The music festival circuit is still oversaturated. Full stop. Even in what’s supposedly the post-peak festival age, there are new festivals popping up on the regular, most of them the brainchild of a corporate promoter trying to expand their reach so they can cut more deals for club shows later in the year. (It’s true, ya know?)
I’ve long held that if you’ve become disenchanted with the sheer amount of these cash registers masquerading as music festivals, the best course of action is to attend your local regional fest. This is where you’ll find a true sense of community that stands to support all of the parties involved. Put on by Oakland’s Total Trash Productions, Mosswood Meltdown is one of these festivals. And Mosswood is finding that if you don’t waver from its longtime punk-minded ethos, you can still soar to new heights.
This year marked the first time that Mosswood Meltdown expanded into a third day. Friday’s “pre-party” was headlined by 90’s alt-slacker rock deities Pavement (!!!), the soaring indie rock-country-screamo-whatever outfit Wednesday, and lo-fi pop trio Vivian Girls. As is Mosswood tradition, director and queer icon John Waters hosted the weekend and introduced every band as only he can: With a bespoke, tongue-in-cheek monologue that always seems to hit right at the heart of who the artist is.
“This band has often been called ‘the cock and balls’ of indie rock,'” Waters said of Pavement. “And they practically invented the term alternative.”
Walking through the Mosswood Meltdown grounds, brush strokes of alternative culture were everywhere. Where Outside Lands has moved away from its West Coast Craft marketplace in recent years, and Portola Fest wants to celebrate the latest activation “brought to you by Spotify,” Mosswood’s local vendors marketplace was eclectic AF.
I browsed books on the many flavors of socialism, grassroots Palestinian movements, punk rock history and activism in all forms at the PM Press booth. Queer Art Collective The Spooky Haus, had a booth of unique handmade wearables next door to the similarly-spirited NO NAME Collective’s all “made by womxn.” You best believe there was a treasure trove of punk patches. Heck, there were even punk patches for your dogs and cats at Punk-A-Pet’s booth—is your pup really all that if they don’t have a Dead Kennedy’s patch on their acid-washed jean dog sweater?!
I loved all of this. One suggestion however: Publish a list of these vendors on the Mosswood website, or even on a dedicated IG post. So folks can peep it in the lead up to the weekend and especially after it’s all over. But I digress.
Yes, there was a John Waters merch booth. But there was also a fabulous John Waters collaboration beer with Alameda’s Faction Brewing called “Punk Flamingo.” A full-bodied, hoppy pilsner, it was the perfect companion when the sun was beating down in the late afternoon and it was, as Waters put it, “Hotter than jerking off on a Saturday night with a hangover.” Not a Coors Light in sight. But I could’ve done without bringing up “Jason from Cambio Tequila” on stage to banter with the crowd in between sets. Some compromises needed to be made, I suppose, and the palomas coming out of the bar were pretty damn tasty (even if the bar lines were mostly slow and inconsistent).
The festival clocked between 9000-10,000 visitors a day, and Friday night’s crescendo with Pavement was glorious; an hour and 45 minutes of all killer no filler into the night from the Stockton-born OGs, who have become posterboys for the #DadRock faithful. This being my first time seeing the band since my kid was born 10 months ago, it definitely felt like I was making this next stage of my life official, and it rocked. Stephen Malkmus and company played cult, heyday jams “Stereo,” “Gold Soundz,” and “Range Life,” all set to sick live visual projections from local artist Zach Rodell.
There was a punk senior citizen dude crowdsurfing during “Summer Babe” (which an emotional Bob Nastanovich dedicated to the band’s deceased one-time drummer Gary Young) while everyone sang along. They played an unprecedented cover of “Stairway To Heaven,” started a “fuck Lew Wolff!” chant directed at the former Oakland A’s owner, shouted out Stockton, Modesto, Merced and the whole San Joaquin Valley, and even came back out for an encore to play “AT&T.” Nobody encores at a music festival and a lot of times festival sets are phoned in a bit, but this just felt like a different beast.
“Everyone who works for the festival is a working musician or works in performance,” said Grant Kerber, Mosswood’s Marketing Director who talked to me in between stints in the photo pit, where he doubled as the fest’s in-house photographer. “So we know a lot of people and we connect with their managers to get them here. It’s a more personal connection than just sending them an offer sheet to do the festival”
The bookings have always skewed towards the eccentric at Mosswood. Saturday and Sunday’s two stages had bonafide legends in Iggy Pop and Bikini Kill closing out the night. Sets came from sardonic punks The Dead Milkmen, Detroit blues punk band The Dirtbombs, Japanese quartet Otoboke Beaver, fierce Philly rockers Mannequin Pussy, and more. I wanted to come back and see all that and a Sleater-Kinney led Ramones cover band with Fred Armisen on drums. I wanted to see the Peaches Christ Punk Pride drag showcase.
But this Dad had to settle for one night out of three of fun at the fest, seeing one of the best surging bands out there in Wednesday, set the stage for Pavement, a band who never left its peak. Pavement is a weird band. It’s part of what makes them special and so goddamn endearing. Weird is the thread that ties everyone at Mosswood Meltdown together. Here’s hoping the festival also never leaves this peak.
