Mojave Experience 2027: Unida & Sons of Arrakis Join Lineup

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 24th, 2026 by JJ Koczan

Desert rock doesn’t get much more desert rock than Unida. And again, we see Mojave Experience 2027 doubling-down on blending new and old from the Californian desert while at the same time reaching beyond those confines of both biome and style with Montreal’s Sons of Arrakis. All along through these two-at-a-time initial announcements, that’s been the theme. Brant Bjork is certainly familiar, but Brant Bjork Trio is a new configuration. Big Scenic Nowhere, well, you’ve probably heard of Bob Balch (Fu Manchu, etc.) and Gary Arce (Yawning Man, etc.), but again, in this form, they’re doing something new. For the last few years, Unida has been putting fresh blood in vocalist Mark Sunshine and bassist Collyn McCoy to the test on one of the Cali desert’s most underappreciated catalogs. Familiarity, with a twist.

To be sure, Sons of Arrakis‘ progressive, melodic style will fit in just fine as well alongside HeavyTemple (also not a desert band in sound or geography), and that they’re making the trip has me wondering if a follow-up to 2024’s Volume II (review here) might be in the works. Given we’re nine months out from when this second edition of Mojave Experience will actually take place, I suppose there’s time to find out. Either way, the point is there’s no filler in the first six names on the poster, and plenty more to come.

From socials:

mojave experience 2027 unida sons of arrakis

Mojave Experience – March 19–21, 2027

Unida

UNIDA has always done things its own way.

Built around the songwriting and guitar work of Arthur Seay, the band forged a sound that helped shape a generation of desert rock while remaining distinctly their own. Alongside vocalist Mark Sunshine, bassist Collyn McCoy, and drummer Mike Cancino, UNIDA continues to deliver the heavy grooves, soaring melodies, and unmistakable feel that have kept fans coming back for decades.

Their music carries a sense of movement. Long roads, distant lights, and the feeling that something waits just beyond the next horizon. Songs from Coping with the Urban Coyote and beyond still hit with the same power that made them essential listening for desert rock fans around the world.

UNIDA isn’t a band you stumble across every weekend. Their appearances are few enough that each one feels like an occasion.

Some sounds never really leave the desert. They drift through the years, gathering new listeners along the way. Next March, UNIDA brings that sound back to where it belongs.

Sons of Arrakis

Some music feels like a destination. Some feels like the road leading there.

Hailing from Montreal, Sons of Arrakis have built a reputation on massive riffs, hypnotic grooves, and songs that seem to drift somewhere beyond the edge of the visible world. Their sound carries the spirit of desert rock and heavy psych without feeling bound to either. It moves with its own momentum, creating a mood that lingers long after the final note fades.

There’s a sense of mystery woven through what they do. Not in a theatrical way, but in the feeling that each song is uncovering something buried beneath the surface. Familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

As the circle widens for 2027, Sons of Arrakis take their place among the voices gathering in the desert.

Tickets on Sale Now!
Mojaveexperience.net

Artists Playing:
Brant Bjork Trio
Big Scenic Nowhere
Heavy Temple
Yawning Balch
Unida
Sons of Arrakis

https://www.mojaveexperience.net
https://instagram.com/mojave_experience_festival
https://www.facebook.com/mojave.experience.festival/

Unida, “Human Tornado” live at Ripplefest Texas 2025

Sons of Arrakis, Volume II (2024)

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Mojave Experience 2027 Adds Heavy Temple & Yawning Balch to Lineup

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 10th, 2026 by JJ Koczan

Joining Brant Bjork Trio and Big Scenic Nowhere, Heavy Temple and Yawning Balch — the latter of which makes it double-duty for at least most of Big Scenic Nowhere — are the next adds to next year’s Mojave Experience 2027, and both killer. Yawning Balch‘s new one, Volume Four (review here), is likewise joyous and unsurprising for that, and Heavy Temple‘s 2024 LP, Garden of Heathens (review here) certainly has lost none of its lustre for the time since it came out, even if the band’s lineup has shifted in the interim.

