Mountain Music Festival “25: Mountain Sunshine

Keep on moving folks. Nothing to see here, unless you’re into sparkly things. There are many images in the mind’s eye which cannot be unseen. June 6-7, 2025 Mountain Music Festival descended on ACE Adventure Resort in New River Gorge, West Virginia with Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country, Tropidelic, Big Something, Sneezy, Neighbor, Shadowgrass, Kendall Street Company, The Kind Thieves, Issac Hayden, Electro Lust, Future Joy, Minka, Natalie Brooke, Buddhagraph Spaceship, Moonpie’s Poorly-Trained Fire Show and more. How are you gonna live without Sunshine? Welcome back to the New River where the Pigment Sanctuary heralds. Are you an artist or an “Artist”? It probably doesn’t matter. You have located the very nexus of art and fun. The fellowship was rampant, the music on point. The warm rains washed the dust and stink away but it wasn’t about to ever really rain on this parade. This is Mountain Music Festival “25: Mountain Sunshine. Set phasers to cosmic.

It was the Wranglers’ fifth time to the mountain and each year they had managed to tighten the screws. Now, with preparation and luck as their bedfellows, Bfly, Jbone and Moonpie settled into their spot at the bottleneck and pushed Kamp Hapenis to the very edges of high quality and poor taste. The stoop finally made it to the skreet, where the people be. That way if it’s down, then there’s no excuse for it not to get all the way down.

Paris Josephine had grown much since the first time they’d met. She’d only been twenty then, running wild in Grundy County, so young and full of potential. Now, three weeks later, she was a withered shell of the girl she’d been so long ago. Back then she’d put the “white” in “White girl, White Claw drunk” and now, after multiple marriages and rhinoplasty surgeries, that original promise had all but deteriorated into misspent youth and dry, dirty martinis.

Sometimes Thursday night at the Lost Paddle, The Groundscore King’s brain collapsed and his mind had turned to warm mush. As he stared at the Chihuahua, the black hair on the animal morphed into yellow Post-it Notes. Actually, the entire dog had turned into Post-It Notes and when she shook, yellow pieces of paper would fly off like so much dander. Never miss a Thursday show. Welcome to the shit show, population you.

Issac the Killer. The nexus proved to just the funnel for which they were searching. There was Sarah with the hard H and PJ, Phat Jesus to his friends. Then there was the return of Sunshine and his personal version of corkscrewed fun. Wingnut was hanging with Jess when he heard Issac Hayden’s band go into “Cortez the Killer”. Prompted to move toward the rail he and Bfly found Sunshine Meadow and Louis already knee deep into a ruthless Jeff Sipe breakdown. In a world where Moonpie always missed Cortez the Killer, for once it landed right on his face.

Before the blush was on the bloom the parade of criminal reprobates was steered straight into the new Hobo Kamp. Thanks Sarah F. it’s pronounced rach/ay in French. Lucy slipped into a coma right after Daniel Donato and climbed out of the tent at four am for the pre-sunrise primordial session, tagging with Bfly for the shift change.

The Ladies passed by Hobo Kamp with their trading boxes, headed to the swap meet session at the Pigment Sanctuary. Known for hanging close to Kamp, Moonpie grabbed his own treasure boxes and joined the fray. Tri-trades, presents and credit trades carried the day. S. Meadow showed up with his trading bag, ready for anything and naturally, they all ended up with dragon eggs and hat pins.

Vendors are not want to visit friends. Actually, they do, they just make vendor friends so they don’t have to walk very far. Trinkets Treasures made an appearance for the first year ever and showcased her cavalcade of art and design. She did not visit the hoodlums, instead she ventured out to the ramblin’ fun of the Future Joy set.  On the other side of the field, Dimple’s Dyes held down the action near the encasement for actual fire spinners. She did visit the hoodlums. Hashtag truth.

Baitbucket lost his fox tail at Resonate so many times that he finally gave it away to some redneck. He would be forced to replace it with a dead raccoon from the back roads of Tennessee and had no idea what the curing process was for a varmint’s tail? At some point during the Big Something set, one of the fire spinners came over and gave a bullwhip cracking clinic that showcased serious skills. Things were spiraling in an interesting way and once again, they were in the pocket.

The world’s quickest fire show. Tristan’s “professional” advice was to abstain from the staff until new mesh could be acquired for the burning. He, himself was a poorly trained poi spinner and golf cart driver so the day Moonpie would need advice from him beyond handjobs would certainly be a dark one. Moonpie opted to give it the old college try and actually got the show on the road for a couple of seconds at best. He was quickly accosted by the fire chief who threatened him with “expulsion” if he attempted another poorly trained fire show without the use of safety protocols. Indeed. He hadn’t read the fine print. Tiki torches are allowed as long one doesn’t sling them in circles.

At some point, and not for the first time, the tiki juice spilled in the back of the vehicle. This time it poured all over Moonpie’s clothes drenching the t-shirt and cardigan he would be wearing after his shower. He could smell the fuel on his clothing but was unaware of the chemical reaction taking place on his skin. Later, he woke to a severe burning sensation down his arm and over his left breast. The side effects diminished after a shower but over the next two weeks he would lose and continue to lose multiple layers of epidermis. The tribulations of poorly trained fire spinners.

Thanks to Chris Colin, who does much of the work and somehow makes it look easy. Thanks for rescuing Lucienda Rosalita. This may have been her last festival. Revisit this letter he penned post fest. Follow the Mountain Music Festival website and like their social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.

Thank you to Craig Shaffer for allowing us to post his wonderful photographs of the event.

See you on the mountain next time June 5-6, 2026. Same bat time, same bat channel. Keep up with Wranglers Media as we continue to hurl through the summer festival season. Bonnaroo, Electric Forest, Elements and FloydFest. There will be a crew working Lost Lands just so no one has to work in October, where Suwannee Roots Reunion (Let Oteil sing.) and Hulaween run the show. This is what’s happening. You’re welcome.