💵 A-Frame, 420 @ The Lake (Afton, NY)

Background

Last year, I was booked to play “Budstock II”, a cannabis-themed event at the New Echo Lake near Afton, NY. Due to static with the organizers around contractural payments, they ended up cancelling the date when I was supposed to play.

This year, there are new organizers, but it’s effectively the same cannabis-themed celebration. I don’t particularly have any excited feelings about cannabis but I do love music and playing music and seeing my friends play music. I ended up getting booked for two slots (partly as a favor since my set got cancelled last year).

The event was very breakbeat and bass-heavy, so I went with two drum & bass sets – the Friday set was in the evening, just after sundown, so I went with a gritty darkstep set. In the month leading up to the event, I planned out some possible mixes, acquired some new records, and did a lot of practicing and recording.

The venue itself was really awesome. It was an A-frame that was a bit larger than a shed but smaller than a house. The sound was all mounted inside of the A-frame (to protect it from the elements), as was the DJ booth and the lighting.

Unfortunately, due to initial infrastructure issues (insufficient outlets) I wasn’t able to get my set recorder in place for my Friday set, but I did get my Saturday set recorded.

Setlist

This is my best guess from memory on what my setlist was that evening.

• Pendulum - Masochist
• Noisia - Incessant
• Tetradin - Brainwave Assassin
• Hive, Keaton, Echo & Gridlok - Violent Sound
• Gridlok - Deadpan
• Katharsys - Jupiter
• Spor - Haunt Me
• Bad Company - 4 Days
• Kemal - Let it move you
• Black Sun Empire & Concord Dawn - The Sun VIP
• Black Sun Empire - Smoke (Sinthetix Mix)
• Kemal & Rob Data - Gene Sequence
• Ewun - The Divide
• Dom & Roland - Killa Bullet
• Noisia - Stigma
• Hive - Ultrasonic Sound (Dillinja Mix)
• Remarc - R.I.P.
• Noisia / Mayhem ft KRS-One - Exodus
• Hive - Neo (Dom & Roland Mix)
• Bad Company - Mass Hysteria (Hive Remix)

Reflection

Technical and logistical challenges aside, it went well. The practice leading up to it was definitely clutch and I was able to pull off the first 5 or 6 mixes near-flawlessly.

The Ultrasonic Sound into R.I.P. mix got flubbed initially on the first pass (got out of phase by a beat and couldn’t recover) so I re-cued and re-entered and got it the second time. The outbound track ran a bit longer than I would have liked, but it seems like no one noticed?

I found out the next day that there were some tech-house DJs, and had I known there would be straightbeat present I would have done one of my sets as straightbeat. This content sort of landed. I think it was a bit darker than people wanted to go. People were mostly impressed that it was an all-vinyl D&B set – I fully concede that this is an impressive feat on its own just because of the complexity of mixing different syncopated rhythms.

There are times where I kind of feel like a sideshow or novelty act – a relic of the past, carrying a torch of The Old Ways. I don’t know that this bothers me all that much, I’m happy to fulfill that role. It’s fun to play on loud systems. It’s always best when people vibe with the music, though, and that can be a challenge.

This was a paid gig.