Late in the afternoon on Easter Sunday, black curtains hung in the windows of the downtown Burlington coffee shop Muddy Waters. Save for the metronomic rattle and boom of a thumping sound system, there was scant evidence of the happenings on the other side of the veil.
Inside, the café’s usual low-lit, Earthship-esque interior had been converted into a tabula rasa with room enough for pockets of foot stompers and fist bumpers clad in threadbare flannels and JNCO derivatives to let loose. Complete with radioactive-looking plumes of neon-green light rising from the dance floor like holographic stalagmites, the Main Street café had transformed into an otherworldly realm whose tectonic plates shifted in concert with the build-ups and beat drops. The steady pulse of four-on-the-floor beats emanated as if from the underground, a proverbial dinner bell to Queen City ravers hungry for the housemade dance-punk delights of Burlington DJ duo Roost.World.
Holding court over the scene was its architect, Zaq Schuster, 31. As they’ve done around Vermont for the better part of a decade, that afternoon the Roost.World cofounder had conjured a club-kid utopia of their own making and, in a way, in their own irreverent image. The April 20 set ran for four hours and 20 minutes, and admission was, yep, $4.20.
Schuster produced the show under the banner of their de facto production company, Burlington Electronic Department, which in recent years has become a cornerstone of the city’s electronic dance music scene. Schuster’s been producing monthly BED events since 2022, bringing bigger acts to the Green Mountain State, such as Kim Ann Foxman, Russell E.L. Butler and Martyn Bootyspoon at the Light Club Lamp Shop, Foam Brewers and Muddy Waters, respectively. This Saturday, May 10, BED celebrates its third anniversary with a party at the Wallflower Collective in Burlington.
Drawing inspiration from the underground DIY scene and the mesmeric quality of camp festivals, Schuster has refined their vision for dance party elation with every iteration. First was a party-planning operation called P.O.R.C.H. — “People of Real Circumstance Helping” — whose shows mostly took place off the grid.
In those days, the now-defunct basement venue the Lip served double duty for Schuster’s musical endeavors, functioning as a practice space and occasional host of P.O.R.C.H. events. In December 2019, Schuster’s DJ duo, performing as Roost, held its EP release party there, a free show featuring local acts Princess Nostalgia and Lily Seabird.
Fast-forward to 2022, and Schuster had outgrown basement parties. That May, Schuster threw the inaugural BED show at Radio Bean. The lineup included fellow locals Quiz Kid, Mole and DJ Tom, in addition to Schuster and Roost.World bandmate Mike Harris deejaying as Barra’s Rub Massage and Gove the Florist, respectively — oddball homages to the names of old Burlington businesses.
While most of those acts have since left for New York City, Schuster, a New York State native, has held firm to their Vermont spiritual roots. The culmination of their investment in the local scene was Groundhog Fest earlier this year, BED’s first-ever citywide, weekend-long festival. The event signaled that Schuster’s DIY vision has flourished from a seedling of inspiration into a full-grown giving tree.
By day, Schuster works with kids as a behavioral counselor; before that, they were a barista at Muddy Waters. Schuster’s also a gearhead who’s especially passionate about their revered sound system, which propels BED parties.
More than half of that sound system was scavenged from the Lip, with additional parts sourced from an old system at the Higher Ground nightclub in South Burlington. Composed of two massive stacks featuring vintage JBL speakers, all of which required extensive — and expensive — repairs, the BED sound system has cost Schuster thousands of dollars to build and restore. But, like BED itself, it’s a passion project they say will continue to evolve.
“I’m inspired by other scenes and other people doing it,” Schuster told Seven Days. “It usually involves someone who’s taking the initiative and kind of taking the hit almost to make it happen.”
Looming large at six foot one, with Frankenstein Jr. shoulders and a mop of black hair, Schuster is that someone in Burlington. Their voice emanates a quirkiness that’s downright enigmatic, percolating slow and low as they speak. On the mic, that resonant timbre turns dramatic: Atop disco-tinged house music, they evoke a macabre whimsicality à la Bobby Pickett’s “Monster Mash.”
It’s a persona that clashes “gleefully with their focused, high-energy music,” Jordan Adams wrote in his 2021 Seven Days review of Roost.World’s EP Cheapbabyy27. The EP is a good introduction to the duo’s blend of beats and hooks. For techno neophytes, the track “Rollerblading” is reminiscent of Lambchop’s “The Hustle Unlimited” — just swap the string arrangement for a melodious sequence of edging guitars and bouncy synths.
With roots in the footloose jam band landscape, Roost.World’s funk-punk flavor of techno reveals an ever-changing amalgam of Schuster and Harris’ creative energy. The duo’s been making music together since meeting at Johnson State College (now Vermont State University) in 2011, and while their project’s permutations have been many, Harris dates Roost.World’s inception to 2018. Having since ditched the guitars for synths and drum machines, the duo now manipulates electrical currents into tidal waves of sound, creating a propulsive and immersive experience where the thrill of escape morphs into the relief of sanctuary.
“I’ve never been good at describing our ‘sound,'” Harris told Seven Days. “The dance-punk/indie-dance label gets thrown around a lot, but the vast history of house and techno really informs what we do.”
Harking back to the underground roots of those genres, BED’s spate of monthly shows has enriched Burlington’s dance party scene in the span of a few years. Schuster’s fondness for irreverence, evidenced by a moniker that openly parodies the city’s utility company, winks at early punk and house music movements known for bucking the system and making something out of nothing. (For what it’s worth, a friend at the Burlington Electric Department assured Schuster that the department doesn’t mind the pun — or, at the very least, that her boss thought it was funny.)
Still, not all is giggles and hugs for off-center musicians in Burlington and beyond. Schuster cited the declining number of alternative venues in the state, which limits their options for throwing parties.
“There’s almost no spots in Vermont that haven’t been turned into wedding venues,” Schuster said. “And once it’s a wedding venue, they want way, way more than any music festival can pay.”
“I feel that there’s a ‘war on fun’ in Vermont and beyond,” Harris said. BED parties, he went on, “have been some of the most fun I’ve had in my music ‘career,’ [and they] feel like a small way of fighting back.”
On the front lines of the dance party revolution is Schuster, though they’re hardly alone in their endeavors. A potpourri of long-standing electronic music purveyors operate in the area, from Nexus Artist Management to DJ Craig Mitchell.
But BED’s DIY ethos sets it apart from the game’s major local players. While Schuster’s shows have a cover charge, they never turn folks away for lack of funds. They’re always on the hunt for unsanctioned yet safe spaces where parties can go all night with fog machines on full blast. They acknowledge the chances of getting rich are scant, but getting funky is always on the table.
“I just accept that I’m gonna be working a job forever,” Schuster said. But, they added, “If you build it, and you build it without greed, it’s really easy to do.”