Updated 7/9/99. More band info still to come, so check back often.
Big Brother and the Holding Company played their first official engagement in 1966, and swiftly became one of the major bands of the psychedelic music movement. From before they were joined by a transplanted Texan female vocalist named Janis Joplin, they blew away their audiences with their incredible renditions of songs like "Summertime", "Hall of the Mountain King", and "Down on Me". Highlights of their careers include the Monterey Pop Festival (which won them world-wide exposure and acclaim) and the smash success of their first two albums, Big Brother and the Holding Company and Cheap Thrills. After a 15-yr hiatus, during which members pursued individual careers, they reunited for the 20th anniversary of the Summer of Love in 1987, and have been playing together since. Still rockin' and blastin' out the blues, original members Sam Andrew (guitar & vocals), Dave Getz (drums), and Peter Albin (bass & vocals) joined by guitarist Tom Finch and vocalist Valerie Johnson, they bring the true sound of San Francisco psychedelic rock and the spirit of Janis to the Starwood Festival. (We also recommend their latest CD, Do What You Love. For BBHC, that says it all.) Visit their website at http://www.bbhc.com/BigBrother.htm
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Centrak Lasers Corporation has been producing laser light shows since 1985, combined with projections, pyrotechnics, computer & laser animation, and many other media including live dance and musical performance. Their work using computer controlled medical ion lasers has been seen in TV commercials and theaters and at raves, sports and music events, civic and corporate events, museums and universities, across the Grand Canyon and at the Great Pyramids.
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Heat Sink The unholy alliance of Centrak Lasers and Pyrosonic return with Heat Sink, where they attempt to answer the question: How much thermal energy can one geographical location absorb before experiencing total meltdown? Features original soundtrack by Ron Slabe.
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Djoliba is an eight-piece band which uses traditional African instruments like the djembe, dun-dun, talking drum, kora, and the balafon, completing a full hot dance-music sound with guitar, bass, drum-kit, keyboards and horns. Djoliba features Lansanna Kouyate from Guinea, West Africa, where his family has carried on the traditions of their Malinke tribe through music as Griots: sacred storytellers. The Kouyate clan has served the descendents of the Great Emperor Soundiata of Mali for thousands of years. Other featured artists include: Steve Imburgia, Dave Tickell, Mike Toner, Amy Goldberg, Dylan Savage, Ian Nielson and Greg Newton.
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Einstein’s Secret Orchestra is a Cleveland-based Psychedelic Cosmic-Blues Space-Band, with music of multiple influences reminiscent of early Pink Floyd. The ESO Experience in right-brain communication break-down is now accessable to the starwood community. Members include Chas Smith on keyboards and Theremin, Michele George on electric violin, Lonesome Cowboy Dave DeLuca on guitar, and Bob Mosic on drums.
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The Firesign Clones is an impromptu radio theatre group composed of Chameleon Club members and friends (with a good dose of SubGeniuses) which attempts to recreate the performances of those comedy theatre stars The Firesign Theatre.
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Can't wait to get away from it all, Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Smith from Anytown, USA? Well, just hop in your wife, and head in any direction on the freeway of your choice, as we offer Firesign Theatre's classic dreamplay: How Can You Be in Two Places at Once, When You're Not Anywhere at All?! Ralph Spoilsport sends you through a Tropical Paradise and the Land of the Pharohs to the Real America, Buddy! Just ask those thousands of folks who wouldn't say "no" to yesterday, or "yes" instead of knowing it all!
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Green Crown weaves an eclectic range of influences into an acoustic tapestry all their own, with a strong Celtic and Neo-Pagan base. Inspired by a deep reverence for the Earth, as well as for the legacies of the ancestors, traditional and original material is joined seemlessly in expression of a vision which is at once ancient as the forests, and fresh as this morning’s dream. The core members are Vocalist/Harpist Olvardil Prydwyn, who also plays guitar, lute, cittern, mandolin and wind instruments, and Cellist Diana McFadden, also a player of guitar, cittern and mandolin. They are joined by Whitedeer (percussion), Violette Rose (acoustic bass), Jerry Zeankowski (electric bass), Sherry Gibson (percussion, vocals & dance), and Jim Barleycorn Brewster (percussion, whistles, mandolin, fiddle & guitar).
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Lia Fail consists of: singer/songwriter Felim Collins, a keyboard player and guitarist from County Clare, Ireland; Karen Morgan, an accomplished singer/songwriter and guitar player; Sean Cagey, a singer/songwriter and Lia Fail’s lead guitarist; Tracey Kinney on vocals, bass, and bodhrain; Sybil Cagey on vocals; Dan Colbert on djembe; Pat Custy from County Clare, Ireland, on tin whistle, flute, and digeridoo; and Nikki Nicholas from Galway, Ireland on fiddle, bodhrain and djembes.
