This Week in Lincolnville

Music and Connection on the Opposite Coast

Sun, 07/19/2026 - 12:01pm

Ed O’Brien

Watching the sun set over the ocean is sort of unsettling. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

The self proclaimed “king of the mosh pit” in his kingly robes with his more reservedbuddy. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

Some fans of John Waters in their trashy finest. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

The great John Waters. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

Iggy Pop takes the stage. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

Watching the sun set over the ocean is sort of unsettling. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

The self proclaimed “king of the mosh pit” in his kingly robes with his more reservedbuddy. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

Some fans of John Waters in their trashy finest. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

The great John Waters. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

Iggy Pop takes the stage. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

It is really easy for those of us from Maine, and those of us who have lived here fulltime for a number of years, to forget just what a tiny place our state is, at least in the number of people who make it home.

A place that generally escapes notice from the rest of the world. The place with lobsters, the place where that fella who writes the scary books lives. Recently, Maine has gotten some national attention, and not for great things. First a candidate for U.S. Senate in a race representing our nation’s deep and close divide had his campaign implode in a dramatic and embarrassing way, leaving a lot of people angry and disappointed, and a lot of national press wondering about the people of Maine.

Much, much worse was what happened last week in the Southern town of Biddeford, a town literally built by immigrants. The killing of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a hardworking and devoted young husband and father, and a legal immigrant from Colombia, at the hands of a federal agent, who had apparently mistaken him for someone else. I am not going to hash out what we know and don’t know about this case here, but the whole situation makes me feel sick.

I am writing this in the early morning from hotel room overlooking the East Bay and the San Francisco skyline, in the city of Emeryville. Emeryville, “the city of no churches”, once notorious for the brothels, speakeasies and industries that the neighboring cities didn’t want within their boundaries, now heavily gentrified and home of expensive condos for tech employees and the big box stores that the next door Berkeley doesn’t want in its city.

Emeryville is part of the county of Alameda, smaller than the county of Knox, but with a population roughly the same as the entire state of Maine. It is one of the most racially and ethically diverse counties in the country.

My daughter asked a few months ago if she and I could attend a music festival in neighboring Oakland, as a final trip before she leaves Maine for college in August. I was unsure, but checking out the lineup, I reached out to my old college roommate, who lives an hour north of the Bay Area, who said he has been looking for someone to go with. It was settled, we would take our teenage daughters; a daddy/daughter trip to one of the biggest celebrations of Punk Rock, the Mosswood Meltdown.

The festival is hosted by notorious cult film director, and one of the funniest and crudest speakers I have ever heard, John Waters. The first night was headlined by a man who’s first band, The Stooges, arguably helped launch the Punk genre, and broke up the year before I was born, Iggy Pop. Still jumping around a stage and singing shirtless at 79.

Sunday night will be capped off by Bikini Kill, a major part of the Riot Grrls of the 1990s, a feminist movement within the punk community, where women musicians found an outlet for the rage and frustration that they were raised to suppress. I can’t wait to see them.

Punk Rock has always been very much the music of the outsiders, and has skewed to political left since early on. In movies set in urban environments during my 1980s youth, the bad guys and street toughs were often dressed in the flamboyant style of Punk. Leather and denim and studs on the clothing and face, Anarchy symbols and spiked, brightly colored hair. My buddy Justin’s daughter was quick to point out the irony of there being a VIP section at a punk show. It is 2026, Capitalism is going to capitalize.

I wrote last week about the Strawberry Festival in Lincolnville, and I talked about how people all over the world gather to just celebrate being here. In an event many times the size of our little summer fest, the same spirit was present. Across Oakland’s Mosswood park were two stages for bands both established and up and coming to perform for an audience incredibly diverse in age, ethnicity, gender, and self expression. Young people who grew up listening to the music of their parent’s youth. The guy with the white beard and his grandson at his side may have been slam-dancing to The Cramps back in the early 1980s.

In the field behind the stage was a row of food tents selling everything from street tacos and aqua fresca, matcha tea and dumplings, Brazilian Barbecue, and smash burgers. Vendors sold vintage clothing, patches and stickers, jewelry, T-shirts, even little punk rock jean jackets for your dog or cat.

The Bay Area climate is surprisingly mild in July, and we enjoyed temperatures hovering right around 70 under sunny skies. And a reprieve from the wildfire smoke in Maine.

Back to the Strawberry Festival, which at the surface seems like it could not be more different, a little church fair compared to a Punk Rock festival featuring at least one band whose name I hesitate to use in this family publication. The vibes were the same, people coming together to share food, laughter and music, even if The Spits and The Lincolnville Town Band come from very different musical traditions.

Well, the mosh pit is a different energy. A style of dance that tends to form in the very front of any loud and fast live performance, it is also an area generally easy to avoid for those of us wary of injury. It is a place for the young and adrenaline-seeking. As the T-shirt of a gentleman close to my age read, “Old punks don’t die, they just stand in the back.” Justin and I were in plenty of mosh pits back in the day, but now we are happy to observe from a safe distance.

Mostly, though, the day consisted of people dancing, eating, spreading blankets on the lawns, and napping under redwood trees while music, loud and passionate or surprisingly soulful, played all around. People reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones, like the two young men we met in the line heading in. Giving off strong vibes of the movie characters Jay and Silent Bob, one exuberant and literally bouncing, the other friendly and quiet, letting his buddy and band mate do most of the talking, they definitely set the mood for the day.

I am being a broken record, I know, but the world is so much better when we look for the common ground, for the best in humanity. Horrible injustices happen all the time, and we should not be passive, should not ignore them. We also cannot forget that we are all neighbors in this world, and those of us from Lincolnville just get to see it on a much smaller and clearer scale.

Save the Date, Blueberry Wing Ding

The Lincolnville Improvement Association will be holding its annual Wing Ding fundraiser Saturday, August 8, from 8 to 11 a.m. in the Lobster Pound parking lot at Lincolnville Beach. Expect a blueberry themed bake sale featuring pie, muffins, cakes, scones, and jams. Purchase coffee or juice with a baked good for $5. There will be a raffle with locally donated prizes and the Blueberry Marketplace will be up and running with something for everyone. The money raised will allow the LIA to continue to provide scholarships to local students and to maintain the flowers at the Beach and Petunia Pump in the Center.

Library Happenings

Needleworkers met from 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday. Cribbage for Everyone will be on Thursday from 3-5 p.m. Mah-Jongg meets Friday from 12-2, with lessons available. Finally, on Saturday, July 25 at 10 a.m., Children’s author Kaitlyn Rollins will be at the library with her book Meet Peeka the Penguin.

Okay, Lincolnville, you are far away and three hours ahead of me in time right now, but I am already kind of looking forward to the long flight home Monday. I like to travel, but I also like just being home. Please look out for each other. Listen to music that touches your soul, whatever that may be, remember our shared humanity, and that on this tiny blue ball spinning in a unfathomable emptiness, we are all we got.

Reach out at ceobrien246@gmail.com.

Municipal Calendar

Monday, July 20

School House Museum open, 1-4 p.m., 33 Beach Road

Select Board Priorities Workshop, 6 p.m., Town Office

Tuesday, July 21

Library open 3-6 p.m. 208 Main Street

AA Meeting 12:15 p.m., Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road

Wednesday, July 22

School House Museum open, 1-4 p.m., 33 Beach Road

Library open 2-5

Financial Advisory Committee, 10 a.m., Town Office