Welcome back to Shecky's Jam Bands. I'm Shecky
and I want to start today with a question. What
do you get when a bunch of college kids at University
of Pennsylvania look around at the jam band world
and the rave world and decide, you know what,
we're going to live in both of these places at
the same time. You get the Disco Biscuits, Philadelphia's
transfusion pioneers, one of the most original
and relentlessly creative bands in the history
of live music. and today we're going all the
way in. The year is 1993, University of Pennsylvania.
Guitarist John Gutwillig, who everyone would
eventually call the barber, meets bassist Mark
Brownstein, who goes by Brownie. They start playing
music together. Mostly Grateful Dead and Fish
covers at frat houses and house parties. They
pick up original drummer Sam Altman, and a rotating
cast of others. At various points they call themselves
Party Tent and Zex C, which honestly are both
terrible band names. They know this. Then in
1995 keyboardist Aaron Magner joins and something
clicks into place. And this is also the year
they get their name. And I need to tell you this
story. because Mark Brownstein told it to Spin
Magazine and said he'd never told it publicly
before. The band was headed to the Jersey Shore
for a party, all crammed into a car, and one
of their friends, totally impromptu, turns to
the group and says, hey, you guys, you want to
go find some disco biscuits? And Mark says they
all looked at each other and said, boom, that's
the name. Now... Here's the wrinkle Brownstein
was happy to admit to. He says at the time he
didn't even know what disco biscuits meant. His
friend was looking for Quaaludes, the 1970s sedative
that was slang for disco biscuits back in the
day. By the time they named the band, the slang
had shifted and disco biscuits had become street
slang for ecstasy instead. So the band's name
came from a car full of college kids headed to
the Jersey Shore party a friend asking about
drugs, and a collective decision that this accidental
phrase was too good to pass up. Welcome to the
Disco Biscuits. For the first few years, the
Biscuits were a solid band in the fish tradition.
Good musicians, good shows, growing college following.
But in late 1997, something changed that altered
the course of not just their career, but an entire
genre. Keyboardist Aaron Magner got a Roland
JP -8000 synthesizer, an analog modeling synth
that could produce those driving, pulsating electronic
sounds associated with trance and EDM music.
And he started incorporating it into the live
setup. And suddenly, the jam band improvisations,
which were already strong, had this completely
different dimension underneath them. Electronic,
driving repetitive in a hypnotic and almost ritualistic
way. The rhythms came from the rave floor, but
they were being played live on real instruments
with the spontaneity of jazz. Nobody has done
this before, not like this, not this level of
commitment. Original drummer Sam Altman described
one of their early breakthrough moments a Halloween
show in 1997, where they just started playing
this groove, this eight -bar loop, and kept going.
It was real repetitious, he said, but the music
was going places we never imagined it could.
They called the style Trance Fusion, and it wasn't
a marketing term. It was genuinely accurate.
Trance Structure's jam band improvisation played
entirely live, with no samples, no backing tracks.
Just four people turning a rock show into something
that felt like a rave and a jam session happening
simultaneously. The Disco Biscuits basically
created a new genre and you could see the impact
immediately. Bands like STS -9, which we covered
in an earlier episode of the show, came up right
behind them exploring the same space. The crowd
that came to the Biscuits shows became one of
the most genuinely mixed audiences in live music.
One reviewer described it as, The biscuits spoke
to all of them. Alright, I'm picking one song
to send to you, and I'm going with, Yes, Space
Bird made him call. This song is everything the
Disco Biscuits are. Ridiculous and brilliant
at the same time. It lives in their 2002 album,
Señor Boombox. And the moment it begins, you
understand what transfusion actually means in
practice. There's a pulsing, almost alien groove
at the center of it. Gutwilig's guitar weaves
through it all. like something being broadcast
from orbit. Magner's synths create this layered
swirling atmosphere and underneath it all, Brownstein's
bass is just locked in, absolutely merciless.
