For the last five summers, The Disco Biscuits have hosted, arguably, the most forward- thinking music festival in the country. The acts they choose to accompany them on the three-day campout which they have christened, “Camp Bisco” are often unknown but always receive rave reviews.

Remember the hype surrounding Thievery Corporation last fall? That was just a month or so after the duo played three sets at Camp Bisco to over 20,000 new fans.

Never a group to rest on their laurels, the Biscuits have invited back several of their favorite groups for this year’s lineup and also imported several international electronic acts that are making their first appearance stateside, ever.

The event, from August 16–18 at Mariaville, N.Y.’s Indian Lookout Country Club, will feature scene stalwarts such as precision rockers Umphrey’s McGee, Sound Tribe Sector 9, sample master Girl Talk, underground heavyweight Bassnectar, King Britt (a.k.a. Silkworm, of Digable Planets fame) performing a DJ set and The Adam Deitch Project featuring inimitable emcee Slick Rick.

Of course, The Disco Biscuits will play a marathon-length set each evening of the festival. The international talent playing the fest includes Hallucinogen: In Dub featuring Simon Posford in a project he calls ‘a dub circus’ and playing for their first time in the States. Israeli band Infected Mushroom brings their brand of mellow trance back to the Bisco stage, Brazilian ex-pat Amon Tobin introduces his stretched and skewed soundscapes and dance-punker The Juan Maclean is set to impress.

On the domestic tip are experimental rockers Benzos, who blew everyone away from the small stage last year; Allston, Mass. based Indobox; world-beat collective The Afromotive; Zilla; EOTO; The Join (featuring Jamie Shields & Darren Shearer of The New Deal and Tom Hamilton & Clay Parnell of Brothers Past); The Grimace Federation, Digital Frontier; Strut; Caveman; Telepath; Psylab; Orchard Lounge and innovative dance music by The Bays.

In addition to three nights and two days of music, Camp Bisco 6 offers car camping that is sure to top last years “hike-in-and-and-camp-on-a-45-degree-angle” bucolic hillside accommodations. RV and family camping areas will also be available. Due to its immense popularity Camp Bisco is reprising its daily summer camp-esque “Color War” activities, which pit music fan against music fan in competitions of skill such as tug-of-war.

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Tickets are available at www.campbisco.net, www.discobiscuits.com and http://biscotix.musictoday.com. Prices are $130 and up and all tickets are for the full duration of the event and include camping.

Music festivals, and their accompanying coolers, tents and muddy feet, have become rites of summer that attract thousands of revelers each year. In addition to checking cares, responsibilities and glass bottles at the door, many music lovers check their social consciousness for a few days and festival grounds are often left littered with trash, have used the amount of energy expended by a small nation in a few days and not really left the world a better place.

Camp Bisco 6, the sixth annual electronic music-driven festival hosted and curated by The Disco Biscuits, aims to change all that with this year’s August 16–18 event. Camp Bisco, being set up this year at Mariaville, N.Y.’s, Indian Lookout Country Club, will be powered by 100% renewable energy, thanks to sponsors Green Mountain Energy Company and Sustainable Waves.

In addition to providing power, these generous companies are creating an opportunity for every festivalgoer to pull his or her energy-weight by offering Green Tickets for purchase. Each ticket provides, on the buyer’s behalf, 250 kWh of green-e certified renewable energy made from sources like wind, hydro, methane and bio-energy. By purchasing a Green Ticket, each individual can help offset an estimated 348 lbs of CO2 created by activities such as driving their car to the show.

In addition to staging a green energy revolution, the Biscuits have teamed again with hunger-relieving national non-profit, Conscious Alliance. At last year’s food and fund drive, over 1,000 pounds of food were collected for local food pantries and national hunger relief efforts.

Conscious Alliance founder Justin Baker said, “The connection between social issues and a music festival is socially conscious musicians that help foster an alliance. They can lead their fans toward social consciousness. They have the ability to provide the link and the opportunity for fans who want to get involved.” His organization has been involved in various music scenes since its inception five years ago and will be on hand at Bisco collecting food and money to buy food for those less fortunate. Like last year, they will provide an original poster commemorating Camp Bisco with the donation of 10 food items (no ramen!) or $10.

In reference to Camp Bisco, and specifically the Biscuits and Zilla, Baker said, “Those musicians care about motivating and inspiring people and they really want to use their positions to raise awareness – not just play their music and turn people on in that way,” he explained. “They deserve respect for that reason because so many musicians out there that don’t do what they could to push consciousness,” he said. “The Biscuits don’t only inspire fans to become involved with their communities, but they inspire other musicians to follow their lead.”

Of the festival’s green energy initiative, Baker said, “I think it’s a trend that all major American
music festivals need to emulate. There are festivals popping up everywhere and the socially conscious musicians realize how much waste these events create. It’s really about walking the walk. You can’t be an environmentalist and then have a career that goes against what you believe,” he said. “This is a good move, especially in the jam band scene, where so many patrons are into recycling and not adding to global warming. I think it’s going to become the standard,” he said hopefully.

Of the trend of festivalgoers leaving their consciousness at the door of large events, he weighed in that it might be affecting the younger revelers the most. He suggested that festival veterans should make sure to set a good example. “The American media embraces hedonism so much that it’s hard for that thinking not to prevail in all music and artistic scenes. That’s why I think it’s so important for musicians that young people emulate to provide the right example. There is a huge population of people going to these events that care more about the scene, if you want to call it that, or hedonistic practices, than anything else. That’s why it’s so important to have non-profits represented there. It’s all about turning that one young person on,” he said. “If that can happen at a concert, all the better that kids can integrate these ideas in an environment they feel comfortable in and find pleasurable,” he said, “versus learning about social consciousness in a classroom.”

Though Conscious Alliance is based in Colorado, Baker is a Connecticut native and founded Hartford’s chapter of Food Not Bombs when he was a high school student. He grew up in an affluent region but cites early trips to New York City and Washington, D.C. as when he first became aware of the issue of the hunger issue.

“Hunger is a medium that everyone can relate to because everyone needs to eat,” he explained. “There is a turn-on moment for everyone that gets involved and I hope we can provide the opportunity for people to volunteer when that happens,” he said.

Food collected at Camp Bisco will benefit the Schenectady Interfaith Ministry Food Pantry. Monetary donations will benefit Conscious Alliance’s ongoing project of taking food to impoverished American Indian reservations in the Western U.S.

The Alliance also opened its own food pantry on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

For more information on the important work of Conscious Alliance visit consciousalliance.org.

For more information on the festival’s green energy initiative, visit begreennow.com/greenticket250 and visit campbisco.net to purchase a Green Ticket to Camp Bisco 6.