I have been working at music festivals since 1997 when I volunteered at High Sierra Music Festival, chopping veggies in the commissary in return for a ticket. Many great DJ's PLAY music festivals but few actually sprouted from the festival scene. Unlike so many who grew up in the clubs, I came of age at outdoor festivals, and had it not been for the good fortune of being booked for Bonnaroo in 2001, I might not have had a career. 

Since that glorious first night in the Arcade on the Farm, I've had the extremely good fortune to play Bonnaroo ten times, Outside Lands at least as many, plus Coachella, High Sierra, Sonic Bloom, Camp Bisco, as well as some now defunct beloved events like Gathering of the Vibes, Vegoose, Power to the Peaceful, BerkFest, and Sea of Dreams.

But none of them have the combination of site, scene, & spirit that Electric Forest enjoy. No site is as well thought out & beautified, no audience as energetic & wonderful. As I embark on my 11th trip to Rothbury Michigan for Electric Forest 2023, I am beyond proud to release some of my favorite live sets from throughout the years.

In those 11 years, I have probably played more than 50 times, and probably at least 100 hours. Most of them in the Silent Disco, but I also played in a Wagon Wheel, a Grand Artique, a Forest Stage and even inside of Peter Hudson's incredible Zoetrope 'Monkeys' installation. Many of the sets have been recorded and this week, to get you ready for the FOOOOOREST, I am releasing 6 of my favorites to get you in the mood. They are all on this one playlist:
• MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.29.15 The Grand Artique - Organic Beats Set
• MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.30.19 The Makeout Session
• MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.27.15 Reggae Breaks Set
• MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.28.14 Beasties, Beatles & Beck
• MoPo Live @ Electric Forest Fest 6.24.17 - Psyche Rock Set
• MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.26.16 - Ladies Night
• MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.26.15 Banger Set

Please enjoy & share and be sure to tag me @MoPo and Follow @MoPoRobbie on twitter where I typically focus more on activism in support of Ukraine.

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest

Although I have had the extreme good fortune to play Electric Forest in every year of its existence, I have rarely played anywhere but Silent Disco. In 2015 I got an invite to come over to the next stage over, Ian Xavier's gorgeous frontier fort of a stage experience known as THE GRAND ARTIQUE. Since an invite to play on a live stage at Forest wasn't something I take for granted I spent weeks devising the perfect set to fit the rustic, farmhouse decor and technobilly vibe of the staff.

With blues, bluegrass, rock & country rolled up into breaks, disco & midtempo, I think you will find this set of Organic Beats to be a tasty treat,

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.29.15 The Grand Artique - Organic Set A

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.29.15 The Grand Artique - Organic Beats Set

Back when we were essentially introducing silent disco to America in the mid 'naughties' the questions arose of 'HOW' and 'WHAT TO PLAY'. Our first Silent Disco tour was in 2008 but the first real residency was at LA's Central Social Aid & Pleasure Club in Santa Monica. The folks there were really supportive and we collaborated on a lot of crazy VS ideas. That is where the first Daft Punk vs Radiohead, and LCD vs Talking Heads nights dropped. We also did 70's vs 80's, 80's vs 90's and even 20's (ElectroSwing) vs 80's. 

But my favorite idea from this era was THE KILLER BEES. Basically an excuse to play three of my favorite 'whiteboy' acts in one DJ set, The Beasties, Beatles & Beck set dropped at the Central in 2012. In 2014 I brought it to Forest and had ZERO clue if anyone would respond. They loved it. And so should you. Seriously, if you don;t like the Beasties, Beatles & Beck, it is YOU, Sir that is WRONG. :-)

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest June 28, 2014 (Beasties-Beatles-Beck)

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest June 28, 2014 Beasties, Beatles & Beck

Around 2017 I think I had gotten a bit salty about the festival scene. If you may recall, this was the hype of dubstep hype, Trap was coming in hot, and the club scene seemed maximal, loud, and getting dumber by the minute. I was beginning to feel at Forest that year that I was hearing every DJ play the same 10 tracks and it was starting to make my ears bleed and my brain sweat. I was in deep need of a change of pace and I was guessing the Forest Family might be as well.

So I decided to close out my Forest with a Sunday set of softer sounds. I entitled it THE ANTIDOTE andI put the set together around soul, R&B, and chill disco and darkwave vibes. I tested it for the first time during Euphoria Fest in Austin that April and encouraged by the reception, worked on refining it for Rothbury. On July 1, 2017 I played it for the first time at Forest and it was a huge hit. I cant tell you how many people came over to thank me for sparing their ears and giving them something to dance to WITH someone.

But the 2017 version was still musically not as fluid & refined as I felt the set should be. I worked on the Antidote for a few more years before it morphed into the form you hear on this live mix. Again, the core is soul & R&B flowing into disco and even some house later on. It's like an intimate cuddle after a hard ride in the sack.

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.30.19 The Makeout Session - Antidote A

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.30.19 - The Antidote

I recall one of my first club gigs in San Francisco. I was playing some organic drumming track, I think it was Olatunji's 'Jingo' into Santana's, into Fatboy Slim's and some lady came up to the booth, coked her head and smiled and said 'ya known you just can't PLAY this stuff in a CLUB' right? 

And she was right. I've always been a bit too esoteric & weird for club sets. My heroes like Mr Scruff & Cut Chemist & Nightmares on Wax get away with it because they release their own music (and they're geniuses) but I was never going to pul la whole club along with my own taste. Furthermore, I was also deeply ensconsed in Burning Man projects and having to follow the likes of The Mutaytor & Bassnectar on main stages there simply necessitated a morw aggressive approach. 