I got invited to Mojave Experience 2027 and golly would I ever like to go. If I can make it happen — my only concerns are minor issues like time, money, and logistics — I will, and seeing these two bands for sure only adds to the urgency with which I’m saying that.

These announcements I grabbed off social media:

Mojave experience 2027 heavy temple yawning balch

Mojave Experience – March 19–21, 2027

Heavy Temple

There are bands that sound heavy. Then there are bands that feel heavy.

Heavy Temple belongs in the second category.

Rising out of Philadelphia’s underground, Heavy Temple has carved out a sound built on massive riffs, deep grooves, and an undeniable sense of atmosphere. At the center is High Priestess Nighthawk, whose voice can shift from haunting to commanding in the span of a single song.

Their debut album, Lupi Amoris, earned praise throughout the heavy rock and doom world, but records only tell part of the story. Heavy Temple is a band best experienced in the moment, when the amps are loud, the air is moving, and the crowd is locked in.

There’s a certain feeling when the day is getting underway and the desert is beginning to come alive. The sun is high, the dust is moving, and the first wave of heavy music starts rolling across the grounds.

Heavy Temple will be bringing that energy to Mojave Experience.

Yawning Balch

Some projects remain elusive, known more through their recordings than their appearances on stage

Yawning Balch is one of them.

Formed when Bob Balch (Fu Manchu, Big Scenic Nowhere) joined forces with Gary Arce, Bill Stinson, and members of the legendary desert rock institution Yawning Man, the project began as an improvised jam session in Joshua Tree. What was supposed to be a single day of playing turned into hours of music and multiple full-length albums.

Since then, they’ve released Volume One (2023), Volume Two (2023), Volume Three (2025), and Volume Four (2026), building a catalog that feels less like a traditional band and more like a captured moment. No formulas. No road-tested setlists. Just musicians following the sound wherever it leads.

What makes Yawning Balch truly special is how rarely these musicians share a stage under this name. The records were born from spontaneous sessions in the desert, and live appearances remain exceptionally uncommon.

For many fans, this may be the only chance to experience Yawning Balch in person.

A rare gathering of musicians whose roots run deep through the desert scene, bringing music to the place that inspired it in the first place.

Early Bird Tickets on Sale Now!
Mojaveexperience.net

Artist Playing:
Brant Bjork Trio
Big Scenic Nowhere
Heavy Temple
Yawning Balch

https://www.mojaveexperience.net
https://instagram.com/mojave_experience_festival
https://www.facebook.com/mojave.experience.festival/

Yawning Balch, Volume Four (2026)

Heavy Temple, Garden of Heathens (2024)

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Mojave Experience 2027: Brant Bjork Trio & Big Scenic Nowhere to Play

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 1st, 2026 by JJ Koczan

I mean, if we’re checking credentials — and mind you, we’re definitely not doing that — I’m not sure you get more ‘desert’ musically speaking than having the likes of Brant Bjork, Mario Lalli and Gary Arce as the first two lineup reveals for Mojave Experience 2027 next March in Joshua Tree, California. That’s desert rock’s foremost ambassador (Bjork), and two parties essential to the formation of the genre in the first place in Arce and Lalli (the latter being in Bjork‘s trio, but also a bandmate of Arce‘s in Yawning Man, and he’s played in Big Scenic Nowhere as well, let alone Fatso Jetson or any of the rest of his staggering career), so yeah, if it’s boxes you’re ticking, tick away.

To me, it reads like a hell of a beginning from a festival that probably learned some crucial lessons with its successful first edition earlier in 2026. I don’t know who else is getting added here, or when, but as they’ve started rollouts, I wanted to at least get this post up so if you’re not following along, you can. I’ll do my best to do the same between now and whenever the full lineup is out. Obviously there’s time.

