Your Sunday funday happening: Mystic Music Motorcycle Fest

And also, the Fresno Family Folk Hour. Plus, what is Rising Tide and Mantis Watch wants to fart ... where the dinosaurs are.

Oct 12, 2025

Two-ish weeks in and October has already proven to be crazy-packed with event happenings.

I should have written something about Mystic Music Motorcycle Fest last week and given y’all some time to lock it into your calendars. But sometimes things slip the radar and you miss the timing and …

Here I am writing about the event on the day it’s happening.

As the name (and event flier) suggests, Mystic Music Motorcycle Fest is a motorcycle show/gathering. It is organized by Tom Walzem, his wife Lisa and (at least for the inaugural event back in June) John Clifton.

It happens noon to six p.m. TODAY at Backyard Social Club in Clovis, which seems like an ideal spot for this kind of thing.

There are trophies for best classic, custom, and rat rod bikes, plus vendors and all the stuff that Backyard Social Club does (beer, food and coffee, if you’re there before 2 p.m.). On the music front, Walzem is bringing out the Pulp Fiction vibes (per the event flier) with his band The Neptunes. Sinister Purpose, a Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute also plays.

Walzem closed Mystic Music’s brick-and-mortar shop back in April, but he’s keeping active, obviously. Here is a cool interview the guitarist recently did for Pi Record’s video magazine.

Keeping on theme of happening today, Brother Luke is hosting another installment of his Fresno Family Folk Hour. This is an acoustic, storytelling songwriters-in-the-round kind of deal with each artist playing a trio of songs.

The thing that makes these events work so well is Luke Fr4eeman’s curation and ability to pull different types of musicians into the fray and the lineup for today is: Brother Luke, PKD, Lindsey Pugsley, Joshua Michael, Jonathan Lo-Fi, Jeffrey Conway, Victoria Roberts and James Wilkinson.

The event starts at 3 p.m. in the Lookout Room at Tioga Sequoia’s Beer Garden.

If you’re free for the afternoon, you could theoretically hit up both.

Upcoming: A Rising Tide

It looks like Fresno is getting another downtown event series.

Or, it could be a rebrand of something that’s been tried before. It’s kind of hard to tell. It feels similar to the Around the Block events the Downtown Fresno Partnership last year.

I am judging this off a conversation I eavesdropped into Friday night and also this Instagram account for something called A Rising Tide, which went up last week.

It promises: “an event focused on highlighting local businesses, artists and musicians in Downtown Fresno.”

It appears to be a six-part series with events happening on the third Saturday of each month. So far, Vol. 1-3 are booked through December with the first event happening NEXT Saturday (though the when and where of it all is still a bit vague).

One assumes, we’ll see Vol. 4-6 in the early part of next year.

New music: Mantis Watch, “I Want to Fart Where the Dinosaurs Are”

To get a sense of Mantis Watch, let me present this piece of self-reflection/self promotion the band posted on Instagram earlier this week: “ ‘Still punk as fuck,’ I whisper to myself as I upload a song called ‘(I Wanna Fart) Where the Dinosaurs Are’ to streaming services.”

Mantis Watch specializes in Ramones-core; meaning classically fast, simple and catchy AF punk tunes. See: the band’s contributions to the Ramonescore Brigade Vol. 4 and 3 Chords of Death compilations.

“(I Wanna Fart) Where the Dinosaurs Are” showcases A.) the band’s ability to craft and then deliver on brilliant song titles and B.) its overall aesthetic sensibilities, which are lovingly, stupidly, and sort of innocently, weird.

You can listen to the track below or tune into the Homegrown show 8 p.m. tonight.

Of course, to really understand the band (IMO) you need to see them live, which you can on Friday. Lucky you. They are opening for Shonen Knife at Fulton 55.

Bandgeeeek!

Ready for more?