Tag Archives: Bombardier

Even Furthur 2017: A Techno Pagan Ritual for the Ages

Last summer, Drop Bass Network pulled Even Furthur out of the foggy memory banks of the collective conscious of the Midwest, providing a fresh opportunity for newcomers and old-timers to gather together and let their freak flags fly. It was a mad weekend of fresh discoveries and random reunions, all underscored by the inimitable sound of underground techno pounding the earth hard enough to ripple the waters of Lake Superior.

This year found us back in the same region. That’s right. Much like last year’s festival, this one took place up in the Mellen Mountain Meadows of Northern Wisconsin. It was quite a trek to get there from most of the major centers in the Midwest, but one of the new developments at this year’s installment was a limited number of early entry passes that allowed people to arrive on Thursday afternoon. Early birds were not only able to get on the bus a day earlier, but it also meant that they could set up their camps well ahead of the pack that would cram themselves into the space over the weekend. It was a nice gesture that gave weary travelers a chance to unwind before the party really got going on Friday.

I hitched a ride with select members of The Northern Hardcorps. We rolled down from Canada, and arrived well after sunset on Thursday. As we approached ground zero, we tuned in and turned on to the Free Radio Furthur FM broadcast, and successfully resisted the impulse to race to the main gate.

Photo by Tonya.

After clearing the checkpoint, we parked and struggled to orient ourselves in the darkness. After a bit of exploration we connected with our crew and pitched our tents within the heavily fortified confines of Camp Blood. And by fortified, I mean our own fence and a front gate fitted with flamethrowers. A good party isn’t just about whiskey and kisses—at Camp Blood security is serious business. We even had a series of safety meetings over the course of the weekend.

Photo by Tonya.

There had been a storm earlier in the evening, so the ground was muddy and soft. The only firmness around was the distant thunder of Gabber Jihad on the main stage, which drifted through the woods and helped us settle in for the night. After a dozen hours on the road, the warm fuzz of distorted kick drums saturated the night with the constant reminder that we have arrived.

The activity slowly ramped up on Friday morning. Camp Blood sat at the top of the ridge overlooking the rig run by Speaker Kreatures /M.E.L.T. /Mobcore. The stage sat in the center of an immense pit, and had been named Land of Sunshine. That stage and a few of the other DIY sound systems had been set up the day before, but the rest of them started coming alive as the day began. Soon the sounds of the countryside were quickly replaced by a wide range of electronic music. As usual, crews had been invited from across the Midwest. They had all programmed their own lineups, and lugged their gear up north to keep people entertained during the daylight hours. There were eight DIY stages strewn across the festival grounds, with each one catering to a slightly different audience.

One of the highlights of the Friday DIYss (Do-It-Yourself sound systems) was an unscheduled hardcore set by Bombardier that closed out the afternoon at the Children of the Corn stage. If you recall, at last year’s event Bombardier had demonstrated his ability to drop a mindblowing set at a moment’s notice by stepping up and filling a headlining slot on the main stage. This year a last minute opening on the Iowa crew’s DIYss presented him with another opportunity to do the same, and he produced a raw and brutal assault on the senses that ripped through many of his hardest offerings. It was one of those surprising Furthur moments that requires being in the right place at the right time, and it left an exhausted crowd begging for more.

Bombardier’s raw and brutal assault on the senses. Photo by Tonya.

Of course, with DJ Dan behind the decks at Déjà Vu, and Decontrol tearing up the Land of Sunshine it seems like just about every stage must have felt like the right place to be. The DIY sound systems all did impressive jobs bringing in headlining talent, but when they shut down at 6 p.m., it was time to freshen up and make the trek down to the main stage.

It’s hard to believe that a gang of miscreants from Wisconsin has now been droppin’ bass across the whole planet for 25 years. It’s even more difficult to figure out how they have managed to constantly reinvent themselves without ever straying from the type of event that they’ve become internationally known for curating. This year’s main-stage lineup contained an exceptionally well-programmed mix of more recent discoveries alongside established legacy acts. Friday night featured an old school vinyl set by TJR sandwiched between captivating performances by Jlin and Black Asteroid. The showstopper, however, came early in the evening via a live PA by Prototype 909.