But, with tickets on sale as of today, well, you get the idea. Here’s what the social media had to say about it:

mojave experience 2027 art poster sq

Desert music & culture festival revives the free spirited vibe of Desolation Center, High Desert generator parties and early days of Coachella.

The Mojave isn’t just a backdrop — it’s the raw, unfiltered stage where music, art, and chaos collide. Out here, under endless stars and brutal sun, the desert strips away the fake and leaves only what’s real. The Mojave Experience was born from that spirit. It’s not another sanitized festival in a city park, it’s a gathering for the wild ones, the wanderers, the true believers who know the desert doesn’t hand out comfort, only freedom.

The Mojave Desert is the reason this exists. Out here, under open sky and unforgiving sun, there’s nowhere to hide. The desert cuts through the noise and leaves you with what’s real.

The Mojave Experience came out of that. It wasn’t built and it wasn’t manufactured. It was pulled straight from the dirt.

Year one proved something — people will come from anywhere for this. Not for comfort or for convenience. They come for something they can’t get anywhere else. Its for the ones who feel more at home under the desert sky than anywhere else.

Desert legends. Road-worn bands. New blood. All colliding in the same place, for a couple nights, under the same sky.

Tickets go on sale June 1. mojaveexperience.net

Artist Playing:
Brant Bjork Trio
Big Scenic Nowhere

Over 20 More TBA

https://www.mojaveexperience.net
https://instagram.com/mojave_experience_festival
https://www.facebook.com/mojave.experience.festival/

Brant Bjork Trio, Once Upon a Time in the Desert (2024)

Big Scenic Nowhere, The Waydown (2024)

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Yawning Balch Premiere Single Edit for “Pyramid of Djoser”; Volume Four Out May 29

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on April 23rd, 2026 by JJ Koczan

Yawning Balch Volume Four

Yawning Balch will release their aptly-titled fourth album, Volume Four, on May 29 through Heavy Psych Sounds. Yes, the busiest release day of the year so far. The 8:45 edit of “Pyramid of Djoser” premiering below is less than half of the side-consuming song’s 22:59 entirety — it’s also the longer of the two inclusions on the LP (immediate points) — and its hypnotic sprawl is joined by “Water Ritual” (21:45) on side B. The two extended pieces follow the general ethic of 2025’s Volume Three (review here) in building on the first pair of outings, 2023’s Volume One (review here) and Volume Two (review here), both of which were recorded in 2022 by the four-piece of guitarists Bob Balch and Gary Arce, bassist Mario Lalli and drummer Bill Stinson.

Volume Three, on other hand, was tracked in 2024, and one suspects/assumes that Volume Four comes from the same session. The core of the project from the outset has been in the complementary character of Balch and Arce‘s guitars, the latter’s signature tonality evoking broad spaces and the former’s more traditional lead style coming together with the ultra-fluid grooves from Lalli and Stinson across dug-in jams that aren’t trying to capture anything other than the exploration of sound as it’s happening. Volume Four is the latest in the succession to accomplish this. “Pyramid of Djoser” (the full thing) is duly entrancing. Clearly carved out of a broader jam, its edits where there are any don’t disrupt the flow, and it’s the kind of listen where once your head is in it you’re in for the duration. It’s not necessarily a surprise at this point given that it’s their fourth full-length, but they make that going a pleasure.

You could sit all day and trace the connections between these players, Arce, Lalli and Stinson operating as Yawning Man, Arce and Balch (also Fu Manchu, Axe Dragger,Yawning Balch PlayThisRiff.com, etc.) and sometimes Lalli and Stinson also working together as Big Scenic Nowhere with more directed progressive songwriting, and so on. Their familiarity with each other is for sure a factor in what makes “Pyramid of Djoser” flow like such a dream or “Water Ritual” come in from its slow fade with languid grace and tonal wash in kind, but the heart of the proceedings is in reaching into the unknown and finding where the song wants to take them and you as the listener. “Water Ritual” feels cognizant of this without being restrained, and the chemistry of the band becomes more ingrained and more welcoming to those outside for that.

