The Disco Biscuits are in a better place
As they head into a three-night stand at the Fillmore tonight, the Disco Biscuits say that healthy, low-key living wears well on them and their music.
It's weird hearing that your musical heroes are eating right, sleeping well, and in overall good shape. Not to mention driving minivans, making suburban shopping runs, and hanging out with the neighbors. That's just not rock 'n' roll.
Yet when it comes to jamtronica icons the Disco Biscuits - formed at the University of Pennsylvania in 1995 and named for the '70s feel-good drug Quaaludes - living healthily and stealthily looks good.
"Well-being works, especially as you get older," says bassist Marc Brownstein, 42. "I'm significantly healthier now than at 22. That translates into the music. There is no decline."
Certainly, clear heads will be needed for the innovative improvisations of their three-night stand starting tonight at the Fillmore, and for the next iteration of their annual Camp Bisco festival of like-minded bands at Scranton's Montage Mountain, July 14 to 16.
Brownstein was interviewed by phone recently as he packed his kids into the car outside the Merion Station home he shares with his wife.
Drummer Allen Aucoin lives in Colorado, and guitarist/singer Jon Gutwillig favors a nomadic life. But Biscuit keyboardist Aron Magner is Brownstein's neighbor (Wynnewood, actually), and his kids and Brownstein's go the same school.
"We're all bound, but what ties Aron and me together is proximity - best friends that maintained our roots here," Brownstein says. "Having chosen to live here strengthens all of our relationships."
Brownstein and Magner have teamed up in several non-Biscuit projects that, more often than not, tunnel their way back to the Disco mother ship. "Don't call them 'side projects,' " Magner cautions.
The non-Biscuit-bands shared with Brownstein - Electron, Conspirator, Revenge of the '90s - arise when the out-of-state Disco-dudes are on hiatus.
"I play with other musicians in other situations [namely Grateful Dead drummer Billy Kreutzmann's Billy & the Kids]," Magner says. "But, far and away, I would always prefer Marc as the bassist. In terms of levels of improvisation, Marc is the most creative harmonically, which makes it fun . . . It's like peanut butter and chocolate: meant to be."
Conspirator (the wildest of their three acts), Revenge of the '90s (the silliest), and Electron (the most recently formed, with Philly prog-pop masters Tom Hamilton and Mike Greenfield) have been going, on and off, since 2011, the year of the Biscuits' longest break.
"Electron is closer to the Biscuits, and we see a lot of the same fans, but with Conspirator, we went so far out, we got another, newer fan base," notes Brownstein, who goes on to say that he and Magner gravitate toward each other because the sonic conversation is good. "The level of chatter is unique and universal."
Both men say they've happily used their outside projects to test the waters for coming Biscuits shows - such as this week's - without being judged by their demanding ("rightfully so," says Magner) fans.
"We get to know what the jam is, the improvisations, the peaks," Brownstein says. "We give new songs a chance to breathe, something like 'This Is Your Time,' that we started with Electron in November and have been playing in the Biscuits since."
Brownstein says that although most music looks for the hook or the chorus, with Disco Biscuits, it all comes down to the peak, "something we've built toward, the last 45 seconds or so, something frenetic that allows us to bond emotionally with ourselves and our audience."
An even deeper bonding with audiences will come this summer with the annual Camp Bisco. Brownstein and Magner also promised the festival will have a surprise that, for now, they are keeping secret. The first Camp Bisco was held in 1999; this year's will be the 14th.
"When festivals started popping up in the '90s, we played several - some with lousy time spots - and decided that they weren't curated or [looking] after our fans," Magner says. So the Biscuits took action.
"When we say we wanted to make the festival world better, we wanted to do so for us and our fans," Brownstein says of the festival's merging of electronic, rock, and hip-hop bands with DJs, starting early in the morning and lasting into the next morning.
"Ultimately, our model became the model of the great American festival. It's our baby that we watched grow and now is going to university."
The Disco Biscuits, 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Fillmore, 29 E. Allen St. $40. 215-309-0150, thefillmorephilly.com.
Early-bird tickets are on sale for Camp Bisco, July 14 to 16 at Montage Mountain near Scranton, at campbisco.com.