The trio of Dietrich Schoenemann, Jason Szosteck, and Taylor Deupree laid down a phenomenal set that reached deep into the core of my being and reminded me what electronic music is capable of doing. Sometimes we lose sight of what connects us to this scene, and P909’s masterful offering was exactly what I needed to hear. It simultaneously erased my regret at not having been present for their legendary ’95 appearance, and made me more aware than ever of what I had missed.

It was a relentless and flawless display put on by three skilled performers well versed in the capabilities of their gear and the intricacies of getting the most out of their equipment. Toward the end of the set a problem with the generator interrupted things momentarily. It disturbed the flow, but it also afforded those in the audience a chance to catch their breath.

As the sun came up on Saturday morning it was time for Hardcore Breakfast with Tim Shopp, with a special guest appearance by the original Drop Bass Terror Unit DJ—Mr. Bill. The tireless DBN Support Squad tapped a keg of PBR and made pancakes for the hungry masses. Eventually the plates ran out, and famished partiers resorted to making Canadian Tacos by drenching the food in maple syrup before folding them in half so they could be more easily devoured.

Hardcore Breakfast montage. Photos by Tonya.

At Furthur, there is no rest for the wicked. The night may have been over, but the day was just beginning. Unlike last year, which featured designated quiet times that provided some opportunity to rest, there was no downtime this year. Hot on the heels of Hardcore Breakfast came Mobcore Chicago’s Breakcore Brunch at the Land of Sunshine. Tooth_Eye, Common Dominator, and Sir.Vixx served up Milwaukee’s Best and threw down a few hours’ worth of broken beat brutality to round out the morning.

The nearby Psychosis stage delivered an entirely different sort of breakbeat mayhem, and had a stacked lineup of their own on Saturday afternoon. Hidden away in the woods, their camo tent featured sets by RP Smack, Easyrider, and the Ghetto Safari veteran—3D.

Elsewhere, there was chaos in the air at the Free Beer stage, which boasted Michael Wenz and the inimitable Dan Efex. Niki Kitz, Diva D, Idiom and Mr. Bill made damn sure that things never got quiet in the Land of Sunshine, but most people appeared to be drawn to the Children of the Corn stage where Mark EG held court for an extremely energetic 90 minutes. Bombardier then made an encore performance to wind down the day with a gritty techno set.

Mark EG holding court. Photo by Tonya.

One of the most anticipated main stage performances of the weekend for me was Ancient Methods. The “In the Mouth of the Wolf” collaboration with Cinder (aka Bambule from the Praxis label) is one of my favorite techno records of last year, and this was the one set I was determined not to miss. Ancient Methods administered the required dose of dirty and menacing techno that managed to fill the main tent with a foreboding darkness, despite the fact that the sun was still blazing away in the evening sky.

When it was over, the sun had set and the stage was ready for the oozing, penis-faced depravity of Anklepants. The theatrical and performative nature of his stage show laid waste to the idea of the electronic artist as a laptop jockey as he engaged with the audience in ways that delighted the crowd and made it one of the most talked about sets of the weekend.

The flyers for Even Furthur contained a reminder to be prepared, and it seems that there’s always something unexpected that goes down. This year was no different. A last minute cancellation resulted in an open slot on the main stage, and this time around the void was filled with the impressive stamina of two veteran DJs.

The lineup promoted in advance of the show promised a three-hour set by Josh Wink and an epic five-hour journey hosted by Tommie Sunshine. Instead, this pair stepped up and stretched things out to cover nearly 12 hours! Wink’s set spanned an encyclopedic range of styles over nearly five hours, before Tommie rose to the occasion and kept things going until well after sunrise on Sunday morning. It was exactly the kind of magic that DBN’s faithful followers have come to expect.

Once again, the DIY sound systems began to fire up as the main stage was shutting down. Dan Bell kicked off a stunning Sunday lineup on the Communion stage that also featured Centrific and a jaw-dropping set from Dustin Zahn. Meanwhile, the noisy degenerates were still at it over at the Land of Sunshine. Bits of my afternoon have been blurred by sleep deprivation and the mini-keg of Newcastle that we tapped at Camp Blood, but it certainly seemed like a good time was had by all. The Hermit reared his head and dropped a solid set of hard techno, which offered some respite from the unrelenting hardcore that dominated the crater.

