Buy! your ticket to see your favorite artists. Attend! to be with your closest 3,000 friends. Embrace! those odd conversations. Experience more music than advertised. This year at one of the hidden side stages was a “BitchFit” performance. A band of 4 friends unapologetically kicking in doors and yelling that violence will no longer be tolerated. Frontwoman Ailish shared a megaphone with fans to actively scream NO to their personal situation. This was followed by the crowd’s response – “fuck (person’s name), you suck.” The four artists are small, but their ideals and voices are changing the world. Continue reading “Mosswood Meltdown Day 3 — Highlights from the Mosh Pit”
Tag: Punk Rock
2026 Mosswood Meltdown – Day 1: Blurring the lines of Music Genres – Pavement, Wednesday, Vivian Girls
Photos and Review by: Emily Anderson
Punk rock is more than music; it is a way of life. As life changes, punk will echo the experiences. The first day of the Mosswood Meltdown festival put awkward to a ripping beat, swirled in a country twang, and added comedy to remind us at times we really don’t know the lyrics. During Mosswood Meltdown, nothing is ever certain; its punk rock why expect anything else.
Vivian Girls – Beat vs Mosh
Their intro-set had an elegant awkwardness that matched the tone of the dark lyrics as they echoed versions of death. Each song spiraled into the next flawlessly. Then the announcement -“Here are a few old songs”; thus, the second set. The transition was from an awkward movement to clean angelic harmonies on top of a ripping, punk-beat that was faster than the mosh pit could circle, bump, or bounce. A distinct crowd favorite -“Out For The Sun”- amplified the beautiful chaos.
Wednesday – Who doesn’t love a punk rock scream!
They have a perfect blend of music containing variations from multiple genres: Rock, Punk, and Country. Their southern origin (North Carolina) bleeds country twang vibes into a punk rock edgy aesthetic. Allowing a hard rock power cord build up bridge bleed in a country twang with punk rebellion. It united every unique genre, as if this is the natural intended order of the world.
Karly Hartzman’s claim “Outlaw people are the punkest people out there” seemed believable when they transitioned from rock to country with the song “Phish Pepsi.” The entire band had an explosive performance. The following explanation revealed their reason and reality. On their last tour they could not celebrate the death of Lindsey ‘war-hawk’ Graham. Karly said she had to “Scream in memory from all the children that died in all the wars started by Lindsey Graham.”
“Wednesday” is the embodiment of their mixed genre style without rules. I noticed the guitarist adjusted the drums as the drummer tuned the guitar. When Karly inquired about the Oakland fragrance, a bottle was tossed from the crowd to the stage. Its contents were gingerly shared on stage. The performance was louder, faster, and more punk than previous.
Pavement – Comedy or concert?
Pavement’s performance was a remembrance to value the present, past, and unexpected. It was humorously linked by the charm, charisma, and comedy that only Pavement could deliver. The setlist ranged from Hits to dusty B-sides. They took liberties with legendary rock classics such as Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to heaven’ by keeping the rhythm and altering the lyrics to “I should have rehearsed in the hotel room, cause I didn’t get it right”, instead of “truly makes me wonder.”
There was a musical tour of California, via a Pavement song to describe each city. It kicked off with the announcement ‘Oakland was the better part of Stockton’ which was followed by hardcore punk screaming guitar riffs. Most memorable mentions were “Sound” for the desperate housewives of Alameda, “Down Down” for the Joaquin River, with a little something special for the beautiful city of Lindsy.
There were some sentimental moments in remembrance of Gary Young, the original drummer who left us in 2023. A voice from the band yelled out he left us long before that. This might have been the reference to Gary leaving the band in 1993 for his own endeavors. Despite the laughs on his birthday date resembling the unending math equation of pie; it was a sentimental movement. Shortly after a man from stage right ran into the stage and grabbed a mic. Security was quick to escort his return to backstage but Pavement’s Mark Ibold put his arm around him and they sang furiously loud.
Festival Review: NOFX -The Final Shows-
41 Years of Fucking Up: NOFX Bids Us Farewell
To call this an end of an era is the most obvious understatement. Forty years of fucking shit up as a punk band is a long time, and while some bands have been at it for just as long if not longer, the impact of NOFX cannot be overstated. They did things DIY when their peers were signing on with and subsequently getting dropped by major labels. They’ve courted controversy, spoken their minds, and rocked the fuck out while doing it. It was fitting that the final three performances of the band’s career would be celebrated in Southern California, where it all began.
Show Review: Otoboke Beaver w/Drinking Boys and Girls Choir and Auxilio at The Belasco 03-02-2024
“We Are The Champon!”
