If it was up to BMorg, Burning Man would have no music and would be 100% transformational blowjob workshops. Fortunately we have about 1000 stages, 10,000+ DJs, and RockStar Librarian to help us ignore their foolish ideals.
This year, Rockstar Librarian wants to make the world a better place with music. Support her – if you like music at Burning Man, you will appreciate her guide which comes from a team of volunteers every year. Thank you so much to Rockstar Librarian and her team, and thank you from the bottom of our hearts to all the DJs, art cars, and sound stages that have ever played at Burning Man – it’s you who makes the party.
If you’re going to support any art project this year, support the music.
Check out our collection of mixes from previous Burning Mans at our Music page.
Here’s Our Chance to Leave A Legacy
In order for an angel investor to fund the 2018 RSL Music Guide, we need to raise $11,000 for Josie’s Well/Water Access Now, a non-profit to build a safe water well in Ghana.
We have until August 15th to raise the funds and still get the Music Guide produced and to the playa.
So let’s work together to create the music guide, create lasting change in Ghana, and leave a legacy.
I’ve also streamlined my RSL contacts database so everyone gets the chance to get the Music Guide and notices.
The Why: The Story
I didn’t realize how powerful leaving a legacy was until I attended AfrikaBurn in 2017.
It was in the wee hours of the morning sunrise, sitting under the DMV’s red beduin tent while sipping South African boxes wine, that I engaged in philosophical conversations with AfrikaBurn founders Paul Fletcher, Paul Jorgensen and Robert Weinek.
In those wee hours we discussed, “What comes next, from Leave No Trace?”
These beautiful, gritty influencers had an intention: Leave a Legacy.
For AfrikaBurn it looked like this: save plywood from dismantled camps and build outbuildings for a local school; leftover non-perishable food to stock an orphanage’s pantry. “We have so much,” they all agreed.
Then earlier this summer I met an eleven year old girl named Josie, from Seattle, Washington area, who at age nine, raised the money to build her first well in Ghana.
She created her own non-profit, Josie’s Well, in partnership with the local non-profit Water Access Now, and now at age eleven, Josie has realized her vision threefold!
I recently shared both stories with a Burner friend of mine and Music Guide supporter. And on the spot he proposed a challenge:
If we rally the Burner community to raise $11,000 to build a well in Ghana, he’d fund the entire 2018 RSL Music Guide.
If Josie can do it, WE can do this!
The HOW:
Your simple way of participating is key to making this happen.
* Make a tax deductible donation to Burn for Water: Leave a Legacy GoFundMe page
* Forward this email to tribes of Burner friends, campmates, and community
* If you have a following, please send this email to your email list
* Share the Burn for Water: Leave a Legacy GoFundMe Page on your social media
Let’s leave a legacy together!
Big Dusty Hugs,
Kate Houston,
the Rock Star Librarian Share this message on your social media & forward in email:
PS. I have answers to your questions. So ask them!
Josie’s Well and Water Access Now are volunteer run and committed to transparency, passing donations directly onto building wells in Ghana.
Water Access Now has a sustainability plan in place so that wells don’t just get built and left in nonfunctional disrepair, and it includes community & civic investment & involvement.Your tax deductible donation goes directly to the charity.
Thanks to Peter Ruprecht of Ruprecht Studios for putting together another amazing stop-motion animation. Music by The Scumfrog. Peter created this from more than 22,000 still photographs that he took this year. He says:
“I left it full length so people can use it as a set they listen to by Scumfrog and have visual eye candy behind it”
Enjoy…
Apparently the YouTube one works better on mobile:
[Update 10/25/15 11:43pm]
This video has got a lot of Likes and Shares on Facebook, but has drawn a small amount of criticism here and there. Some Burnier-Than-Thous complained that the people in it are too good looking and not dusty enough. I mean, really? That’s next on the Ban list, hot people? Well, according to burningman.com for the last few years they have been actively trying to get fewer celebrities to attend. That hasn’t really worked out very well, given The Simpsons, Katy Perry, Oprah and Dr Phil. So who could they want to ban next…?
The idea that the way to make Burning Man better is to promote uglier Burners sounds ludicrous to me. But some seem to feel very earnest about it.