It served as a nice starting point for my own set, which kicked off with vintage tracks from Underground Resistance, Circuit Breaker and AFX—before picking up the pace and racing toward the more extreme forms of speedcore. Dica took over from there and dropped an entertaining set accompanied by MC Spade One.

The Demix closed out the day at the Land of Sunshine, but there wouldn’t be peace in the valley for long; Furthur had other plans for the evening. Adam X and Perc had been slated for a three-hour AX&P performance that was supposed to run out the clock on the main stage, but a delayed flight pushed Perc’s arrival time to well after the main system was scheduled to shut down.

Adam X wound up dropping a mind-bending three-hour set that had the crowd dancing their way through a comprehensive lesson spanning the history of underground techno. At the end of his set he thanked the crowd and announced that the party was going to relocate and continue.

Earlier in the day a contingency plan had been put into place that would allow Perc to perform. Communion moved their sound system and set it up in the Land of Sunshine; Joe from Light Fantastik brought over his lasers; bonfires were lit around the edge of the pit to help people navigate the uneven terrain… and then, Perc took center stage for the kind of magic that surpassed the expectations of even DBN’s most faithful followers.

It was an uncompromising block of hard techno that elevated the energy levels of a group of tired ravers that had been partying for days. People dug deep and found their hidden reserves. No one wanted it to end, and Perc satisfied the crowd with an extended set that stretched well into the wee hours of morning.

By the end of it we were all exhausted. Everyone crashed out late, and woke up early to find that the tireless Tommie Sunshine’s set at Domeland was the perfect soundtrack for loading up the cars and waiting for the eclipse to blot out the August sky.

The tireless Tommie Sunshine. Photo courtesy of The Headspace Collective.

It truly was a techno pagan ritual for the ages.

And if you weren’t there, then you fucked up.

Bombardier – From Violence to Fury

The midwest United States is, for many people, the birthplace of modern electronic music. The area has produced a long line of influential labels, DJs, and producers, as well as playing a key role in developing genres and shaping new directions for future generations to follow.
A number of artists have left their mark over the years, but few have made an imprint on as many different strains of electronic music as Jason Snell; the shape-shifting musician who has made quality contributions to a wide range of styles via an ever-growing list of projects.
His late-90s cassettes turned heads worldwide, and he soon found himself releasing material on a number of influential labels. From Hangars Liquides in France, Addict and Ghetto Safari in Milwaukee, Vinyl Communications in California. The visionary Detroit label LowRes even dedicated the Division 13 sublabel to his output.
The Hard Data dives into the heart of darkness and brings you an in depth look at the man behind the monikers.


You’ve produced work under a number of different aliases over the years. At what point does a new project emerge? Do you discover, as material nears completion, that it stands apart from other work and deserves its own name, or do you enter into the creative process with fresh concept in mind and approach it differently from the outset?

It initially comes up as a need for new expression that I can’t comfortably produce under the Bombardier name. I’ve had the Bombardier moniker the longest (started around 1997) so each new project is in relation to that foundation. When I find myself working on new material I like but it doesn’t feel like a “Bombardier” song, I start considering other options. After having so many monikers in the late 90’s – Bombardier, 13th Hour, Kamphetamine, and Useless Generation – I was reluctant to start anything new again, particularly because in retrospect all that late 90’s material is very similar in tone and could have easily fallen under the Bombardier name. So for years I tried to expand the Bombardier umbrella rather than start new projects, but I’m constantly exploring and eventually ran out of runway.

The purpose of new names isn’t so much to distinguish my work for listeners but rather free me up to express what I need to express. The last few years I’ve wanted to explore more melodic, pretty ambient music and kept balking at pursuing it because it didn’t feel “Bombardier” enough. The Bombardier ambient sound is more atonal and dark and I felt restricted by that history and body of work. The result was The Space Where She Was, which was initially a song title about the strange phenomenon of when someone leaves or dies and their physical space, the room they lived in, the bed they slept in, the space they occupied in a community is now empty.

