2013 Music Schedule
The Primate Fiasco
Main Stage @ 2:00pm-4:00pm
Parade to Smith’s Billiards @ 4:00pm-4:15pm
The Primate Fiasco spawns from the streets of Northampton MA. With tuba, banjo, clarinet, saxaphone, drums, and vocal harmony, it’s the instrumentation of a New Orleans sidewalk band but with modern influences. While the band can play authentic “Traditional Jazz”, the music that’s more likely to come out of their ancient instruments is often recognized as funk, reggae, bluegrass, hip hop, rock, latin, trance, the occasion Serbian gypsy jam, etc. But the world has enough labels already. Most would agree on the category of “fun”. If you want to invent a genre, “psychedelic dixieland” seems to get the point across.
The band started on city sidewalks and eventually started getting invited into venues and festivals frequented by the Jam Band or Indie scene. At a Primate Fiasco show, you’ll see hippies and punks, ravers and jazz enthusiasts, elderly and children, all dancing on the same floor. An important thing to note about The Primate Fiasco’s music is that they can play the same song for the children, weddings, or a club full of drunk screaming college students. This formula works like a skeleton key.
The Primate Fiasco will throw down on any occasion. While no strangers to major festivals and rock venues, they still honor their roots on any given sidewalk.
The Fiasco fan base covers a spectrum from hippies and ravers to children and politicians. It’s hard to answer the question, “who is your audience?”, though they can say with ease, “whoever you are, welcome to our show.”
http://www.theprimatefiasco.com
The Alchemystics
Main Stage @ noon-2:00pm
Fueled by their passion to explore beyond the edges of traditional musical boundaries and their diverse ethnic and musical backgrounds, the Alchemystics blend reggae, politically infused hip-hop, gritty soul, hard-driving rock, and pulsing Jamaican, Cuban and Trinidadian rhythms into an utterly unique and distinctively original new sound. The result is modern-day roots music with global appeal – an alchemy of ancient musical traditions; intricate, intelligent wordplay; elementally raw soul; irresistible hooks; deep, driving rhythms; and old-school vocal harmonies – fired by the Alchemystic’s unique blend of intensity, passion, and sheer artistic chemistry into a powerful, contemporary, and unmistakable sound.
Formed by producers, and rhythmic earth shakers Demse Zullo – drums/percussion & Garrett Sawyer – bass in early 2003, the Alchemystics have grown into an eclectic lineup of talented musicians combining the inspired, masterful vocals of Ras Jahn and Ian-I, the smooth and socially conscious lyricism of Force, the Afro-Caribbean infused percussion of Matthew King, and the cosmic keyboards of Jay Metcalf. Together, the Alchemystics have catalyzed into an original, unstoppable musical force. Their high-energy, fiercely danceable live shows, have gained the band a passionately loyal multi-cultural, multi-generational following throughout New England, and beyond.
The Alchemystics have shared stages with a global array of music luminaries such as Stephen Marley, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Clipse, Damian Marley, The Abyssinians, Sister Carol, The Coup, Inner circle, Busta Rhymes, Yellow Man, Burning Spear, Gil Scott Heron, Culture, Steel Pulse, Angelique Kidjo, Mighty Sparrow, The Brazilian Girls, Israel Vibrations, The English Beat, Midnite, King Sunny Ade, and Taj Mahal among many others.