Music and Movies in the Catskill Mountains

It’s a double whammy of double shots toady here at Museyon. That’s right it’s time for another dose of Film+Travel PLUS Music+Travel. This time we’re headed to the Catskills, the mountain range in New York State and the setting for All Tomorrow’s Parties, the awesome annual music festival curated by a different big-name artist every year. This year the Flaming Lips called the shots at the megafest, which ran from September 11-13 and featured acts Animal Collective, Suicide, Super Furry Animals, Sufjan Stevens and much much more.

 

While we couldn’t make it there for all the festivities, director Jim Jarmusch did, and our friends over at the Criterion Collection were able to capture some of the fun. Jarmsuch was there to soak up some tunes, of course, but also to screen his 1989 Memphis movie, ‘Mystery Train.’ Head to the Criterion site to hear him talk about musicians as actors, Robert Mitchum and Iggy Pop, and Roberto Benigni and the sons of Lee Marvin. To learn more about that film’s locations, check out our info on Memphis’ Arcade Restaurant.

 

This year’s festival took place at Kutsher’s Hotel, the last of the great Borscht Belt resorts, and the inspiration (along with neighboring, and now defunct, Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel) for ‘Dirty Dancing.’ (Find out about where the film was really shot in our ‘Dirty Dancing’ guide to Lake Lure.) And that’s not the resort’s only brush with fame — it counts Hasidic reggae artist Matisyahu as an alum of Kutsher’s Camp Anawana. [Thanks to our buddy EDG4R at Team Rojas for the tip!]

Kutscher’s photo by michaelz1/Flickr