In contrast, my 5th of July band project was created as a fresh concept. I was auditioning different vocalist when I lived in the Bay Area and connected the most with Jessica Schoen. She grew up in Chicago and listened to the same industrial and goth bands I did in the 90’s. She liked the dark atmospheres and percussion of my Bombardier work and we both wanted to work on something down-tempo. I love working with her vocals and she’s incredibly tolerant of how much I manipulate them in the mix. I’ll often start with a simple backing track and she’ll sing lyrics that either of us have written. I usually then break the backing track into individual sounds, chop up her vocals and reverse them. I listen to the vocals and sounds and get a sense of its unique DNA, and build the song from scratch. Once we did our first show (January of 2016) the visual aesthetic came together – a sort of David Lynch meets Sleep No More. That led to a number of film shoots in the spring and the overall project is becoming more multimedia than just a band.

On the subject of the visual component, you do much of the graphic design for your releases. Is there a difference in how you approach creating moving images to accompany music and how you craft the elements that go into the package elements of a release? Does this process of matching images to sound differ greatly from providing soundtracks to film, where the images come before the audio? 

There are two different directions. When I design album art, I know the music and look through my photos to find something that connects well with the sound of the song or album. When I work on films (whether scoring someone else’s film or shooting my own), the footage / image comes first and I then began to “hear” the corresponding sounds in my mind that fit. And the challenge then is getting my machines to make the sound I heard in my head. So with graphic design it goes sound to image, and with motion picture it goes image to sound.

An interesting aside as I’ve learned more about sound production and mastering – the process of adjusting levels, pan, or effects to move the musical elements in the sound field – is its incredible similarities to graphic design. Changing the alpha on a graphic element feels like changing the volume on a musical element, etc… They use a similar non-verbal part of my mind that moves from focusing on individual elements to the whole picture, back and forth, during the editing process.

You’ve moved around a lot, is environment something that has a distinct impact on your output?

It definitely does. There’s an inverse relationship between the amount of chaos in an environment and the amount of risk I’m willing to take creatively. When I moved to NY in 2000 I thought the activity of the city would inspire me creatively. However the opposite happened – I began to take less risks with my music. It’s only when I’m in quiet places that the loudest music comes out of my brain. When I left NY in 2009, my art and music had atrophied to the point where I thought I was just out of ideas. I moved to a quiet apartment in the Bay Area and slowly began to feel creative again. However that city-type of compression came back up as the tech boom hammered the Bay, and I started to lose focus again. I moved to LA and that helped, but as it is also becoming more expensive I know I won’t be here forever. I spend a good amount of time in Iowa where I have a comparable studio set up as my California one. Some of my best ideas have come out there. On the flip side, I need some exposure to great artists and new music to stay inspired, so I do this balance of spending some time in cities, seeing shows and jamming with other artists, and some time alone in the middle of nowhere making music.

Bombardier performing in NYC

Do you use different gear, or tailor your studio set-up for each individual project?

My Bombardier work has been heading in the direction of outboard gear again. I started with gear in 1995, a drum machine, and slowly built on that. I didn’t use software until about 2011 when a friend loaned me Maschine for a weekend and I liked what it could do. Using software has taught me a lot about sound production – EQ ranges, compression, effects – that I didn’t learn from my early gear because I just blasted the signals through distortion pedals and a 4-track. However making music just with software doesn’t fit my style. I like the erratic sounds of wires getting crossed and the hum of machines and pedals. It’s a more raw sound and fits the Bombardier style.

5th of July began software based and still is, although I’m experimenting with bringing in some sounds recorded from my modular of gear into it. Because of Jessica’s vocals, working in software makes it easier to arrange around them. It’s more delicate work and software helps with that precision.

And the melodic, lo-fi sound of The Space Where She Was is outboard gear. Even if I use a software synth, I route it through a chain of external pedals. Most recently I’ve been experimenting with an AI I programmed into my Refraktions iPhone app. I’ve been having it send generative sequences to my desktop synths (the Waldorf Blofeld, the Analog Four) and my modular kit to make its own songs. I set it up, tap the iPhone screen a few times, and let it create a composition while I turn knobs – essentially like having a robot band mate. That’s produced some really beautiful results – lo-fi melodies and drones that fits the project well.

You mention ‘generative sequences’ in relation to The Space Where She Was. That term was coined by Eno to describe the use of algorithms or processes to compose ambient music. This is fitting considering the ambient nature of the material, but also suggests an influence in terms of approach and structure. What are some of your biggest influences, and who are some of the artists you’ve been exposed to recently that you’ve found particularly inspiring?

