The formerly-called Burger Boogaloo festival has decided on a new name – Mosswood Meltdown. They also announced that their thrice-delayed festival is now set for July 2-3, 2022 at Mosswood Park, in Oakland, CA. Bikini Kill is still set to headline, joined by Bleached and Shannon Shaw among other artists. It’s still being hosted by filmmaker John Waters.
Mosswood Meltdown 2022 will be Bikini Kill’s first Bay Area show in about 25 years, Carbonas’ first Bay Area show in about 10 years and Plastic Bertrand’s first Bay Area show ever. The other artists playing the festival are Bleached, Shannon Shaw, The Fevers, Rubinos, Pansy Division, The Younger Lovers and Midnite Snaxxx. Tickets are available here, starting at $99 per day. There are also weekend passes and VIP passes available for $149 and $249, respectively.
Some artists that were originally announced for the festival could no longer commit to the 2022 festival. Circle Jerks, who were announced to headline one of the two days, are missing from the new lineup. Alice Bag officially dropped out of the festival due to the misconduct allegations. Flipper, Twompsax, Panty Raid and The Younger Lovers are also absent.
While the lineup is still smaller overall than it started out, Mosswood Meltdown added a couple of artists as well. Shannon Shaw of Shannon and The Clams is one. The other is ‘Rubinos,’ which may be Xenia Rubinos under just her last name, or an entirely new artist.
The festival was originally announced for July 11-12, 2020, delayed until Halloween 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, then delayed again until July 2021 for the same reason. Around the time the 2020 festival was originally planned, news came out of allegations of sexual misconduct against several artists including Part Time and Love Cop on Burger Records’ roster, which was the label sponsoring the event.
The label itself was accused of allowing a culture involving much toxic masculinity, and attempted to reorganize their management to save the company. When the new president also stepped down from their role, the label shut down completely. Mosswood Meltdown announced their intent to change their name from Burger Boogaloo at the time that the news broke out and severed all ties with Burger Records.
Total Trash Productions made a statement on Mosswood Meltdown’s standing following the split from Burger Records, “While Total Trash Productions has always independently produced, the festival and Burger Records only played a promotional role, we do not want to discount the problems of safety and inclusion that have plagued the music scene for far too long. Instead, we would like to be part of the solution.”
They continued, “We are committed to becoming a leader in event safety and are working to expand our policies beyond the accepted standards. Over the coming months, we will be publicly outlining new safety and awareness practices in addition to new festival guidelines. In the meantime, we are eager to hear from members of our community who have policies or best practices they would like to see us incorporate in our plans as we want to ensure that your voices are heard. Please email safety@totaltrashproductions.com with your suggestions.”
Last year, they released statement on their website clarifying the extent of Burger Records’ previous relationship with the festival, “The label’s involvement was always fairly superficial, and Burger Records never profited from ticket sales; They simply lent their name to the festival, boosted the festival via social media, and were given a merch booth on the premises. Total Trash Productions is horrified to learn of all the allegations…”
The statement continues from there to discuss how they will do their part to make a positive impact moving forward, “We are currently working to implement additional safeguards for our events to help ensure the safety of all of our attendees. This includes working on ways to make it easier for people to report abuse they experience or witness at our events so that we can act more swiftly in removing offenders and reporting them to the proper authorities, creating a stricter vetting process for bands and individuals on bands’ guestlists, further restricting backstage access and employing more security, continuing to diversify our line-ups with more acts that include women, LGBTQ and BIPOC, and working with local groups in our area to learn about actions we can take to help victims of sexual assault. These are just a few of the ideas we are currently discussing. We will keep you all updated on our progress as we continue to flesh out our plan of action. Of course, we are always open to any other ideas or suggestions you may have of further actions we can take. We will be updating our website and social media in the coming days and appreciate your patience and support as we make this transition.”
Photo credit: Raymond Flotat
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