OPEN-AIR FESTIVAL
Music by : Paul Nickerson & friends. Date : July 31st - August 2nd 2026. Location : Locust Grove. 318 CR 22. Oak Hill, NY
Venture roughly 135 miles north of Manhattan this July 31st and you’ll start to see space time recede into a more humane fantasy; urban sprawl’s famished tendrils shorten to an eventual welcomed whisp, botanical life’s summer shades enriched by divine angles of incidence and reflection. Along this journey you may come across Locust Grove, a haven within the Kaatskill hamlet of Oak Hill. While the lush property was once a creamery, today its home to a community of like-minded souls dedicated to the eternal arts of sound and movement: Dope Jams.
Running now on its 11th year, Dope Jams Open Air Festival has become an assured fixture for all types of music freaks, open-hearted bucolic scavengers, and seekers of the light. No bullshit, no empty gesturing, no unwarranted bravado. Over two days and three nights of music from a menagerie of misfits. A limited supply of on-site camping tickets will be available for purchase—please help keep our property clean for the enjoyment of others and our Earth. Food, spirits, beer, wine and non-alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase (no outside food unless camping).
A strangely enticing community of outcasts, rogue adventurers and veteran music obsessors make their home in this bizarre yet beautiful amalgamation.
From the majestic foothills of the Catskill Mountains to the polluted canals of Brooklyn, Dope Jams Kaatskills is the roving record emporium turned communal event born out of the ashes of the storied Dope Jams shop in Bed-Stuy. From monthly gatherings at Public Records to the annual summer camp in Oak Hill, the mission is simply to BE FREE!
“Dope Jams know how to throw a sweaty, no-frills, no-bullshit fun-as-fuck dance party. I wound up at one late last year already at a full lather, the room dark save for washes of flickering lights. A half-dozen friends and I entered and immediately started to move, immersed in the deepest waters of deep house. For hours, the dj’s whiplashed their heads from the vantage of the store’s in-house DJ booth, gauging the crowd and grinning maniacally as they levitated the party at will. And we had to keep moving, well into the witching hours of the night.
By day, the magick items the shop stocked seem downright cheesy: Nag Champa incense that infused your clothes, skulls that held candles, Crowley books. But at this hour, these items become decidedly more sinister, this dance now turning into a ritual. It’s a heavy realization to have. And right around 3 am, right when our energies began to lag and the door out onto the street beckoned, they built up the room’s intensity to a pitch before breaking into an old-school hip-hop set with The Jungle Brothers and De La Soul. It was refreshing after so much mysterious, amazing music. But they then went straight to the pleasure zones: “Crazy in Love,” “Promiscuous,” “Rump Shaker,” “Jingling Baby.” It was a glorious payoff, a serotonin rush to beleaguered dancers, and one of the finest nights out in the city.”
Andy Beta, MTV
FOREST FINDS by Paul Nickerson for Love Injection
A new monthly column from Dope Jams' Paul Nickerson. Tune in as he reports on the goods from the woods direct from his Wonka-esque parkland 'Locust Grove' in the Catskill Mountains - home to a nightclub, THE CREAMERY; a record shop, DOPE JAMS; a campground, CAMP GALLAGHER; and his 40,000 plus record collection.
From the confines of the temperature controlled West Oak Hill headquarters we have been adding a large selection of used 12”s and LP’s to our Discogs shop. Classic Rock to Classic House!
“Few storekeepers have been as passionate about the music that they sell — or about New York house of the 1990s in general — as the cantankerous team that presided over Dope Jams. With an unparalleled selection both new and classic and an off-the-beaten path location, the store became a cult destination for serious house and techno collectors, who wore a hazing from its holier-than-thou employees as a badge of pride. Whether you loved them or hated them, there was no one like Dope Jams.”
“Dope Jams isn’t merely a clubhouse for dance music pranksters; it’s the embodiment of a critique, though one that falls outside the realm of the strictly intellectual. It’s the last reserve of dopeness in a world they see as increasingly bereft of it….but they must know their model isn’t for everyone, that, like the ultra-orthodox Jews living a few blocks up from the shop, they ultimately have to coexist with an outside world operating under very different rules, for better or worse.”
“It was only when we started perusing the wall-mounted racks of new releases that we realized we were dealing with something we’d never encountered before: a store unafraid to speak the truth. Not objective, inarguable truth; but its own truth, righteous and largely convincing.”
“ In a world of too-safe critics and techno-back-patting, they’re unafraid to speak their minds but at heart are just a couple of characters with an outspoken true love for music.”
As the story goes, Salsoul boss Ken Cayre handed over the multi-track tapes of Loleatta Holloway’s ‘Hit and Run’ to Walter Gibbons in 1976, effectively liberating the burgeoning edit art form from its previous cut & paste methodology. Gibbons, a Brooklyn-born DJ who had seen the light emanated forth from the likes of Grasso, Burgess, Levan, Scott, and Siano, had became a lethal beat mixer, possessing, according to Francois Kevorkian, an “uncanny sense of mixing that was so accurate it was unbelievable.” Following early edit work with Salsoul releases ‘Nice ’N’ Naasty’ and ‘Salsoul 2001’, Gibbons had established himself as a meticulous artist, able to completely rework existing tracks in a new extended amalgam of rhythm and sound. Cayre’s multi-tracks conferred the ability to thoroughly deconstruct each of the songs elements, as Gibbons transformed Holloway’s lead-off cut from Loleatta into an 11 minute opus which fellow tape pioneer Tom Moulton would distinguish as being “so different from the original that it must be classified as a new record.” The resulting 12” would go on to sell 300,000 copies; DJ’s and the dance floor would now dictate the industry and art as never before.
If Gibbons’ historic mix so radically altered Holloway’s original in banishing the strings and brass, Joaquin Joe Claussell’s vision for ‘Hit and Run’ sets a new standard on an equally unimagined horizon line. The prior lead guitar is now exchanged for a clean, chopped chucking, and Halloway’s impassioned vocals are given frequent, spacious vistas for added prominence. The horns presage a re-focus on shifting rhythmic emphasis, and by the time the aforementioned familiar fuzz guitars are welcomed back into the fold, the coalescing orchestra has been sustained and revitalized in a complete surrender to time and pulse. As Holloway’s vocals are eventually removed from direct semantics and pulled into other modes of expression, the track’s foundation is given a final rinse and farewell, and were left with the proceeding disembodied aftermath evaporating in delay. This is an iteration every bit inspired and fresh as Gibbons’ landmark, a showcase of two genre-defining artists whose singular inspiration is shaped by the contrasting exchange of the intimate and the public, the communal potential of the dance floor and the soul in the booth making it move.
Pressed on orange/black smoldering vinyl, with a svelte hype sticker.