Annual Mosswood Meltdown brings punk-rock party to Oakland
OAKLAND -- One of the most entertaining two-day celebrations of punk in the Bay Area returns to Oakland this weekend when the Mosswood Meltdown gathers an array of local and national punk acts including feminist icon Kathleen Hanna's band Le Tigre, reunited riot grrrl groups Bratmobile and Mika Miko and much more.
Late last year, the festival confirmed the initial bands for the 2023 edition with Saturday headliners Le Tigre -- the Devo-influenced electronic-rock group Hanna formed after her groundbreaking punk band Bikini Kill split up in 1997 -- as well as a rare appearance by reunited local queercore band Gravy Train!!! in addition to highlights like Albuquerque-based indie pop band The Rondelles, Bay Area garage-rock treasure Tina Lucchesi and her latest group the Total Babes and the return of New Orleans favorites Quintron & Miss Pussycat.
The second round of announced acts included riot grrrl icons Bratmobile -- playing the trio's first public performance in over 20 years -- reunited LA band Mika Miko who will be playing their first show in a decade, kinetic Bronx funk veterans ESG, early hip-hop/electro act J.J. Fad, SF punk pioneers the Avengers, last year's early festival highlight SNõõPER and more.
The garage-punk festival former known as the Burger Boogaloo has gone through some major changes since its 10th anniversary edition was held in Oakland's Mosswood Park five years ago. Festival organizers split with the fest's namesake Burger Records after a sexual misconduct scandal broke surrounding the imprint and many bands associated last year (the SoCal label had had little to do with the festival's planning for ages, according to Bay Area promoters Total Trash Productions). To their credit, Total Trash and the Mosswood Meltdown have taken clear steps to distance themselves from the scandal and to firmly establish the festival as a safe space where no harassment of any kind will be tolerated.
Meanwhile, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic kept the rechristened Mosswood Meltdown from happening for two years after the beginning of the lockdown in 2020, initially getting pushed back to Halloween weekend in 2020 and then summer of 2021 before finally being bein held in July of last year. Total Trash has also held two successful Halloween-themed festivals featuring such returning favorites as Osees, the Mummies, Detroit garage heroes the Gories, Aussie punks Amyl and the Sniffers and Sacramento juggernaut th' Losin Streaks among others.
Spearheaded by main organizer and Total Trash honcho Marc Ribak, the Meltdown continues the Boogaloo's reputation as one of the premiere underground rock festivals in the country on par with Goner Records' yearly Gonerfest and the Punk Rock Bowling Festival in Las Vegas. The event will once again feature vendors selling records, clothes and guitar gear in addition to an array of food options as well as a number of noted DJs -- local favorites DJ Omar Perez (Popscene, Leisure), DJ Missy and DJ Big Nate -- playing music between bands.
The Mosswood Meltdown once again brings back pencil-mustached director and revered trash-culture expert Waters as MC. Expelled from NYU where he was studying film in the 1960s, Waters rose to notoriety thanks to his string of '70s campy midnight movies including Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Desperate Living. Making up what the director termed his "Trash Trilogy," the films shredded the boundaries of conventional propriety and movie censorship with outrageous dialog and action as well as establishing drag queen Divine (Waters' friend from his Baltimore, Maryland childhood and muse, Harris Glenn Milstead) as an actor and cult figure.
Waters would eventually go on to more mainstream success with his later films like Hairspray (which inspired the Broadway musical and movie adaptation), the Johnny Depp film Cry-Baby and the scathing satire Serial Mom, but he has remained an icon of trash culture between his b-movie appearances, books and This Filthy World is a one-man stage show exploring his artistic origins. More recently, Waters has explored visual arts with mixed media and manipulated photo exhibits that by his own admission aim to inspire disgust with the viewer. Waters never fails to deliver off-color commentary during hilarious band introductions from the stage. His return as host should be no less entertaining.
While festival organizers were not able to reopen Thee Stork Club in time for last year's festivities after acquiring the bar, the refurbished retro dive was at last able to host shows starting in the fall and will be used as one of several venues for the festival's official after parties, including a Friday night kickoff shindig with Waters and headlining act Gravy Train!!!, the final show ever for trans-fronted caustic punks Twompsax on Saturday and Sunday's closing night party featuring SNõõPER.
Eli's Mile High Club will also be hosting after-show parties on all three nights this weekend for the Alternative Tentacles Takeover Friday's show was set to include a headlining performance by beloved local punk virtuosos Victims Family, but the band was forced to drop out due to a shoulder injury suffered by drummer Tim Solyan. VF guitarist Ralph Spight's other band The Freak Accident will fill in, playing songs from their latest album Outer Space Is Boring. Experimental hip-hop crew Wheelchair Sports Camp, "swing punk" group Van Goat and tuneful rockers Alvie & The Breakfast Pigs also. Saturday, explosive Tijuana-based outfit DFMK with Seattle heavyweights Sandrider (making a rare appearance outside of their Northwest home base armed with tunes from their recent release Enveletration) and local Motörhead-worshipping punk/metal power trio Glowing Brain on Saturday and East Bay pop-punk band The Hammerbombs topping the Sunday bill that also includes local supergroup Middle-Age Queers (with ex-members of The Cost, Fang, The Insaints and The Shondes) and openers Loud Graves. Slovenly Recordings also gets in on the after party action with its own show at the Golden Bull Saturday that will include Ex-Cult singer Chris Shaw's new project Memo PST (who open the festival earlier in the day), Sacto legends Th' Losin Streaks, raging Reno-based crew Spitting Image and a secret surprise band along with label head Pete Slovenly playing records.
For Saturday's line-up, the Mosswood Meltdown bill gets topped by Hanna and Le Tigre after she closed out last year's edition with a bracing appearance by her earlier band Bikini Kill, which marked the first time the group had played the Bay Area in two decades. Le Tigre will close out the entertainment on the larger Field Stage following sets from kinetic NYC funk veterans ESG (who blew out a packed Great American Music Hall in January for what was billed as the band's last ever SF show), lo-fi maestros Quintron & Miss Pussycat and Japanese surf-punk juggernaut and Tarantino-anointed group The 5.6.7.8's. Meanwhile, the always packed Amphitheater Stage will feature performances by the aforementioned Twompsax, local standbys Tina & the Total Babes and Olympia, WA-based Morgan and the Organ Donors, the latest project from Bikini Kill's Tobi Vail.
While Bratmobile is the ostensible Sunday headliner, the band will be the last to play Amphitheater Stage as queercore greats Gravy Train!!! bring the festivities to a raucous close on the Field Stage afterwards. Other highlights include golden-era SoCal hip-hop crew J.J. Fad ("Supersonic," "Let's Get Hyped"), sisters Jennifer and Jessica Clavin leading their kinetic punk band Mika Miko, pioneering San Francisco punk legends The Avengers, JBOT of Captured! By Robots' animatronic alter-ego band The Teddy Bear Orchestra and a Field Stage set from Nashville weirdos Snõõper. Additional information on how to get tickets is available on the the Mosswood Meltdown's official website.
Mosswood Meltdown
Saturday and Sunday, July 1-2, 12 p.m. $169-$279 (single-day tickets sold out)
Mosswood Park