Anyway, here is a response from the artist:
…its sad to see yet another comment disparaging the “art” being created about experiences on the playa…i believe i have an opinion about this piece that merits attention..since this is the video I created. … i am going to use that liberty and write …well until i feel i have written enough of a response to yet ANOTHER unfounded statement by righteous people…
Lets get a few things cleared up here…as far as the video goes…THERE IS FAR MORE TIME TO EVERYTHING OTHER THAN PEOPLE POSING THAN ANYTHING ELSE….but now that you have attacked me by attacking what i have made i feel inclined to respond…AS a photographer that is known for taking photos at Burning Man, my work and my motives have been challenged and scrutinized many times over the years. Any negativity I have received over the years was continually due to the “type of woman or man” I would display in my photographs.
I have been accused of only photographing beautiful people. That all had to come to an end as I started to make my “Playa Gift Photo Shoots” for anyone to come and be photographed more publicly known.
I have gone out of my way to “give back” and give ANYONE the ability to come and be photographed under studio lights on the playa in the hopes that they take home a treasured memory that captures them in a nicer light than their cell phones will allow.
I have also NEVER said no to anyone who has asked for a photo and asked for my email other than RUDE people.
Beautiful girls or boys are NOT the problem. Uneducated, uninspired, lazy, entitled, conformist and mean people are the problem. To tell anyone to mind their behavior at burning man because it might be misconstrued since they are pretty is LUDICROUS. The only thing we have to curb are MEAN, shallow, entitled attitudes but some times worse…RIGHTEOUS ATTITUDES.
And the BEST thing we can do is inspire those people to become better people. Maybe teach one of these “wallflowers” YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT that they can create art, that it is liberating to be inspired. I feel much more sorry for the “wallflower” that doesn’t “Get” burning man than the “average looking” person that gets it and is sharing in the playa magic.
Human Beauty has been idolized since the DAWN of man. Were the greeks and romans wrong to sculpt the way they did. Should Michael angelo have made the david look fat? Should the venus demilo be regarded as an affront on our Burning Man Culture because its proportioned in an aesthetically pleasing manner? Simply preposterous.
I think everyone should stop worrying SOOOO MUCH about the people around them and focus on their own shortcomings and work on those.
WE ALL HAVE them.
The righteous judgment should be sidelined and if critique is to be made, make it specifically on the issue, NOT on the generalizations that lump people into groups like “the beautiful people” or the “ugly people”
Make the groups something that can be representative of your interactions with them. The nice people, the inclusive people, the inquisitive people, the shallow people, the mean people, the entitled people.
AND THEN DO YOUR BEST TO HELP THOSE LATTER TRY AND GET IT!
Oh yeah one other thing pretty much everyone I photographed close up. Is a personal friend. And I know and see them off of the playa. So you are right it’s not representative of the playa. It’s MY experience on the playa with my real friends. And honestly you DONT know them to judge them. And quite frankly you shouldn’t judge at all. But you have already passed judgement of this piece as having to conform into some form of a documentary. For you to be ok with it this video HAS to include some arbitrary group of strangers Iso that includes some arbitrary 98% For you to deem it worthy of existing. Guess what. It’s not a documentary. It never was. It was simply my burn experience through my camera. No one asked you to like it And as a matter of fact you are welcome to hate it. Hate it because it sucks. Hate it because the photos are terrible. Hate it because you hate my point of view. But please spare me the tired argument that it’s not authentic or real because it doesn’t include he people YOU want to see in it and only your concept is authentic. And the saddest thing of all is if all you saw are hot girls.
You missed the best parts of the video. Which are the sunsets. For your own piece of mind. Here is what I wrote about those and what they mean to me:
I am often asked what my favorite part of burning man is. I try and explain to people, that, while it is an amazing party, my favorite times have been during the blessings the universe has sent me while completely ALONE on the playa. There have been several moments now over the years when i have felt a bolt of electricity curse through my body, knock the wind out of me, and reduce me to my knees shuddering pools of tears. Bringing me to the realization that i am in the presence of UNIVERSAL LOVE, GOD, ENERGY, HUMANITY, NOTHING, EVERYTHING, you take your pick, BUT, there is something out there definitely palpable and communicating with us. I am a photographer and every year i find myself in a situation where i look at what is happening in front of me and via nature, not our LEDs or music or sounds or parties or friends, but nature’s simple beauty knocking me over and bringing me to tears. While i sat looking at the sky, it was all i could do but lift my camera through the tears i shed for the beauty that was presented to me and snap a few shots. I looked around during this sunset expecting to see ALL of burning manas professionals out there with tripods getting FAR better representations of GOD painting the skies for us, and once again i found my self COMPLETELY ALONE. OFF of the 10 o’clock side at the trash fence. This was on wednesday at the end of the dust storms, and it was me and one jester looking like completely naked german woman maybe of 60 years. She was jumping up and down in circles thanking the heavens laughing hysterically and drawing a circle in the ground which she sat in and kissed the playa. While she looked completely out of her mind, she looked at me ran up and wiped the tears of of my face, so i realized that there was really no difference between laughter and crying. Both opposite ends of the spectrum on a circle touching each other. We both sat there in complete silence in her circle and i kissed the playa with her, reminded that the universe provides FAR more than we can create by ourselves. For there is no BY OUR SELVES. we are within the universe and the universe is with us. Neither exists without the other. This photo is dedicated the the stange german woman who helped me raise my camera and shoot some of my favorite photos of the burn. Here are two…ill post more as i get to them and give them the love and attention they deserve Thank you wherever and whoever you are!