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Maggi, Pierce and E.J. is a nationally touring trio who call their music "Rolk", as in "Rockin' Folk". Their highly psychedelic sound is, in Maggi's words, "eclectic, harmonious, trippy inventive pop." They move through a dozen styles, exchanging instruments and evolving the performance though acoustic folk to jazz to rock. You may hear guitar, upright bass, mandolin, banjo, turntables, oboe, keyboards, harp, saxophone or harmonica. Chosen out of a field of 6,000 groups to perform for the Grammy Showcase (a contest associated with the Grammy awards), their song "Sweeter" was featured as part of a Grammy Showcase complilation album.
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Peachy Nietzche are known for their always energetic, often theatrical, humorous live performances all over New York State. They blend numerous musical styles including jug-band, polka, psychedelic, Irish jigs, drippy bossanova, rock n' roll, reggae, swing, and country-fried funk. Expect the usual guitars, bass, drums and keyboards to be joined by electric fiddle, sax, recorder, accordian, Trumpet, banjo and/or harmonica, in an almost-vaudevillian yet contemporary performance. The NeeCheese have opened for George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars, and played with Hypnotic Clambake.
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The Pufferdome
“In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn a stately pleasure-dome decree...”Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Rising from the field like Gaia’s glowing nipple, tattooed in light and ringing with music, the Pufferdome is Starwood’s own inflatable hemispherical pleasure palace! Joe’s OM Appliances presents late-night parties with diverse musical styles and multi-media projections and effects.
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Revelry is an acoustic/eclectic creation from the folks who bring you Starwood. True to our Chameleonic nature, some of the perennial musical lizards within the A.C.E./Starwood clan assume this year's mutation to present the fine guitar and unique songs of Victoria Ganger, with Mary Alice Tummonds and Lisa Lefkort as well (think Indigo Girls with a Magical 'tude), and a bite 'o the British Isles by special guests Ian Corrigan and Liafal. Sweet harmonies and sound surprises just may well abound!
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Rhythm Quest is a multi-cultural drum quartet whose repertoire features drum styles of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Europe and Australia with instruments of those regions to compliment the performance. Founded in 1995, the Bloomington, Indiana-based group travel extensively throughout the midwest, and have appeared with such nationally-known artists as Sonia Dada. Members include founders Julian Douglas & Christopher Austin, Rick Donnelly and Mike Rutherford. Rhythm Quest also offers drumming workshops which focus on the individual, the community, and the integration of the two.
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RoguesCross is a five-piece, original folk-rock ensemble playing the field from trance to dance, ballad to rhumba. Hailing from Cincinnati, RoguesCross prides itself on songs which reach through the spectrum of human emotions against a backdrop of rich, acoustic tone and melodic harmony. 12-string guitars, mandolins, fiddles, acoustic bass and tumba form the canvas against which Bree Chapman's haunting and powerful voice weaves tales of ancient lore, unrequited love, friendship and war.
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Ron Slabe has been a seeker of unusual sounds for over twenty years. Using electronics and found objects, he weaves diverse influences into a dense sonic web designed to invoke a variety of emotional states. His work has been featured at the Cleveland Performance Art Festival and at Cleveland Public Theatre, the Psychedelicatessen, and small and large venues around Northeast Ohio. He has performed regularly at ACE events since 1986 beginning with the first MusicStar Festival, and he has been the primary performer and mastermind of the StarWood Island Multi-Media Show for the last six years, with his performance group Pyrosonic. Objects in close proximity to him display a curious tendancy to burst into flame.
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S.A.F.M.O.D. (Sub-Atomic Frequency Modulation OverDose) presents performances of dance, music, and mix-media visuals. Safmod's work is based on collaborations of artists in all mediums, and is dedicated to the pursuit of experimentation and new processes of creativity, incorporating pre-recorded electronic music with live musicians playing both traditional and "found" instruments. Their dance is influenced by post-modernism, contact improvisation, and Japanese Bitoh dance, and they may utilize costumes, body paint, tapestries, jungle-gyms, candle altars, water pools, fire, and video projection.
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Tim Wallace is from the way out west of Cleveland. He is well known in the Northeast Ohio folk circuit for his humorous original songs, having performed in countless venues for over thirty years, dating back to the coffeehouse era of the mid-sixties. He is the host of a couple open mike nights and a Saturday morning radio show, and serves as artistic director of The Mountain Rose Concert Series.