I use the term “generative” in the same way Eno did – a composition run through a series of algorithms that generate new sequences. I’m pushing myself and the music by developing an artificial intelligence in my Refraktions app that can remember and respond to a musician’s initial choices before the algorithms are applied. The generative code in the app began as randomized selections of sounds and notes. Now the AI has a memory matrix that remembers the musician’s choices, stress-tests those choices against a randomized element, and produces a result that is new, yet favoring the instruments and notes the musician prefers. It’s a blend between existing trajectory and new input, which is how I experience life in general. My goal is to make this sequencer generate sequences and rhythms that are as organic and life-like as possible within a technological environment.

In terms of influences on this process and my ambient music in general, Mahr is the top of my list. She is a musician out of Madison whose music strikes a balance between dark and beautiful, complex and understandable, like a lucid hallucinogenic trip. Perhaps there is something about the Madison area, because I credit Ablecain as the biggest influence on the breakcore I’ve made.

Other influences include the abundance of performers I’ve been able to see in Los Angeles these last two years. Orphx’s modular set was the best performance I saw in 2016, followed closely by Richard Devine and his two coffin-sized modular racks. Also Autechre, Alessandro Cortini, and local artists from the LA modular scene like Bana Haffar and Baseck (who I’ve known now for 19 years – we used to trade breakcore cassette demos). Not a week goes by without several world-class electronic artists performing in Los Angeles. It’s an honor and privilege to be here right now.

How different is your live set-up from the studio you use for production?

I’ve experimented a lot with my live set up – playing off gear, Ableton, Traktor, modular, or any combination of them. When I’m traveling a lot, I usually have a Traktor X1 mapped to be a 4 channel mixer, with a live stream going into the D deck. That live stream could be a drum machine, synth, my app – just depends on the set and the sort of sound I’m going for. I experimented with Ableton for a while (and certainly will again) but gravitated towards Traktor so I could play full songs that have their progression built it. It also opened me up to mixing other artists songs into my sets, which was new for me because I started as a producer and not a DJ. So my production studio is often what I’m traveling with, but when I’m stationary, I have a set of hardware synths, pedals, Maschine controller, and Elektron boxes. Here’s a full list of gear that’s scattered between my 2 studios:

Maschine Studio
Elektron Rytm and Analog 4
Moog Delay, Bass Murf, Drive, and chorus
Electro Harmonix delay, flange, reverb, phaser
Novation Bass Station, Bass Station II, Super Bass Station rack and drum station
Waldorf Blofeld
Roland JV-880, R8, MC-50
Boss SYB-3 synth filter, DD5 Delay, Metal Zone, and Hyper Fuzz

That last pedal, the Boss Hyper Fuzz, is the piece of gear I’ve had the longest and is a fundamental piece in all my favorite tracks. I started using it in 1993 with a guitar and amp, making feedback and learning how to get beautiful tones in noise. Later I started running 808 kicks (from the R8) and that began my hardcore and industrial catalog.

At Furthur you played a techno set on the Network 10 Venus stage on the Friday night, and then were called upon to take a Saturday night slot on the mainstage. You were able to perform a completely different style with no notice. How did that come about, and how much work goes into always being prepared to shift gears like that?

There were a lot of factors, but basically it boils down to something I heard in NYC years ago. Luck = preparation + opportunity. It’s sort of a Karate Kid thing, waxing the car and painting the fence over and over because it’s the next task in front of me then in all comes together in important moments like these.

The preparation element was being on tour that summer and playing about 15 shows before Furthur. They were DJ + live hybrid sets, each one being unique, something I did as a personal challenge. I was also pushing myself to move away from the safety of planned out sets and pick the first track of a set just seconds before I start. I’d try to launch off the moment, transitioning from the previous artist and reading the energy of the crowd. By the time of Furthur, I knew my gear, I knew my songs, and could enter and exit at any point. I was listening to Fixmer McCarthy’s last track and knew to pull up a techno track I did called “Pavement” that my friend Joey (Blush Response) had told me sounded like Nitzer Ebb. I knew my destination, which was to ramp things up to a hard set by Perc, and I was filling in for Lenny Dee, so each time I looked for a new track I simply thought, “harder.”