That’s the crux of the impression Yawning Balch make four albums deep. In any linear narrative of the existence of a band — even one who mostly exist intermittently as everyone involved has higher-priority projects of longer standing, including with each other — by the time they get around to their fourth record, they should know who they are and what they’re about musically. I’m not sure the fact that “Pyramid of Djoser” and “Water Ritual” were cut down from longer jams negates that framing. Volume Four sounds like the work of a band who love being in the room, who are in it to find out where they’re headed that day, and who improvise with a sense of adventure while remaining on firm ground in heavy desert psychedelia. Certainly, for those who’ve followed along to this point, the result will be recognizable across Volume Four, but that familiarity comes with an according sense of warmth, and that is even more a key aspect of what Yawning Balch do and are as a group.

I could probably go on here, timestamp the changes, etc., but I honestly feel like part of the joy in listening to a Yawning Balch record is the escapism. It’s not the world you’re in, but the one you’re headed toward. I know this isn’t the full “Pyramid of Djoser,” and fair enough for the rigors of modern promotion — the ‘gotta have a single’ thing is harder when the record is two songs — but it’s plenty enough for the four-piece to hypnotize and draw you out of your own head, should you be willing to go. My sincere recommendation is you give it a shot.

Thanks for reading, preorder link follows the song on the player below, and please enjoy:

Yawning Balch, “Pyramid of Djoser” track premiere

PYRAMID OF DJOSER (single edit) is YAWNING BALCH second single taken from the band’s upcoming new album VOLUME 4.

The release will see the light on May 29th via Heavy Psych Sounds.

GRAB YOUR COPY HERE:
https://heavypsychsounds.com/band/roster/yawning-balch/

Yawning Balch on Instagram

Heavy Psych Sounds website

Heavy Psych Sounds on Bandcamp

Heavy Psych Sounds on Instagram

Heavy Psych Sounds on Facebook

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Yawning Balch to Release Volume Four May 29; New Song Streaming

Posted in Whathaveyou on March 26th, 2026 by JJ Koczan

Yawning Balch

Kudos to Yawning Balch — I mean, generally, yeah, thanks for all that spacious heavy desertdelic breadth and such, but specifically, in this case — for managing to name their album Volume Four and not immediately invoke Black Sabbath. It’s not easy to take someone out of a cornerstone like Vol. 4, but Volume Four avoids the issue, and double-thankfully, doesn’t make a reference to that album’s cover art with its own, instead keeping in line with other Yawning Balch releases to-date, the most recent which was — wait for it — Volume Three (review here), in 2025.

As I read the below, the material from Volume Four would seem to have been culled from the same jams as the last outing, which is just fine. Note also there’s an Echoplex on the single “Water Ritual,” just because it’s an awesome thing to note anytime it happens. You can read more about it from the PR wire, and the song is of course at the bottom of the post:

Yawning Balch Volume Four

Instrumental rock supergroup YAWNING BALCH (with Yawning Man & Fu Manchu members) to issue new album “Volume Four” on Heavy Psych Sounds; first track available!

Mojave Desert-based instrumental rock goldsmiths YAWNING BALCH (formed by Yawning Man members and Fu Manchu guitarist Bob Balch) return with their fourth record “Volume Four” on Heavy Psych Sounds on May 29th, and present a first excerpt today!

Yawning Balch is the collaborative and endlessly creative outfit uniting Californian guitarist Bob Balch (Fu Manchu, Big Scenic Nowhere) and desert rock progenitors Yawning Man, incarnated by guitarist Gary Arce, drummer Bill Stinson and legendary bassist Mario Lalli (also Fatso Jetson).

About this new track, Fu Manchu guitarist Bob Balch recalls: “Water Ritual” is the second jam we did during a five-hour session in Joshua Tree on April 20th, 2024, at Gatos Trail Studios. I had just picked up a new pedal called The Fable, and it’s all over this track. It’s a delay with all kinds of crazy repeat options. When we mixed it, I wanted portions of the song to have a ’70s dub reggae feel. So Dan at Gatos hooked up his Echoplex to the board and nailed that sound. Jamming with the dudes from Yawning Man is always a blast, and I’m stoked they invited me. Thanks, Gary, Bill, and Mario!”

