Three months. Twenty musicians. One plywood ziggurat we raise with our own hands — and a festival on top of it in March.
Every winter about a hundred people walk onto empty California desert and build a working off-grid campus — power from the sun, buildings from pallet racks and plywood. They study and create for three months, then take it all apart and the desert goes back to being desert. That's Mars College.
This season it grows a music camp. Twenty people whose only job for twelve weeks is music — living together, cooking together, running the venue, and remembering what it feels like to have a scene.
You land in January. You're in a band by the end of week one — drafted, like fantasy sports, except the sport is finding out what a bedroom producer, a bluegrass fiddler and you sound like together.
Week three your band plays a cover song in front of everyone. Week four you perform a origional song that didn't exist a few days before. Month two you record a single in a solar-powered studio, shoot photos in absurd golden-hour light, and put it out for real. Month three points at Mars Electronica, the festival that closes the season.
Around the resident camp, classes stay open to the whole college. Come for everything, or come for Tuesday mornings.
Theory taught by ear, not gatekeeping. Every session is labeled for level, so you always know whether you're walking into the deep end.
Everyone teaches one session. Twenty minutes, anything you know that we don't — a tuning, a scene, a trick, a genre. You know something. Yes, you.
Everything on Mars goes up from pallet racks, uncut 2×4s and plywood, and comes back down in April leaving nothing behind. Come early for build season if you want your hands on it — and there is nothing quite like playing a show on a structure you lifted.
The drawings aren't finished, on purpose. We know what these buildings are for; the sizes, the layouts and most of the details get settled by the people who show up to build them. If you want a say in the room, that's the door in.
A stepped pyramid where every setback is usable. Rehearsal hall, studios, gear library and backstage down below. An open rehearsal deck above it, with terraces wide enough to put a choir on. The south face is the stage, backed by a projection wall that runs generative visuals all night.
Small rooms built heavy — the leading idea is dry-stacked straw bale on a timber skeleton, sited past the quiet line. Thick enough that a drummer and a vocalist can work at the same time without a negotiation, and light enough on the land that it all comes apart in March.
The clubhouse. Camp kitchen where the racks are the cabinetry, a lounge in the middle, a sunset deck on top and a jam riser at the end. Backstage for the whole camp. We build this one first, because a crew needs a kitchen before it needs a stage.
No. There's no audition and no prerequisite. Beginners get drafted onto bands next to experienced players on purpose — it's the fastest way anyone learns, and it's better for the experienced players too. Every class is tagged so you know what you're walking into.
Music camp dues are $300, paid as three instalments of $100 — the first when you accept your place, then February and March. That sits on top of Mars College dues, which are separate and set by the college. Part-time enrollment off the open calendar is $150 for the term, or $25 for a single workshop, and the sub bench is free. There's no discount for build season: come and build because you want your hands on the room, not for a rebate.
Your main instrument and a dust-proof way to store it. The camp has a PA, interfaces, mics, headphones and a shared backline — drums, bass rig, guitar amps, keys. Bring a laptop if you have one. Leave the rest at home; the desert is hard on gear.
Yes. Anyone at Mars College can take music classes and workshops on the open calendar without joining the resident camp. Players can also sign up for the sub bench and get borrowed by bands all season, which is the cheapest way into the scene.
Yes, and people do it at Mars every year. Classes cluster into two blocks a day with rehearsal around them. Put your working hours on the application and we'll schedule around them.
November and December, before the quarter starts. That's when the ziggurat, the practice rooms and the Green Room go up. Come early and help — it's the best way to know the place, and it means you'll spend the quarter playing on something you made. The designs aren't locked either, so if you want to help draw these buildings and not just lift them, reach out via email.
Off-grid desert camping. Solar power, hauled water, cold nights, dust always, chores on a rotation. Costs are low by design. The stars are ridiculous and the light at the end of the day is why people keep coming back.
It's a lab, not a shortcut — Suno for fast sketching, stems and hybrid workflows that hand ideas to a real band, voice models only with written consent, and generative visuals for the projection wall. House rule: everything performed at the festival has human hands on it.
There's a film festival on the same land, full of people who need original music. Take a brief in Open Week and you'll spot the cut with the director, write in week nine, record in week ten, and deliver stems in week eleven — with a screen credit and a premiere the same weekend as your own set.
A small core faculty, guest instructors for the specialist workshops, and the campers themselves — peer-led sessions run all season, and everyone teaches once.
The camp is small on purpose. We are building community.
Rolling admissions, early commitment closes November 1, 2026. Dues are $300 in total — three payments of $100 — on top of Mars College dues.
Questions go to martianbandcamp@proton.me — real answers, not a form letter.