The other part was the opportunity, which came about through several tenuous, simultaneous threads. Even the night of the event, several random coincidences occurred (me watching the show from backstage, Perc being delayed at the airport, Joel not finding out that he was needed at 1am instead of 3am) but what is even more interesting to me were the threads that began more than a year and half before at a very small show in LA.

I had been booked to play a Thursday night in the outskirts of LA. I knew other people who had played this venue and liked it, but for whatever reason the turnout was really low. It was essentially artists performing for each other and about 5 other people. The venue was huge so it felt painfully empty. It was one of those nights where anyone could have bailed and no one would blame them. But my attitude is to do the best I can with whatever is in front of me so I enjoyed playing and listening to the sets on their big system, hung out with the other artists, and enjoyed the evening.

One of the other artists was JB (Zeller) from France. We hit it off and the next summer he booked several shows for us in Europe. In June, I played a hardcore set in Renne, posted it online, and that was heard by Maria 909 in New York. Later that summer, David (Cervello Elettronico) – who also was at the LA show – booked me to play at Nothing Changes in downtown New York. Maria showed up at that show, we hit it off, and a month later at Furthur she was key in advocating for me to play in Lenny Dee’s spot.

If I rewind the tape and think if I had bailed on that small LA show or had a bad attitude, would JB or David want to continue playing shows with me? Would I have been in Renne and Maria heard that recording, or met her in New York?

All of these elements combined to make that moment where Kurt asked me if I could play main stage with 5 minutes notice. Without hesitation I said yes and the rest was auto-pilot: Plug in the gear, get a sense of what to play immediately, and perform the best set I can play.

Do you see common elements that connect your entire body of work?

I think the common elements are darkness, hard-driven sounds, grief, and a sort melancholic beauty. That comes out in almost all my mediums – illustration, painting, film, and music. It can pendulate from hard techno to dark, beatless atmospheres. The Space Where She Was project is probably my biggest deviation from those themes because it moves into pretty, melodic sounds, although they are probably still on the dark side of the spectrum compared to most melodic music.

I think another element that comes out is that my body of work is uniquely me. Of course this or that element is going to overlap with my peers, but I don’t think people hear one of my tracks and say “oh that’s just like so and so.” I was talking to a friend in France who I did a remix for and he said “You’re an ovni in the industrial scene.” I asked what ovni was and he said “UFO,” meaning my sound is unique. I took that as the biggest compliment.

Over the years, I’ve heard many times that my music is too dark, too hard, too weird, too whatever. The benefit of that is I’ve developed an incredible amount of resilience and persistence. A few years ago I was in a slump and wondered if I should stop making music. I thought it through and wondered, “well, what else would I do?” and realized I’m built this way. I have to create. It’s not up to me. I wouldn’t be happy being a Wall Street broker or project manager or full-time dad. I find my equilibrium through creating. So I do it regardless of whether it’s going to land well with others or not. It’s emotional survival for me. There are times where it connects with a lot of people and times it doesn’t, and during the down times it becomes about what the music does for me, not others, that gives me persistence and meaning. It’s cynical, and usually with experimental music at some point it goes from being “weird” to most people to becoming “visionary.” It’s a validating feeling, but not something I need to count on to keep going.

A View From The Fringes: The DIY Sound Systems of Even Furthur 2016

You can still be anything this time around.

Dica and I hit the road on Friday morning. Our journey began in the place that had spawned the Drop Bass Network some two decades earlier; Milwaukee. A city first made famous by beer, then by Jeffrey Dahmer, until it finally became known worldwide as a source of uncompromising acid techno. We took a meandering path that saw us pass by Plainfield, home of Ed Gein – the notorious rural Wisconsin figure that served as the inspiration for Psycho (1960), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). We were en route to the long awaited rebirth of DBN’s most heralded series of techno pagan rituals: Even Furthur.

Some incarnation of Furthur had been a yearly event until the ‘last’ one took place mere days before the events of 9/11. That party had been a sprawling, quasi-apocalyptic happening. It felt like an ending, and when a year passed by with no word of three more days of peace, love, and unity… and then another… and still another. Hopes began to fade and, despite rumors and rumblings that it wasn’t really over, it began to seem like EF 2001 had actually been the grand finale. Until, that is, the radio silence was broken earlier this year. After an incubation period of fifteen years there would be a 2016 edition Even Furthur, and it was faced with the seemingly impossible task of living up to the myths and legends that had sprung up around it in its absence.