So I held my nose and came up with a 'peak hour banger set' to allow me to at least pretend I was a club DJ for an hour, when a promoter made the mistake of putting me on at 1am. As it turned out, I kind if liked the energy, and certainly the cheap, filthy, feedback I was getting, so I took to it a bit, like some Jedi falling hard for the Dark Side of the Force. 

This is a pretty representative SITH set from that era. Heavy on breaks & ghettofunk. A lot of bass but no dubstep. Mainly the tail end of the 'dusty beats' era on the West Coast. May the evil set you free.

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.26.15 PeakhourBanger Set - A

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.26.15 Sith Set

Playing any silent disco is a challenge. One has to both subvert their ego and share energy with another person on stage, but also have the self confidence to continue 'doing your thing' even when most of said audience is listening to your 'competition'. And for me, having played literally HUNDREDS, irt might have gotten maybe TOO EASY in some ways. Frankly I know 100+ tracks that will always WIN the stage. But that's ridiculous because A: It's NOT a competition, and B: Getting over isn't the point C: If the audience is REALLY listening, REALLY immersed, why would you waste that attention on something trite and obvious?

So I was always trying to come up with little challenges for myself. This set is the result of that. If I recall correctly my set followed a run of female DJs who were absolutely terrific musicians. One after another were just wonderfully skilled, creative, and energetic. And then here comes this 42-year old white dude... what is said GenXer to do? Well I decided to keep 'ladies night' going as little longer and after an intro to mix in I tried to play only songs with female vocals (or the Bee Gees) for the whole set. I didn't get whole way but I think it's a fair attempt. It's also a REALLY fun set to dance to. Enjoy.

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.26.16 - Ladies Night

2015 was a time I was deeply immersed in breakbeat. Although the style had mostly fallen out of the mainstream in favor of  the burgeoning dubstep culture, I just couldn't get enough of the breaks. Specifically how breaks were such an excellent platform for incorporating other more traditional forms of music. In this playlist you'll see the breaks as a platform for Psyche Rock, Blues & Bluegrass, and Hip Hop. On this one, the first half shows off breaks & ghettofunk incorporating reggae & ragga vibes. This was an important subgenre of the UK Breakbeat scene, specifically acts like The Freestylers, The Stanton Warriors and Deekline, who often used ragga as a crossover into drum & bass. 

The second half gets into more straight-up breaks of the era which makes sense, since this was a LIVE set. After an hour, you DO have to change things up a bit if you want to keep a dancefloor. And in the unforgiving crucible of Silent Disco, seeing all those folks change to the other DJ's color can be quite a motivation.

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.27.15 Reggae Breaks Set A

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest 6.27.15 Reggae Breaks Set

Bassnectar once called me 'The Hippy Solution' & this really made sense since I'd been THAT hippy, solving THAT music, for years. You probably have heard that I came out of the live music scene, and not the clubs. So while I didn't even start actively listening to hip hop until I was DJing it every Friday night in the early 2000's, nor exploring electronic music until I had to find a way to rev up my sets, I can safely say that rock music is NOT one of my blindspots. I have been playing rock tracks & remixes of rock tracks from the very beginning in Club Persephone in Santorini in 1995. Much has changed since then but not my taste for album oriented rock (AOR) and rare grooves. This set is reflective of a vibe I used to love to bring to the festivals, most notably Bonnaroo. But this set is more in keeping with one I developed for sunrise at the beloved-lost Gathering of the Vibes event where I had the honor to spin for many years. In 2017 I brought the set to Forest in the hope that the big String Cheese contingent would enjoy the gesture. Instead it was the hardcore rave kids that really took to it, seeing this as a change of pace and a middle ground between their parent's music & their own. Mission accomplished... that.

There's a bit for everyone and a LOT for me. Besides some more obvious remix candidates like the Stones, the Dead, and Santana, I also have a few choice cuts from folks like Siouxie, the Sex Pistols, Velvet Underground, JJ Cale, and even the Garcia Band. It's a hippy's dream, which I should know because I was THAT Hippy and had THAT Dream many times.

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest Fest 6.24.17 - Psyche Rock Set A

MoPo Live @ Electric Forest Fest 6.24.17 - Psyche Rock Set

EMAIL:   moporobbie AT gmail DOT com

MoPo (aka Motion Potion aka Robbie Kowal) is one of America's most versatile, experienced and flat-out joyous party rockers. His decade long mission is to 'put the party back into the party', and to connect the casual music fan with the hard core dance music mavens and prove that music is more than just beats. Most commonly a bootleg breakbeat pusher, MoPo is kown for a rare ability to play exactly the right music for the moment and an expertise with a wide variety of genres that he seamlessly melds into a coherent blend. Since breaking out as a rare groove Dj in the 90's he has spent the 21st Century using funky breakbeat, trip hop and tech house as a backdrop for his genre-bending experiments. From a near religious love of funk and hip hop, to a lifetime study of rock and roll to a massive aptitude for latin, reggae and other outernational formats, MoPo incorporates bits and pieces of music culture into electronic edits that slam the dancefloor. As a backdrop, he creates, edits or chooses only the biggest baddest breaks, hooks and drops to create a sound that truly slams. To the dancer, MoPo is a breath of fresh air, often transforming a room into collective song or crowd chant that connect the audience to the DJ. These abilities have seen him preceding, following or tagging with a who’s who of breakbeat heroes like Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Icey, Cut Chemist, Grandmaster Flash, James Lavelle, Bassnectar, Evil 9, DJ Vadim, Tipper, Freq Nasty, Kraak & Smaak, Aquasky, the Freestylers, Future Funk Squad, Fort Knox 5, A.Skillz, Featurecast, and All Good Funk Alliance.