After two successful iterations, the Honcho Summer Campout is set to return bigger and better than ever this weekend with its third installment.
The annual gathering runs from August 17-22 and is the brainchild of Pittsburgh’s Honcho trio. The threesome–comprised of Aaron Clark, Clark Price, and George d’Adhemar–takes over the city’s Hot Mass nightclub once a month for its celebration of sweat, beats, and all things queer, routinely bringing in the underground techno and house scene’s freshest talent for sweltering, all-night dance marathons.
The annual event’s third edition will once again bring the spirit of Honcho to the backwoods, relocating from the fest’s former home in the West Virginia mountains to the Four Quarters Interfaith Sanctuary in the hills of Pennsylvania. The new locale escapes the previous venue’s arbitrary men-only policy, allowing the fest to host a fuller spectrum of LGBTQ talent and revelers, as well as further grow in size and scope. It’s a fitting shift, given that the Honcho boys describe the yearly soiree as a “queer music family gathering.”
With the eve of the 2017 Honcho Summer Campout upon us, DJ Times is once again packing our sunscreen, denim hotpants, and ear plugs to gear up for nearly five days of grooves. With a larger–and more diverse–musical lineup than ever before, the latest installment of the fest is looking to also be its best with a myriad of daytime, evening, and afterhours programming.
With so much to see and do, we’re here to shine a light on just a few of highlights of the weekend’s stacked schedule.
Jasmine Infiniti
The self-proclaimed Queen of Hell has made quite a splash on the Bay Area’s clubbing scene by straddling the line between dark techno and experimental bass, and she’s set to bring that same heat to the woods of Pennsylvania for a Saturday night throwdown. The Oakland-based, New York-raised DJ/producer recently ripped into Boiler Room’s Club Chai event just a few weeks ago, showing off genre-defying sensibilities that touched upon everything from industrial bass, Basement Jaxx’s seminal “Where’s Your Head At,” and much more. With hulking, sinister productions like “Y1” and her “Queen of Hell Reimagine” of Dio Ganhdih’s “Pussy Vortex,” Jasmine Infiniti has proven to be one of the West Coast’s most exciting talents.
Catch Jasmine Infiniti on the Stone Circle stage at 8 PM on Saturday.
Bézier
Robert Yang has carved a name for himself as a founding member of San Francisco’s Honey Soundsystem collective, but he’s become just as big of a force on his own in recent months thanks to some key releases and top-notch live sets. With a hyper-melodic approach to synthwave–most recently heard on his recent Primes EP on Dark Entries Records–that’s just as potent on home speakers as it is on the dancefloor, Yang’s production output is as varied as his DJ sets and is wholly unlike just about anything else you’ll. With work on an album underway, it’s a perfect time to catch the synth master in the midst of his US tour.
Bézier will be soundtracking the solar eclipse on the aptly named Eclipse Stage with fellow Honey Soundsystem member Josh Cheon on Monday from 2 PM.
Octo Octa
It’s been a huge year for Maya Bouldry-Morrison. Fresh off the release of her sophomore LP Where Are We Going? on HNYTRX this past March, the Brooklyn-based artist has undoubtedly become one of the city’s finest acts with her bouncy house DJ sets and intricate live performances. The album explores the journey Bouldry-Morrison has been on since publicly coming out as transgender in early 2016, showing off an emotional range that spans as widely as the record’s sonics as Octo Octa traverses classic breaks, rowdy house, and even moody Berlin techno). Make sure to get yourself to the Stone Circle stage at 9 PM this Friday for a 3-hour masterclass.
Deep South
Atlanta’s burgeoning underground dance scene has seen an explosion in size in the past few years with packed house and techno nights in Edgewood, Midtown, and beyond, and one of the finest party crews leading the charge is Deep South.
The quartet is made up of residents Vicki Powell, Robert Ansley, Ash Lauryn, and Brian Rojas, who together throw a monthly party at Cheshire Bridge’s infamous Heretic Atlanta. Routinely booking scene favorites like Mike Servito–as well as fellow Campout artists The NeedlExchange, The Carry Nation, and the Honcho boys themselves–and bringing out the city’s finest pleasure-seekers, the group has carved out a unique identity in both the southeast and far beyond.
Deep South will take over the stage at Hemlock Hole on Sunday at 2 PM.
Grab last-minute tickets here.