The organizers behind Burning Man deny any affiliations of being a “music festival,” but, for all intents and purposes, this is the wildest music festival in the world.
The denial of their identity as a music festival lets Burning Man rely heavily on crowdsourcing the 24-hour, over-the-top productions, visuals, DJ booths, sound equipment, and world-class music performances to ticket holders…
Attendees being responsible for their own entertainment is exactly what separates Burning Man from any other music festival. You bought the ticket, and have to do all the work.
Gris is the co-founder, lineup curator, and overall production director for more than 13 years with the sound camp known as Opulent Temple.
CREDIT: Photo by IRDeep
Opulent’s major objective is twofold: to provide a platform for spiritual dance expression and for DJs to explore the more artistic (and perhaps unacknowledged at other commercial festivals) side of their craft…
This year, Opulent Temple took a step away from their typical stage build for their popular Wednesday night “White Party.” Instead, they provided attendees a truly magical alternative that captured the true essence of Burning Man by forming a commutative stage consisting of multiple art cars from other camps. The Opulent team set up their DJ stand on top of an art car, outfitted with large speakers, to drive deeper into the open center area of Burning Man. Various cars from other camps outfitted with large speakers met them at a specific location and linked up wirelessly through RF technology to form a makeshift half circle dance floor. While each car was synced directly to the Opulent DJ performance, additional art cars unaffiliated with the camp would drive in and the Opulent workers would link them up to join the party as well.
What was the sound camp scene like when you arrived at your very first Burning Man? Back in 2001, there were certainly less of them and most every scale of production was downsized compared to current standards of Burning Man sound camps, especially the scale of sound systems. I say that mostly because camps such as “Lush” in 2004 and “Sol System” that same year (fondly known as Sol Henge) were even by today’s sound camp’s standards massive productions, but those were definitely outliers and seemingly burned both crews out because neither ever came back after that year.
Is it true that you fought for the rights of sound camps at Burning Man? Yes, I organized a bunch of camps in 2008 including representatives from camps like El Circo, the Deep End, Green Gorilla, and others to approach the Burning Man organizers to request some changes and support. The premise was basically that collectively we’ve felt like we give a lot to the event. Which, of course, is fine; it’s why we started creating such camps in the first place. But we hoped we might get more support and resources from the organizers to do what we do since it is our perception the role of the Large Scale Sound & Art Camps had evolved to be an integral part of a large number of attendees experience and reason for coming. What we asked for and what we got for our efforts were different. Spoiler alert: not much!
Did artists like Tiesto find it unique having to purchase their own ticket? Yes. We are a volunteer and fundraising camp. All the equipment, food, shelter, and electricity comes out of our own pockets, while we all have day jobs outside of Burning Man. He provided a donation to our camp debt after he played for us in 2005, he said, “It’s the only time I’ve paid someone to play for them.”
What did Opulent Temple do to set the standard for today’s music scene at Burning Man? What we did to raise the bar was really just building on the precedence of the great camps that came before us but taking it to a higher level. We make our own art and the production pieces that make up our camp, and we build new stuff every year to add to our recognizable look. We were the first to have a DJ-operated flame-throwing booth, and the first to consistently bring out an eclectic range of so-called ‘big-name’ DJs, and we did it all year round through volunteers building the camp and making the art.
CREDIT: Photo by IRDeep
What’s the future of the music community of Burning Man? Will the music be too much and eventually take away from the art as it slowly becomes the main attraction? I think people’s association and experience of Burning Man — unless something drastically changes — is always one of art and music. For now, it is by far primarily dance music. Though it sounds ironic to say, in one light you could say the organization has gone to great lengths to do nothing to support music at Burning Man beyond allowing it to exist. They do a lot to nurture the art scene, so I don’t see it becoming too much.