Yawning Balch’s dreamy and jam-driven psychedelic rock journey started in 2023 with the release of “Volume One” and “Volume Two”, a two-volume set carved out of a five-hour jam between Balch and the trio in the Joshua Tree desert. Welcoming back desert rock legend Mario Lalli on bass with the 2025 follow-up, “Volume Three”, the foursome offered another mesmerizing psychedelic and post-rock instrumental voyage crafted with love.

They will carry on with the sky-opening, riff and groove galore this spring, with the release of their fourth record “Volume Four” on Heavy Psych Sounds.

YAWNING BALCH is:
Gary Arce – guitar
Bob Balch – guitar
Mario Lalli – bass
Bill Stinson – drums

http://www.yawningman.com/
https://yawningman.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/yawningmanofficial/
https://www.facebook.com/yawningmanofficial/

https://bigscenicnowherestore.bigcartel.com/
https://bigscenicnowhere.bandcamp.com/releases
https://www.instagram.com/bigscenicnowhere/
https://www.facebook.com/bigscenicnowhere/

www.heavypsychsounds.com
heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/heavypsychsounds_records/
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/

Yawning Balch, “Water Ritual Pt. 1”

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Mojave Experience 2026 Lineup Complete

Posted in Whathaveyou on December 2nd, 2025 by JJ Koczan

Who’s up for a potentially-life-changing weekend in the desert? Well, me, for one. Barring a magic invite, I don’t imagine I’ll be there to see the inaugural Mojave Experience Festival when it takes place over two days next March, but looking at the lineup I fail to see how you wouldn’t want to. Look at that Friday bill. They call it a pre-party. Look at that Saturday bill! How many nights in your life are you going to be treated to a succession of acts like that?

It was pretty clear out of the gate — Dead Meadow and Earthless were the first two bands announced — that Mojave Experience meant business this first time out. I don’t know if this is a one-time thing or if there are intentions toward an annual happening, but either way, the assembled lineup crosses generations and stylistic borders, fostering an immediate sense of identity that’s tied to the history of the Californian desert underground with the likes of Mario Lalli, John Garcia, Gary Arce, Nick Oliveri and The Freeks involved, but that is already looking to reach beyond those geographic and aesthetic confines as well, whether that’s the doom of L.A.’s Early Moods or the acidblasting psych of Philly’s Ecstatic Vision. SoftSun and Borracho. Acid King and Hippie Death Cult. I could just go on saying names until I’ve said them all. None of them suck.

Mario Lalli posted the full bill on socials:

mojave experience 2026 full lineup sq

🔥 MOJAVE EXPERIENCE 2026 — FULL LINEUP REVEAL 🔥

🎟️ mojaveexperience.net

March 20–21 • Joshua Tree, CA

The dust has settled… and the full lineup is here. Two days !

FRIDAY • Mojave Gold (Pre-Party)
Rubber Snake Charmers feat. Sean Wheeler
The Freeks
Arthur Seay & The RiffKillers
Borracho
Insomniac
SoftSun

SATURDAY • Joshua Tree Lake (Main Event)
Earthless
Dead Meadow
John Garcia
Acid King
Yawning Man
Hippie Death Cult
Nick Oliveri’s Death Acoustic
Ecstatic Vision
Howling Giant
Early Moods

Single-day Riff Rider Passes drop Dec 5 — Friday or Saturday, your choice.
Two-day bundles already gone.

https://www.mojaveexperience.net
https://instagram.com/mojave_experience_festival
https://www.facebook.com/mojave.experience.festival/

Borracho, Ouroboros (2025)

SoftSun, Eternal Sunrise (2025)

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Mojave Experience 2026 Adds Howling Giant & Arthur Seay (Unida) to Lineup