Rain in Los Angeles, for a supposed plethora of reasons, is like a mini apocalypse. Angelinos just can’t seem to handle it and, more often than not, will stay in during “weather events” instead of going to the movies or grabbing dinner somewhere. It’s just too much of a hassle to brave the weather because everyone on the road is a goddamn idiot. In the case of Otoboke Beaver’s Sold Out show at the Belasco, however, 1,500 people decided to say, “Fuck the rain.” I can’t blame them; I said the same thing. That said, the weather wasn’t particularly awful, in my opinion, as a NorCal-raised aging punk rock metalhead, and god dammit if we weren’t going to enjoy a night of femme-driven rock and roll from across the Pacific.
Show Review: NOFX Final Tour, Punk in Drublic @ The Cow Palace 09-16-2023
Farewell tours are a strange business. How does a band perform with sincerity and a sense of purpose that feels genuine without the trappings of a cash-grab mentality that us cynical fans have come to expect? I’ve personally never been to a farewell show outside of bands in the local music scene where I grew up, so I wasn’t very sure what to expect aside from what I was seeing on social media. A 40-year-old punk band going on with an absolute bang at each and every show, celebrating not only their longevity but celebrating the music scene that they came up in. What better place than San Francisco, the second home to one of the most iconic bands to come out of the 80s hardcore punk scene in Los Angeles, to wave goodbye to an incredible career?
Continue reading “Show Review: NOFX Final Tour, Punk in Drublic @ The Cow Palace 09-16-2023”
Show Review: Subhumans, Neighborhood Brats, SMUT, Fissure at Echoplex 10/22/2019
“This is not an advert!”
Sometimes, you need to get the hell out of the house and go to a punk show. Especially in times as trying as these, perhaps because of times as trying as these, it just feels good to go somewhere where you can yell and get all that pent up anger at a seemingly unstoppable corrupt world with a bunch of like minded people. So, I hopped on the scooter and puttered off to Echo Park to the surprisingly dark-lit Echoplex for a night of punk rock fury.
Continue reading “Show Review: Subhumans, Neighborhood Brats, SMUT, Fissure at Echoplex 10/22/2019”
Show Review: IDLES, Surfbort at The Wiltern 2019/10/08
IDLES, the unstoppable force, returns!
I do not get out to enough concerts. I work in live theatre which means when I’m on a “show run” I’m locked in with only Monday nights off for the next two months of my life at a time, so I have to fit in whatever I can between plays. Therefore, it’s almost serendipitous that the first show I’ve been to since May happens to also be an IDLES show, this time at The Wiltern in Korea Town.
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Show Review: Steve Ignorant and Paranoid Visions, Modern Enemy at The Fonda 5/26/18
Revolution Songs The Whole World Needs
Hardcore, Anarcho, Crust, Street, Pop: Five ways to describe various aspects of punk rock music — and that’s just five — of which I’ve happily run around in circle pits, been pressed against sweaty beer spilling individuals, and genuinely rocked my head off to in my life thus far.
For myself and a great number of friends who grew up in the ‘90s, punk provided a sense of community in a rural hippie town that was otherwise obsessed with reggae and country music — figure that out — where you could go 6 miles north where horses have the right of way or 10 miles south where meth seems to be lurking around every corner. It gave us an outlet for our anger and disillusionment in our supposedly sleepy little town in the Lost Coast. It should come as no surprise that by high school I was listening to heavy doses of Subhumans, Leftover Crack, Bad Religion, and Crass.
Album Review: Bad Cop/Bad Cop – Warriors
“We will not back down, we must refuse to stay silent!”
Probably one of the best things to happen from Donald Trump becoming the—and I shudder as I type this—President is the anticipation of all the amazing politically-charged punk rock that will invariably come back into the public consciousness. This is not to say that it wasn’t always there—it was and always will be—but humanity is a fickle species and without something to kick its ass into gear occasionally, it relegates the plaintive cries of the marginalized into the background. That’s where punk rock comes in to kick everyone in the face and scream “LISTEN UP!”
Festival Review: Punk Rock Bowling – Day 3 (Las Vegas, NV)
“No one can take away our memory!”
If Day One was about old school and hardcore and Day Two was about politics, then Day Three was about unadulterated partying and England. Admittedly, I am not much of an “oi/streetpunk” fan. It’s not that I am opposed to it, mind you, it’s just that very few of the bands in the genre have impressed their importance onto me. So it was with some trepidation that I embarked to the site of the final day of the festival, with every intention of keeping my mind open and enjoying some hearty music from across the pond.
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