Indian, it appears Tycho has finally found his niche. The album received very positive reviews and left listeners waiting for more.  There is no doubt in my mind Tycho will be very well received at Camp Bisco Eleven.

Camp Bisco Eleven is just a couple months away and I am already stoked. The line up is incredible and the whole experience is just something that must be witnessed in person. One act I am very excited to catch this year is the Simian Mobile Disco. Simian Mobile Disco are an English electronic music duo and production team from London and have really made a name for themselves since their beginning in 2005. The boys are preparing their newest release Unpatterns, set to be released May 14th. Todays video is for the first single entitled "Put Your Hands Together." This video is extremely colorful and takes you on a psychedelic journey through what is being described as "seven-minute odd odyssey of mutating lines and shapes."

In one month from today, several members of buffaBLOG as well as thousands of other music lovers will be heading to one of the best music festivals in the state of New York. It has been 10 years since the Disco Biscuits started their annual music festival and its grown to be an impressive musical event of the summer. Camp Bisco X is held in the beautiful Indian Lookout Country Club near Albany for 3 days and 3 nights in July. There are 5 stages of music, two late night dance tents, a silent disco and a campground filled with the most amazing, music-loving and strangest people you can find. Unfortunately, Buffalo does not have its own music festival but we are fortunate to have some awesome ones like Camp Bisco, moe.down and Mountain Jam near us.