The Disco Biscuits’ Marc Brownstein and Aron Magner Plot Six Star-Studded Side Project Shows
Photo Credit: Tara Gracer
In the next few weeks, Disco Biscuits fans will be treated to a wealth of side projects and one-off collaborations. As if the pioneering livetronica ensemble’s impending 30th-anniversary tour weren’t enough cause for excitement, bassist Marc Brownstein and keyboardist Aron Magner have slated a total of six special spin-off sets, largely centered in The Crescent City around the two-weekend, city-wide cultural blow out of New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
Brownstein and Magner will reunite first on April 24 for the previously announced “Foie Gras & CrumpUntz” performance at NOLA’s Joy Theater, where they’ll be joined by three surprise special guests. On Saturday, April 26, the bandmates will connect once again at The Rabbit Hole for another star-powered DJ Logic & Friends improvisatory get-down, appearing alongside the genre-bending turntablist, guitarist Nick Cassarino of The Nth Power and The String Cheese Incident’s drummer Jason Hann.
On Friday, April 25, Brownstein and Hann will move over to decks of their own for a floor-filling B2B DJ set as their alter egos DJ Brownie and League of Sound Disciples at Arora. On May 9, Brownstein will head up to Syracuse, N.Y.’s Westcott Theater to celebrate the grand opening of Fat Boy Pizza with a special supergroup dubbed The Pizza Connection, assembled with help from longtime Disco Biscuits fan and rising jam guitarist Jared Cowen of Big Shrimp.
“So last week when I heard [Cowen]’s at the wescott I said “hey you want to throw a band together to play with the DJ Brownie show?” He said hell yeah dude,” Brownie wrote in an announcement post. “I had one request. Get Mike Gantzer from Aqueous. I want to play with that dude. Always have. So he says, I can probably get Ben Atkind to play drums and I said, well shit that sounds like a pretty heady pop up band. He recommended his keyboard player Daniel Cohen. Everyone was available and into it. Boom we have a line up.”
Magner has two other supergroup sets slated for the second weekend of Jazz Fest, where he’ll join some of the scene’s biggest names in tribute performances. On May 1, the keyboardist will take part in A Dream We Dreamed: A New Orleans Tribute to Phil Lesh, joining forces with George Porter Jr., Duane Betts, Eric Krasno, Al Schnier and many more at the Joy Theater. He’ll wrap up his weeks of performance two days later with The Abbey Roads, a Beatles cover quartet with Nikki Glaspie, Reed Mathis and Jason Fraticelli at Cafe Instanbul.
Learn more about Brownstein and Magner’s shows through their social channels, and find tickets for The Disco Biscuits’ 30th anniversary tour at discobiscuits.com/shows.
