The String Cheese Incident will celebrate its varied musical influences this weekend at Campout in the Pines in Eau Claire, WI featuring Del McCoury Band (Friday, August 15th) and STS9 (Saturday, August 16th). The camping event at The Pines Music Park will include four sets of Cheese plus additional late-night performances by The Travelin’ McCourys on Friday and Midwest jamgrass band Feed the Dog doing a Talking Heads tribute set on Saturday [get tickets].
While jamtronica pioneers STS9 and foundational bluegrass group The Del McCoury Band represent opposite ends of the genre spectrum, both of the Campout in the Pines supporting acts underscore an important aspect of the headliner’s unique oeuvre. Ahead of this weekend’s Campout in the Pines festivities in Eau Claire, we decided to consider the hybrid musical identity of The String Cheese Incident via an examination of the band’s studio discography.
The String Cheese Incident was born in the mountains of Colorado in 1993, a product of the grassroots Rocky Mountain bluegrass movement that began making waves with the launch of Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 1974. While bluegrass music’s deep cultural roots kept the style grounded in tradition within its Appalachian motherland, The String Cheese Incident found an eager audience for a bluegrass-plus approach in the consistent flow of music-loving tourists who frequented Colorado’s mountain towns. The band quickly became emblematic of a growing wave of “newgrass” music infused with elements of ’60s and ’70s counterculture, while Colorado became known as progressive bluegrass’ primary hub.
Within a few years of its formation, String Cheese added keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth to the original roster of guitarist Bill Nershi, multi-instrumentalist Michael Kang, bassist Keith Moseley, and drummer Michael Travis to help the group expand beyond a string-centric sound while never fully leaving it behind.
Cheese’s ensuing studio debut, 1997’s Born on the Wrong Planet, firmly planted the band’s feet in bluegrass with opening track “Black Clouds”, “The Remington Ride”, and instrumental “Elvis’ Wild Ride”, but it also takes ambitious leaps into jam band arpeggios on “Lands End”, honky tonk and classic country on “Resume Man” and “Johnny Cash”, Calypso on “Lester Had a Coconut”, and disparate stylistic experiments in talking blues on the album-closing pairing of “Texas” and “Jellyfish”. From the very beginning, The String Cheese Incident defied classification—long before the members got into trance music or rapping.
The String Cheese Incident — “Black Clouds” > “Lands End” — Telluride, CO — 2/24/98
Cheese continued to expand its influences on 1998 studio follow-up ‘Round the Wheel, which leads off with the internationally-tinged “Come as You Are” following the 42-second teaser “Samba DeGreeley”. Bluegrass still permeates the disc with traveling tunes “Road Home” and “On the Road”, while the Hollingsworth-penned “Galactic” calls to mind the New Orleans group of the same name. Album standouts “100 Year Flood” and “‘Round the Wheel” further establish Cheese’s developing identity by bridging all of these elements together into complex, multi-part compositions.
The String Cheese Incident — “100 Year Flood” — Norfolk, VA — 11/7/00
[Video: RGDubby]
A pair of live albums—1997’s A String Cheese Incident and 2000’s Carnival ’99—pull on the threads of all the band’s influences. Covers of bluegrass greats Bill Monroe, Vassar Clements, and Ralph Stanley appear alongside songs by The Meters, Aerosmith, and French violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and Cameroonian bassist Guy Nsangué. On 2001’s Outside Inside, Cheese’s most polished and cohesive album to that point. Earworms like “Joyful Sound”, “Search”, and the title track present easily digestible rock fare for the band’s growing audience, while the nearly 11-minute pinnacle “Rollover” nods to Cheese’s live prowess and quick-picking closer “Up the Canyon” leaves listeners with assurances that they remember where they came from.
If Outside Inside was String Cheese catching up with the modern rock landscape, 2003’s Untying the Not was the band blasting off into its future. Cloaked in brooding psychedelia, the band’s sunny disposition took a decidedly dark turn. While it features Moseley’s reggae singalong “Sirens”, one of the band’s most recognizable and upbeat numbers, previous albums’ strings are replaced on Untying the Not by dissonant echoes, dreamy soundscapes, and far greater emphasis on electronic elements than any other String Cheese Incident album before it. Still, the band never severs bluegrass roots. Though “Valley of the Jig” starts with sampled vocals and a pulsating rush of synths and digitized drums, it’s Kang’s fiddle runs that make it burst with techno euphoria. Just like the convergence of bluegrass, Calypso, and country from Born on the Wrong Planet, the blending of influences on Untying the Not is what makes it great.
“We have some great modalities,” Travis told Relix in 2009, “and the great merging point that we will dig into more are songs like ‘Rivertrance’, ‘Valley of the Jig’, and ‘Bumpin’ Reel’, which are all electronically-oriented, beat-based fiddle tunes. That’s a mark where we can all come together and create music with elements of bluegrass, African, and electronic music.”
The String Cheese Incident — “Valley Of The Jig” — Electric Forest — Rothbury, MI — 7/3/11
Over 20 years after Untying the Not, The String Cheese Incident continues blurring the boundaries between genres. Bass-heavy electronic interludes have become an increasingly common aspect of the band’s live shows. The band’s latest album, 2023’s Lend Me A Hand, doubled as a 30th anniversary celebration and consequently took on a reflective folk tone. Hollingsworth issued his first solo album in nearly a decade, All We Are, earlier this month, while Travis and Hann chase electronic muses in their respective projects Snakes & Stars and League of Sound Disciples.
While The String Cheese Incident continues to unite and expand the worlds of jam, EDM, bluegrass, folk, and more via its role as a host act at large-scale events like Electric Forest and Suwannee Hulaween, the band continues to cater to all aspects of its devoted fanbase with intimate, curated events like Campout in the Pines.
Set to take place at the home of the Blue Ox Music Festival this Friday and Saturday, August 15th and 16th, Campout in the Pines will include two sets of String Cheese each night in the main concert bowl. The Del McCoury Band (Friday) and STS9 (Saturday) will open at 7:00 p.m., while The Travelin’ McCourys and Feed the Dog will keep the party going late into the night with midnight sets on the Woods Stage. Saturday will also include b2b late-night DJ sets by DOKTOR and Silver C. During the day, attendees can enjoy family-friendly activities at the Big Fun Circus and morning yoga and hoop jams. All outside food and beverages are allowed in the campgrounds and concert bowl for an easy-going weekend, and tickets will be capped at 3,500 to maintain an intimate environment.
Whether you found The String Cheese Incident by way of strings or circuitry, this weekend’s intimate Incident at Campout in the Pines has the eclectic vibes you’re looking for. See you out there…
Two-day and single-day passes for Campout in the Pines with The String Cheese Incident, STS9, The Del McCoury Band, and more are on sale here.
View this post on Instagram