This is either thrilling or baffling, depending
on your familiarity with their catalog. Space
Bird, Made in Call is the song that can ease
you in. It's got melody, it's got groove, It's
got hypnotic electronic quality that is pure
biscuits. Press play on a live version and just
let it happen. Okay, here's a story I've been
building toward. By 2006, the Disco Biscuits
had replaced their founding drummer Sam Altman,
who left to go to medical school, by holding
a two -night sold -out drum -off at the Borgata
Casino in Lenox City. An open audition for a
drum chair at a casino. that is very Disco Biscuit's
approach to problem solving. They choose Alan
Auken and the new lineup was Electric. In April
2007 the band unveiled something entirely new,
a performance under an alias called Tractor Beam.
The concept was simple and bold. Tractor Beam
was the Disco Biscuit's but completely instrumental,
no vocals and designed to feel more like a DJ
set than a rock show, something closer to a club
experience than a concert. Described by the band
as something more akin to a DJ club set, the
lights changed, the vibe changed, the approach
to improvisation changed. The Mr. Don that night
was described as mammoth. Fans who experienced
both 1998 original and the 2007 Tractor Beam
version called it one of the most meaningful
musical experiences they'd had at any show from
any band. It wasn't just improvisation. It was
memory made audible. History played live. The
band released the full soundboard recording of
that Tractor Beam show for free download to celebrate
the Jammies nomination. It's on the internet
archive right now. Go find it. It's extraordinary.
Alright, some things that make the Biscuits generally
unique. They scored live films. The Disco Biscuits
have improvised live music scores to full films
during their shows, including Akira in 1999,
Tron in 2015, The Fifth Element in 2023, and
2001 A Space Odyssey in 2024. The entire band
watches the film and improvises in real time.
No rehearsal, no pre -planned score, just four
musicians reacting to Kubrick and Miyazaki live
on stage in front of an audience. Mark Brownstein
co -founded Headcount. In 2004, bassist Brownie
co -founded Headcount with Andy Bernstein, a
national non -partisan non -profit with partners
with musicians to register voters at concerts.
If you've ever registered to vote at a live music
show, there's a real chance head count was behind
that table. Camp Bisco started by accident. In
May 1999, the band was supposed to play a set
at the All Good Music Festival that got cancelled.
A dedicated group of fans had already camped
out and dubbed their campsite Camp Bisco. The
band took the hint That August they hosted the
first official Camp Bisco music festival which
grew over nearly two decades into a full -scale
event featuring Skrillex, Bass Nectar, STS -9,
Pretty Lights, and Gramatik alongside the Biscuits
themselves. Last fact that you might find interesting
is they actually play songs backwards. They're
inverted and dyslexic. approaches to song structure
are genuinely unique in live music. An inverted
song begins with its ending, a dyslexic version
has its sections scattered across the set, and
a fake out is when they jam toward one song and
pivot to another. Songs can start one night and
finish the next. The Biscuits treat their set
lists like puzzles for fans to decode. Here's
what I keep on coming back to at the Disco Biscuits.
They've invented something. Transfusion. Jamtronica.
Whatever you want to call it, that space where
live improvisation meets the relentless forward
motion of electronic music. They didn't just
exist in it, they built the room. They made it
possible for a generation of bands to follow
them in that space. They are also one of the
most intellectual, playful bands in this world.
They invented songs. The dyslexic structures,
the fake -outs, the tractor beam alter ego, the
live film scores. These are people who genuinely
love the puzzle of music. Who take joy in subverting
their expectations and then completely blowing
your mind with what comes next. And underneath
all of that complexity, there's a groove. A deep
bone -rattling dance floor destroying groove
that belongs entirely to the Disco Biscuits and
no one else. Find Space Bird Mating Call, find
the Tractor Bean Chameleon Club Show, and if
they're playing anywhere near you, just go. Just
be ready for them to start a song, stop in the
middle, play something completely different,
and then finish that song three songs later.
And it's not a bug, that is the whole point.
That's Disco Biscuits. And that's Shecky's Jam
Bands. We'll see you next time.