I see a lot of live music and put a lot of food in my face, but the last time I had the opportunity to do both of these things at the same time on the scale of The Great Googa Mooga involved tubas and strudel at my grandmother’s 80th birthday party in Frankenmuth, Michigan. And even though Brooklyn’s attempt at a silly-named music festival lacked a decent Bavarian Oom-Pa-Pa band, Googa Mooga made up for it with shredded varieties of both pork and guitar.
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Yeah, the lines for food were hundreds of strappy-sandled, horn-rimmed bespectacled New Yorkers deep, but what else are you doing on Saturday or Sunday afternoon? No matter what your favorite brunch spot is, you won’t be stabbing into your Eggs Florentine with Questlove’s afro pick or ringing hot sauce out of John Oates’ soul patch onto your Denver omelet. There’s a chance that someone probably did that at Great Googa Mooga, and it was probably Daryl Hall.Food and music. There was a lot—nigh too much—of both. I was a little curious about which one all these freaks that were there were more into.
This is Landen and Sarah. Sarah started the day with desert.So did you guys come for the music or the food?
LANDEN: We didn’t even know there was food. I mean, we knew there’d probably be food, but there’s, like, a lot of food here.So what have you got there?
SARAH: It’s like a frozen-chocolate-covered-banana-with-nuts-thing. You should probably go get one right now.I’m actually allergic to those.
That’s… pretty specific.No, I mean, just bananas.
That sucks.
LANDEN: Yeah, bananas rule.I’ve heard.
This is Hugo and Bertl from Switzerland. You'd think they hadn’t eaten since hopping the pond by the way Hugo was pound-towning his Tacos.So did you guys come for the music or the food?
BERTL: The food.
HUGO: The tacos. I knew there would be tacos. Really, I just want tacos. When I got here, I just started looking for the tacos.
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I see you found some. And? [Thumbs up][To Bertl] How’s that mollusk treating you?
BERTL: Any time I get to wear a bib, I’m happy.Me too. Any bands you’re looking forward too?
HUGO: Holy Ghost?Sounds like a good guess to me.
This is (from left to right) Sarah, Joe, Tom and Brianne.Are those Baohaus buns I see?
TOM: Yup.Where? I need those. [Point in a way-too-general direction.]You guys here for the music or the food?
ALL: Food!Anything you’re excited to eat in particular?
JOE: Crawfish Monaco.
BRIANNE: All of it.Any band in particular?
SARAH: The Roots? [All nod]
JOE: [Points at my neck] You’re sunburned, dude.
BRIANNE: Yeah, want some sunscreen?This is how much sunscreen they gave me.
This Sheep-Dog-Tarantula-Mutant was really excited to eat the lead singer of Fort Lean’s head.
(But seriously, they were rad.)
Back at the VIP Extra Mooga Area, I met Carrie and Jesse, participants in the “Shell Shucked!” oyster shucking race. I learned that oysters take a long time to shuck and they’re more fun to eat than watch being shucked, even race pace.How are the oysters?
JESSE: So smooth.Do you prefer East Coast or West Coast Oysters? That’s a thing, right?
CARRIE: East Coast! I feel like I have to say that though.Any bands your excited to see?
CARRIE: Bear Hands. And The Roots, obviously.I’m also super excited for Bear Hands. I’d watch them shuck oysters.
JESSE: [Laughs] No, you wouldn’t.Yeah, you're right.
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Here’s James Murphy, Aziz Ansari, and David Chang getting paid to hang out with each other and eat chicken.
Here’s the event staff forklifting a fully-cooked cow to feed the Velociraptor (a.k.a. hungry Googa Mooga-ers).
Here’s that cooked cow’s head, pre-raptor consumption.
Here are the guys from Meat Hook Butcher shop training a future serial killer.
An air guitar competition, because duh.
A humongous metal hog, pregnant with one that we ate later.
JOHN FUCKING OATES. Featuring soul patch and sax man.The word “clusterfuck” was being casually thrown around a lot by the patrons of The Great Googa Mooga, but people hated Bonnaroo the first year they did that (or so this guy tells me—he was taking a picture of me first).
I spent most of the first day in general admission, where prison rules indeed prevailed, though Extra Mooga provided a lot of entertainment and a lot more liquor for me to forget everything else. Except that guy in the kilt. Same time next year, guy? Yeah, he gets it.@TheRingaDingKid
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