Posted in Whathaveyou on November 14th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

mojave experience 2026 banner

Well, having Howling Giant sure makes sense if you’re a heavyfest of any sort taking place anywhere at anytime, anyhow, in 2026, considering they just put out one of 2025’s best records in their third album, Crucible & Ruin (review here). It doesn’t seem unreasonable given their proclivity for touring to think they’ll spend much of the year on the road, but if you’re going to see them — and hopefully you are for your own sake, let alone their merch sales — there’s a lot to be said for Mojave Experience as a context. In addition to adding Howling Giant and Arthur Seay and the Riff Killers, the festival has begun to discuss some of the desert-based visual artists it’s bringing on board to add to the experience — you know, vibes — and thereby giving an even fuller picture of what to expect for March 20-21 next year.

From the word ‘go,’ I haven’t seen anything come down the wire from Mojave Experience that’s made me think it’ll be anything other than rad. Bringing in Arthur Seay and the Riff Killers — which with Collyn McCoy on bass and Mike Cancino on drums is three-quarters of the modern Unida lineup, plus vocalist Michael Keith where Mark Sunshine might otherwise be — is another in the steady line of acts from the Californian desert and representing it stylistically as well as geographically. Should it become an annual thing, I don’t know that that’s something they’ll be able to do every year, or you’d end up with the same bands/players all the time (maybe that’s okay too, to some degree?), but for a first time out, it feels appropriate. One wouldn’t doubt it with Patrick Brink (Volume) handling the curation, but clearly Mojave Experience has an idea of what they’re trying to build.

From social media:

HOWLING GIANT

From the heart of Nashville’s underground, Howling Giant conjures the kind of sound that feels born in the space between galaxies and desert dunes. Their shows are an eruption of heavy psychedelia and cosmic groove — riffs that roll like thunder across alien horizons, harmonies that shimmer like heat over asphalt. It’s music for the seekers and the stargazers, anchored in raw musicianship and lifted by an unmistakable sense of adventure.

Onstage, Howling Giant transforms volume into vision. Each performance is a living storm: swirling dual guitars, layered vocals that drift and collide through the mix, and rhythmic waves that pull the crowd into orbit. The energy feels almost magnetic — a shared current between band and audience, surging higher with every groove. You don’t just hear the band; you enter their world, a heady fusion of precision, power, and pure joy.

In the Mojave, their sound finds a natural home. Like the desert itself, Howling Giant is vast, unpredictable, and alive with contrast — light and shadow, gravity and flight. They channel the same elemental pulse that has always fueled desert art and sound: a search for meaning in the endless expanse, and a refusal to settle for the ordinary.

mojave experience arthur seay and the riffkillers

ARTHUR SEAY & THE RIFF KILLERS

Born straight from the dust and distortion of the desert, Arthur Seay & The Riff Killers hit like a sandstorm — heavy, unfiltered, and impossible to ignore. Led by Arthur Seay, the guitar-slinging architect behind Unida and House of Broken Promises, the band delivers the kind of riff-driven power that defines desert rock at its core. Every note is raw voltage, every groove a reflection of the land that shaped it — fierce, wide-open, and full of fire.

When the Riff Killers take the stage, it’s less a performance than a transmission from the desert itself — molten groove and sonic heat radiating from every chord. Seay’s guitar cuts through like sunlight on steel, Mike Cancino’s drumming lands with canyon-sized impact, and Collyn McCoy’s bass work ties it all together — technically sharp yet endlessly grooving, like machinery built from sand and sweat. At the mic, Michael Keith brings soul and grit in equal measure, grounding the chaos in something human and alive. Together, they turn the stage into a storm front — where heaviness meets clarity, and the desert’s pulse beats through every note.

This is desert rock in its most vital form — not nostalgia, but a living pulse that still burns hotter than ever. Arthur Seay & The Riff Killers carry the spirit of the pioneers who built this scene, but with an urgency that feels completely now. They don’t chase trends. They chase the moment — loud, unapologetic, and alive under the desert sky.