As I was saying, Dica and I rolled into Furthur on Friday evening. We spotted the Speaker Kreatures sign hoisted above their stage and made the decision to set up camp not far from there. We quickly realized that we’d placed ourselves in the midst of a den of unparalleled iniquity that had us positioned mid way between the Network 10 – Venus tent hosted by Electrified Entertainment & A Long Nite Productions and the White Trash Wrestling (WTW) DIY sound system that Speaker Kreatures had curated with help from two notorious mainstays of Milwaukee deviance: Addict Records and Massive.

IMG_4102
The beacon for all things weird and WTW at Even Furthur.

These were just two of the side stages that were spread across the terrain of Even Furthur. They numbered ten in total and all of them were named for signature events in the history of the Midwest techno scene. This kept in line with DBN’s tradition of paying tribute to the past, not in a way that sets us up to repeat it, but in a manner that acknowledges the foundation that the present has been built upon. It evoked some degree of nostalgia for veterans of the parties of yore, but also helped to expose a younger crowd to the rich history of the region.

We wandered over to the WTW set up and found that we’d just missed out on the destructive fury of Chicago’s Sir.Vixx. It looked like a bomb had gone off. Smashed electronic equipment was strewn across the area set aside for dancing and the smell of ruptured capacitors lingered in the air. It felt like we’d deprived ourselves of precisely the sort of unbridled chaos that would have been right at home within the confines of the rickety barn that had housed the original WTW events all those years ago.

T-Dawg, one of the barn party regulars, had the foresight to prepare and share a spreadsheet that showed the schedules for all ten of the DIY sound systems. After a bit of exploring, which afforded us the opportunity to discover how delightfully close we were to both Camp Blood and the full service ‘Tiki Bar’ assembled by John Erwood, we consulted T-Dawg’s list and quickly realized that the nomadic Bombardier was about to perform on the Network 10 stage. We made haste getting over there to catch him in action, and it was well worth the effort.

I’ve seen Bombardier in action a number of times over the years and it’s always somewhat staggering to witness. Jason Snell is a veteran producer, with an imposing catalog of pseudonyms in a diverse array of musical styles. Under names like The Space Where She Was, The 13th Hour, and Kamphetamine his work has graced releases on Hangars Liquides, Addict Records, Low Res, Vinyl Communications and his own Division 13 imprint. In a live environment he is capable of effortlessly transitioning between any of the genres he works with and adapting his sound to virtually any situation without sacrificing his vision in the slightest. Inside the Network 10 – Venus tent Bombardier discharged a dynamic set that had enough heaviness and distortion to satisfy his hardcore followers, but never drifted too far beyond the techno that was expected on that stage. It was a dark, raw, and masterful spectacle for the senses that was a clear highlight of Friday evening, and ultimately led to him getting promoted to a main stage performance at the peak of Saturday night’s festivities.

The hills are alive with the pound of hardcore music

It wouldn’t be Furthur unless it rained, and it poured down for much of Friday night. By Saturday morning much of the terrain had been transformed into a treacherous mud pit. As the crew at Camp Blood started the process of roasting a whole pig over their bonfire there was a steady stream of jokes about the region being renamed Camp Flood in honor of utterly soaked surroundings.

our home was Camp Blood.
Camp Blood, before the rain hit.

The DIY sound systems started to fire up in the early afternoon, and WTW was soon blasting a bouncy set by Turtle Matt. This offering steered away from the darker fare that burst from their speakers for much to the weekend, but also seemed to bring out a welcome burst of sunshine. Later in the afternoon Decontrol upped the tempo and brought back the evil with a vengeance, before handing over the decks to a solid block of Massive Posse members and familiar faces from the barn party era.

Thanks to a devoted crew that managed to track down a set of needles for the decks, Dica and I were able strut our stuff. We opened things up with a genre defying set that was so no holds barred that we had to wear luchador masks for the performance. Drum’n’bass, vintage PCP tracks, hard acid, cock rock, hip hop, blue-eyed soul, breakcore and booty house all slammed into the 90 minutes of high flying turntable acrobatics that left a mess for ALAN! and his special guest Neehigh to clean up. They tagged in and jumped into the ring blending idm weirdness with the sort of hard acid sounds that one can always depend on Wisconsin to deliver.

