Bartees Strange has a habit of landing on best-of-the-year lists. He’s best known for eclectic albums like 2022’s Farm to Table and his much-anticipated Valentine’s Day release, Horror, but the Baltimore-based musician and former Washingtonian has a secret talent: He’s played basketball all his life. This month, thanks to an unusual DMV battle of the bands, he’s out to show he can break ankles as easily as he breaks genre conventions.
On Saturday, Jan. 11, Takoma Park Presbyterian Church will host Mosh Madness, a charity basketball tournament featuring 16 teams of local musicians and scenesters that benefits the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. The event will also include performances by local bands Pinky Lemon, Pretty Bitter, Flowerbomb, Massie, and Spring Silver. City Paper has reported from at least one DIY show inside a sports venue, but this may be the closest convening of D.C. punk and basketball since Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto dunked himself through a YWCA hoop on film.
“Bands playing on the stage, and then down below is gonna be the basketball,” explains Ian Donaldson, one of the event’s organizers. “The crowd is gonna encircle and fill toward the back … it’s gonna be crazy.”
Donaldson plays keyboard in Dorinda and books shows at his house in Adams Morgan, also known as Six Thirty Club (a double reference to the house’s broken clock and the District’s other time-stamped music landmark). He devised Mosh Madness with bandmate and fellow basketball enthusiast Reid Williams. The two can’t agree on who had the idea first, but both say it developed organically through their pickup games with members of other bands like Cal Rifkin and Tosser.
“We’ve done this for forever, and I was always thinking, What if we were playing and there was music in the background?” says Donaldson. “Just from an aesthetic perspective, it seemed so enticing … [then] we started joking about it with other people in the scene.”
Williams asked around and, within a week, he had enough interest to form 16 three-person teams featuring members of D.C.-area bands Capital Rat$, Close, Home Remedies, Jeff Draco, Spring Silver, Massie, Pinkhouse, Pinky Lemon, Rex Pax, Sam Elmore, the Montaines, and Strange, who will play alongside Dorinda’s team and Cal Rifkin’s. Makers of the local music zine Haus Magazine will also form a team. Scores will be kept by Caroline Weinroth and Massimo Zaru–Roque of Cinema Hearts as well as photographer Kohei Kane.
Mosh Madness will be a half-court single-elimination tournament. At the end of each 10-minute game, the highest scoring team/band will proceed to the next round. You may have noticed that some bands plan to perform as well as compete, but if their turn on the court comes around while they’re on stage, they must forfeit. Streetball videos by D’Vontay Friga and the AND1 Mixtape series influenced the literal shape of the event, with audience members encircling the players, but the organizers don’t expect any of the viral acrobatics you see in those highlight reels.
“I think there’s gonna be some good hoopers for sure … but it’s more about the performance art and sheer goofiness of it all coming together,” says Donaldson.
Players like Rob Cline of the self-described “shoegays” band Pinky Lemon are approaching Mosh Madness in that same spirit of novelty, taking it as an opportunity to shake up the show scene. That doesn’t mean they’re taking the athletic challenge lightly.
“We actually took a break from a recent band practice to go shoot hoops, and it helped us realize that we’re all really out of shape,” says Cline. “We’ll be hitting the Girard Street courts in Columbia Heights soon to run some plays and dial in our jump shots. We’re hoping to dominate on height in the post and with our mid-range shooting as well.”
Strange enters with the obvious edge in experience, having played basketball and football through high school and college. Though he admits he can’t dunk anymore, he promises to bring his best to the tournament.
“I’m ready to snap on these kids, are you serious?” says Strange. “It is the DMV, so everybody can play a little bit of basketball. But you know, I’m not going easy on anybody.”
Donaldson says raising funds for the PCRF was “a no-brainer.” “I’ve been inspired by so many members of the scene (like Pinky Lemon and Panda God) putting on events in support of Palestine,” he says. Whatever happens on the court, the organizers hope the show will draw in folks who otherwise wouldn’t buy tickets to a DIY show. Williams, in particular, calls this collision of art and athletics “a dream come true.”
“I’m queer and I love music, and I also loved sports growing up,” says Williams. “A pipe dream of mine I take with me at all times is merging what some people might call a normie crowd with a more alternative crowd.”
As for his predicted winner at Mosh Madness?
“Clean sweep from Dorinda,” says Williams. “Easy.”
Mosh Madness starts at 3 p.m. on Jan. 11 at Takoma Park Presbyterian Church. ticketleap.events/tickets/630-club/mosh-madness. $15.
If you can’t make the event, you can donate directly to PCRF at pcrf.net.