Come ready. Come raw. The Mojave Experience isn’t here to entertain you — it’s here to change you.

See you March 20 & 21.

Next Ticket Bundle, Sun Chaser, goes on sale Friday at 8am. Quantities are limited and they won’t last. mojaveexperience.net

https://www.mojaveexperience.net
https://instagram.com/mojave_experience_festival
https://www.facebook.com/mojave.experience.festival/

Howling Giant, Crucible & Ruin (2025)

House of Broken Promises, “Fear Me”

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Mojave Experience 2026: Nick Oliveri and The Freeks Added to Lineup

Posted in Whathaveyou on November 7th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

mojave experience 2026 banner

So, with confirmed sets from Yawning Man, Mario Lalli, John Garcia, Acid King and Dead Meadow, it’s safe to say Mojave Experience has ‘the desert’ as part of its mission statement. Certainly this week’s pair of confirmations for Nick Oliveri and The Freeks further beat that out as well. My only question at this point is, with Garcia and Oliveri already on the bill, if Brant Bjork might be added for a set too. Not thinking Vista Chino reunion or anything so grand, but it would be cool to have those guys all in one space over a weekend.

Not that I know anything, understand. Because I don’t. Oliveri‘s always-active solo tenure has seen him back and forth to Europe for the last few years, while The Freeks have situated themselves as the desert’s favorite weirdo blues band. There are far worse roles to play.

I’d go to this in a hot second. Just saying. From socials:

mojave experience nick oliveri

Nick Oliveri

Nick Oliveri’s Death Acoustic strips desert rock down to its bare, blistered core — forged in dust, driven by sound. Known for his wild lineage through Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age, The Dwarves, and Mondo Generator, Oliveri brings that same feral voltage to the acoustic realm. It’s not a mellow detour — it’s a sandblasted sermon, raw and unfiltered, carrying the spirit of the desert in every note.

On stage, Oliveri turns vulnerability into voltage. His Death Acoustic sets swing between cracked-open confession and explosive release — one moment haunted and intimate, the next howling and untamed. His voice cuts with grit and conviction, shifting from haunted melodies to throat-shredding fury in a heartbeat. There’s no filter, no barrier — just an unguarded current of energy that electrifies the space around him. It’s the Mojave spirit distilled: raw honesty meeting sonic chaos beneath the desert sky.

Death Acoustic isn’t about volume — it’s about truth. It’s Oliveri at his rawest and most alive, channeling the same reckless soul that built the desert rock legacy he helped create.

mojave experience the freeks

The Freeks

The Freeks are a raw, psychedelically fuzzed surge of electric rock’n’roll — the sound of California heat meeting cosmic chaos. Emerging from the union of two SoCal counties, this crew of rock veterans channels decades of underground energy into a single, pulsing current of fuzz, groove, and liberation. Their music feels alive — not rehearsed or restrained — a living jam that breathes dust and distortion.

On stage, The Freeks are pure combustion. Their frontman leads with a chaotic, exuberant energy — part shaman, part showman — driving the band and crowd alike into a state of wild release. Guitars roar like engines in the Mojave night, basslines rumble through your chest, and the rhythm section locks into a trance-inducing groove that pulls the whole room into motion. It’s heavy and hypnotic but always human — a performance that blurs the line between control and surrender.

In the desert or in the city, The Freeks deliver the kind of rock that refuses to sit still — electric, expansive, and unapologetically alive.

Come ready. Come raw. The Mojave Experience isn’t here to entertain you — it’s here to change you.

See you March 20 & 21.

Next Ticket Bundle, Sun Chaser, goes on sale November 14. mojaveexperience.net

https://www.mojaveexperience.net
https://instagram.com/mojave_experience_festival
https://www.facebook.com/mojave.experience.festival/

The Freeks, Studio/Live II (2025)

Nick Oliveri, N.O. Hits at All Vol. 9 (2024)

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