Henry Vengeance, one of Massive Magazine’s techno stalwarts, fired an opening salvo of beats accompanied by the rallying cries bellowed by Cyrus in the opening moments of The Warriors (1979). The intro repeatedly demanded to know if the masses could dig it, and as Henry Vengeance blasted his way through a pounding live set of punishing rhythms it became clear that the answer was resoundingly affirmative. Throughout his set he managed to ramp up the intensity even as he brought down the tempo. It was sensational work that also showcased the brilliant programming by Joel Huber and the Speaker Kreatures crew. It proved to be the ideal way to set the early evening mood for the highly anticipated appearance by the multi-talented Addict Records and Drop Bass Network recording artist & graphic designer; Stunt Rock.

During a regretfully brief thirty minute set Stunt Rock unleashed a torrent of beats so broken they were on the verge of disintegration. Held together with little more than obscure samples and an absurd sense of humor, it was exactly the sort of fantastic collision between genius and dementia that had established his reputation in the first place. When it was over Deadly Buda, the WTW sound system’s main attraction, picked up the pieces and proceeded to throw down a volatile blend of morphing beats in his inimitably systematic and deadly style. Milwaukee mainstay The Hermit rounded out the night.

Of course, Electrified Entertainment & A Long Nite Productions had their own potent bill of headliners to close out Saturday night on their own Network 10 – Venus stage. It began with a blistering live set by Bobaflux himself, that Tonewreck extraordinaire; Paul Birken. Huddled behind a mass of gear and relentlessly working the groove, Birken amazed with an acid-drenched set that led the crowd on a journey and marched them straight into the welcoming arms of Tommie Sunshine.

There are really only a small handful of DJs that have been as continuously relevant as Tommie Sunshine. He’s a singular figure who played a role in the birth of the Midwest rave scene and has evolved into one of the most knowledgeable elder statesmen in the scene. It became clear that something special was in the works from the moment that he opened his set with Cajmere’s Percolator, and he chased it with anthem after anthem after banging anthem.

When it was over a gobsmacked crowd, completely unaware that Tommie Sunshine had more surprises up his sleeve, picked up their jaws and made their way to the Main Stage for Drop Bass Network’s Saturday night headliners.

Sunday mornin’ never comin’ down

On Sunday I decided it was time to wander a bit and find out what was going on in the less debaucherous regions of the campground. Much of the day was spent engaged in actively seeking out people I hadn’t crossed paths with since the previous Furthur, some fifteen years earlier. Over at Rave ‘Em & Bail-E’s circus sideshow I was able to locate Dan Efex, the Chicago legend responsible for unleashing the Disco Inferno cassette upon the world, and somehow lured him back to the dark side of the hill to grab a drink at the Tiki Bar. By mid-afternoon a few of us had headed back to our campsite where we had a few drinks with old friends in full earshot of the mind bending sounds of Michael Wenz ripping their way out of the Network 10 tent. All across the camping areas it seemed like similar reunion projects were afoot, and when the sun set and the last night of Furthur began there was a special sort of magic infusing everything.

The lucky few who were fortunate enough to get to the WTW system at the right time were treated to a spontaneous live collaboration between Addict Records artist Pressboard and Baseck, the West Coast wild man who had laid waste to the Main Stage on Friday night.

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Tommie Sunshine and Frankie Bones on the decks in the Network 10 – Venus tent.

Not far away, Network 10 – Venus DIY was graced with an epic, spur-of-the-moment tag team set that saw another of Friday’s headliners – Frankie Bones, matching Tommie Sunshine track for track, anthem for anthem in a contest that ended, not with one arm raised, but with the hands of the entire audience in the air.

On it’s own that set would have been a fitting way to close out an overwhelming weekend of deviance, insanity, and amazement, but there was still a whole evening of programming to come on the Main Stage. For those who doubted the ability of Even Furthur 2016 to live up to fifteen full years of hype, never question the ability of Kurt Eckes and the Drop Bass Network to deliver… and never doubt the ability of seasoned ravers to seize the day.

Let’s do it again next year?