Boulder Festival 2012

Combining elements of jazz, groove, rock, and experimental world music, The Moho Collective, an instrumental trio from Rochester, NY, strives for a raw, open, and free form sound. They accomplish this best through improvisation and dynamic song structures, proving vocals are not necessary to engage the listener if the music speaks for itself.

Driven by the rhythm of bassist Justin Rister, percussionist Ryan Barclay, and adding intricate guitar work from Kurt Johnson, the multi-instrumentalist band incorporates a host of different instruments, such as pedal steel guitar, didgeridoo, world percussion, and various effects, found sounds, and samples. All three musicians have percussion experience, a big reason why the rhythmic energy itself can often drive the songs, providing a palette for tasteful melodic development and arranging. Barclay has trained with Billy Martin of Medeski, Martin and Wood, and percussionist Cyro Baptista. Both he and Rister are music educators who lay a tasteful textured canvas for each tune. Johnson brings his own experience and training with master Indian musician Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, bringing elements of Hindustani classical music into the band’s varying sounds.

The three musicians embrace the sentiment that music – like all art – is meant to be an experience for the audience. At heart, they are an art band. It’s about the experience: where they play, who they’re with.

Since 1996, The Buddhahood has been driving their World-Ternative Groove train in and out of Rochester, NY, whipping crowds of beloved fans into frenzy, blurring the line between stage and dance floor, and transcending audiences with their explosive and soulful shows. Carrying on the messages of Tony Cavagnaro, original Buddhahood band member and friend who died in a car crash, they continue to perform, write and record music with an innovative and bewitching twist. The Buddhahood’s message – be happy and have fun. That’s what you’ll get.

Eight members arrive from varied musical backgrounds to make up this highly creative and entertaining ensemble. With full percussion, horns, bass, guitar, keys and multiple vocalists, this incarnation has the tools to deliver tunes mixed with shades of Afro-pop, Roots, Reggae, Jazz, Rock, Blues and Samba in unstoppable vibration and elemental harmony, and the band is working on recording its newest material.

Cottage Jefferson is a rock band. Their songs are made up of guitars, bass, keyboard, and drums. Jim D. Hill, Dan Jackson, Erick Perrine, and Katie Preston are all proficient enough at their chosen instruments to be able to sing while playing them. They can often be heard harmonizing their vocals while playing their instruments at the same time. Katie Preston and Dan Jackson’s vocals are perfectly complementary. Dan’s upbringing in the Filmore backwoods (don’t bother looking it up) leave a soulful, adorable (but not downtrodden, thank fuck) country voice ringing in your ears; while Kate’s (iron?) lungs force air through her chiseled larynx that will flatten noses and shatter tailbones as you’re whisked away to a fully imagined world teeming with scruff, plaid, and booze.

They’re also quite dynamic. No two songs sound much alike in their set. Their influences, ranging from Pavement to The Jesus and Mary Chain, are worn on their collective sleeve, but are mixed so finely that you forget that this milkshake is just milk and ice cream. They are distinct. They are Cottage Jefferson. And sure, it may be made of milk and ice cream, but most importantly, it’s a fucking milkshake.

http://cottagejefferson.tumblr.com/

Dave & Marissa have purely been in it for the music since the start. Joining sounds from genres such as Folk, Rock, Indie, and much in between; Dave & Marissa carries a sound that harvests fun and excitement, while yielding depth and capacity. Entertaining an expansive crowd, D&M caters to friends of all varieties.

Each member of this band has vastly different influences, yet formulate as a venn diagram, meeting together in a similar circle. This is what has allowed Dave & Marissa to have a completely limitless sound, and to be entirely open to new ideas from each part of the band. The most definite sum up of the band has been said as this: “Dave and Marissa bring out treasures old and new to command our rapt attention. With wry insight, their melodies and musings lilt over tall buildings in single bounds, playfully tease at all tired notions of harmony and tempo, and capably endear fans to their distinctive mix of storytelling, theatrics, and musical good sport.”

Julia Weldon is a wide-eyed lover of life and prolific queer folk-pop musician, guitarist, and songwriter. After years voicing the words of others as a child actor, Julia had to release her own. In her deeply personal percussive guitar-driven songs she plays with urban & rural memes. Intensely felt lines – from sardonic to heartfelt -weave stories of loss, regret, debauchery, incest, love & desire. It’s the harsh city edges, the liminal open fields, the rough and soft sounds that make her music a pleasant paradox that draws immediate attention. Julia headlines at reputable NYC venues like City Winery and the Knitting Factory, has opened for national acts such as MELISSA FERRICK, BITCH & KAKI KING, and just did her first major tour down to SXSW Festival in Austin, TX. Other festivals include Chicago’s 2008 Decibelle Festival and the 2010 Women’s Experimental Music Festival in Brooklyn. Her first, self-titled album was a DIY project with intimate grit, and she is currently finishing a fully produced and realized 12-track album with renown producer Saul MacWilliams.

High Drags is a family band made up of siblings James and Marissa Longstreet who grew up in Upstate NY. At 22, James moved to California to pursue music while Marissa remained on the east coast writing and performing songs with her folk-pop group, Dave & Marissa. Now, the siblings have come together through technology to create a bi-coastal music project which juxtaposes influences from the coasts which had initially separated them. They design to bring a fresh sound that layers folk with hip-hop, indie rock, and dance electronic beats. High Drags creates music to install an environment. Through high energy live performances and consistent dedication to the production of new music, High Drags produces and performs to bring boldness, spontaneity, and an authentic happiness to every stage and room.

Josh Netsky is a singer-songwriter from Rochester, NY. His latest project took him on a trip visiting several ghost towns in the Northeast and performing music in them. His latest album, The Spirits, an album and film (captured by Adam Netsky) is the result of that trip and Netskys first “concept album”. Netsky writes in many genres, most consistenly folk and psychedelic, and is inspired by the craft of songwriting.

Since September 2010, these four crucial points of the illest of light have touched down on Earth and emerged on the scene as RootsCollider – the definitive 21st-century “Dry & Heavy Livetronica DubCore” act, which continues to push the sonic envelope toward a state of musical enlightenment. This future Fab Four are dedicated to bringing their listeners only the freshest cuts of live, original, punishing drum-and-bass, crushing dubstep, destructive electro-rock and fresh future-funk, all of it blended with the crucial elements of dub reggae. The band’s sole purpose is to supercollide these genres into a single, unstoppable aesthetic force, and they also take pride in being one of the last almost completely analog defenses against the digital era.

RootsCollider have been described as a powerful visceral artistic experience for the mind, body and soul and the band has quickly become regional favorites for so many as well as gaining wide recognition by sweeping upstate NY off of it’s feet as one of the fastest growing live original acts from Rochester, NY.

http://rootscollidermusic.com

Indie harpist and vocalist, Mikaela Davis, is joined by other eclectic instruments to create a unique and soulful lo-fi sound. Mikaela has been playing the harp since the age of eight and started writing music when she was twelve years old. She is currently studying Harp Performance at the Crane School of Music. Mikaela is releasing her debut album on June 30th. It can be purchased at www.mikaeladavis.bandcamp.com

The music collective “Epilogue” began as a rigid concept for improvisational musicians to play instruments with one another with no verbal discussion. It sought a conversation between artists using no more than the voices their instruments produce. As time went on and intuitions developed, the music began to give birth to a new realm in sound. Blending Free Jazz Fusion, Minimalism, and Avante Garde Metal.

Melodies hold descriptions of certain characters allowing listeners to create their own story, in the moment. Harmonies paint in colors, layering backdrops and changing scenes. Compositions transpose Surrealist cultivations and artistic improvisation into a sort of learned poetry where each performance is a unique and singular event.

WEBSITES
http://soundcloud.com/the-music-of-epilogue
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Music-of-Epilogue