Desert Daze founder looks back on then-Desert Hot Springs event ahead of 10th anniversary
Dillon’s Burgers and Beers in Desert Hot Springs has been in business for 75 years. Its exterior has rustic and roadhouse charm, but it doesn’t hold the same prestige, alluring setting, hearty menu or music history of Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown.
However, over 11 days in 2012, the restaurant and bar hosted the humble beginnings for a prominent southern California music festival known as Desert Daze and its promoter, Phil Pirrone. The cost to attend the inaugural event, which featured 122 bands, was a suggested $5 donation.
At the same time the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was drawing thousands of people to Indio over two weekends to see headliners Black Keys, Radiohead and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, Desert Daze featured bands such as Dengue Fever, Dead Meadow and Akron/Family. The lineup also included the local bands Waxy, Slipping Into Darkness and War Drum.
In celebration of its 10th anniversary, this year's lineup features headliners Tame Impala, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and rock icon Iggy Pop. Other notable acts such as Chicano Batman, Perfume Genius, Sleaford Mods and BADBADNOTGOOD will also perform. The festival runs Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 at the Lake Perris State Recreation Area in Perris.
Pirrone, the frontman of the psychedelic rock band JJUUJJUU, lived in Pomona and built a reputation for throwing block parties featuring rock 'n' roll bands under his Moon Block Party moniker. He met his wife and Deap Vally drummer, Julie Edwards Pirrone, during a show at Pappy and Harriet's, and they started working on the first Desert Dazeshortly after becoming a couple.
"The whole thing that we do is just an extension of many years of playing music with our friends and then finding places and environments where it sounds fun to do a show like a block party outside, or in the desert after being changed by the desert in many ways," Pirrone said.
Jameson Walker, the current owner of Dillon's Burgers and Beer, declined to comment on this story.
According to previous reporting in 2012 by The Desert Sun, former owner John Nielsen brought in Pirrone and Moon Block Party to put on an event during the weekends of Coachella as an alternative to the corporate-backed parties that happen during the festival.
"My knee-jerk reaction was 'That sounds like a lot of back and forth, let's just do 11 days,'" Pirrone said. "(Dillon's) said yes and I didn't really think it through. I was just trying to limit my back and forth and I didn't understand what I was signing up for."
Nielsen put up $40,000 to host the event and said he hoped to break even on liquor sales.
"I'm doing it because it's a game changer," Nielsen told The Desert Sun in 2012.
The city had concerns during the permitting process
The City of Desert Hot Springs and former city manager Rick Daniels initially fought to prevent Dillon's Burgers and Beer from featuring live music outdoors behind the building.
Mayor Scott Matas, who was a city councilmember at the time, remembered the proposal to bring a large festival to a small space.
"There were a lot of concerns in the permitting process, but I think (Desert Daze) figured out what they were going to do. I know they weren't seeing eye-to-eye with the city at the time," Matas said.
When the festival was eventually given the OK by the city, Nielsen said "I'm as blown away as I've ever been that the city did this, but they did."
Promoters also made arrangements to buy out 40 rooms at a Desert Hot Springs hotel for 11 nights for the bands and passholders. On the first day when bands and festivalgoers began to check in, they found less-than-hospitable accommodations.
"The hotel shut down a coconut vendor that was set up by the pool and were busting into people's rooms like 'Why are you in this room?'" Pirrone said. "Every time they found me or Julie, they'd be like 'We need to talk to you.' It was a nightmare. It took every ounce of energy to pull off those 11 shows and then we had to deal with putting out fires at the hotel all the time. We must be bionic, addicted to stress or both."
Former city manager Rick Daniels, who tried to start a health and wellness-themed music festival at Mission Springs Park in Desert Hot Springs in 2010 — with $250,000 of the city's seed money — told The Desert Sun in 2012 he hoped Dillon's continued to present more live music for Desert Hot Springs.
Nielsen was also optimistic and hoped to present more "Coachella-worthy music" on a regular basis.
'Filled with talented people'
Robbie Waldman of Waxy, who also played bass in War Drum at the time, was excited to perform at the inaugural Desert Daze after playing one of Pirrone's events in Pomona. Waldman described the efforts of bringing a festival to Desert Hot Springs as "magical."
"(The festival) was filled with talented people," Waldman said. "I had two different days playing there with Waxy and then War Drum, then I'd go back to see other bands with different friends each night. But even today, it doesn't seem possible to wrangle up 15, 20 or 40 bands for a wonderful event. Phil was able to do that, and it was great."
Nigel Dettelbach of Slipping Into Darkness said it's hard to believe the first Desert Daze was a decade ago. He described the 11-day lineup as "insane."
"I remember it being such a unique and special situation having so many bands perform nonstop," Dettelbach said. "We’re talking about 122 bands in 11 days. I recall popping in and out of Dillon's every day and there was always something going on. The music never stopped. I don’t think there’s been anything like it since."
According to Pirrone, some days were better attended than others. He remembers the mid-week being particularly difficult and underattended.
"There were maybe five people that went to every single show," Pirrone said. "Those midweek shows where it was seven people, and with those five people it was like "Wow, you guys are legit.' We knew their names by Wednesday."
Pirrone said some of his favorite performances from those 11 days were by Akron/Family, Dead Meadow and Dengue Fever, the latter of which played during a windstorm.
"That was hair blowing in the wind and everything. It was such a raw, pure, exciting and ignorant time," Pirrone said.
In 2013, Desert Daze returned, but at the Sunset Ranch Oasis in Mecca. The festival wanted to offer more extensive camping accommodations and grow its production. When the promoters visited the site, Pirrone said he was "excited," but knew the event would have to be built from the ground up.
Matas was unaware the festival continued in subsequent years and has been produced on a larger scale at Lake Perris.
"I think we always thought some sort of music festival would do well in Desert Hot Springs," Matas said. "I think that says it all from the promoter, trying to find a big enough piece of property and enough amenities. It's always the challenge you have and the challenge for Desert Hot Springs has always been trying to figure that out."
As the festival evolved in Mecca, it moved again in 2016 to the Institute of Mentalphysics in Joshua Tree before settling an hour away from Palm Springs at the Lake Perris State Recreation Area in 2018.
'It's such a massive place'
Lake Perris is an ideal site for a music festival. There's a beach, recreation areas, paved parking lots, boating, hiking and more. The setting also provides a more laid-back atmosphere among attendees compared to other festivals.
"It's such a massive place," Pirrone said. "I don't think people who have never been to Lake Perris understand that when you're there, you have no sense of what's outside of it. You're walled in by this 360 degrees of mountains and the lake. It's also very functional. The people who manage it are awesome and we love working with them."
On opening day in 2018, Australian rock band Tame Impala pulled the plug on their headlining set and attendees had to evacuate the site because of a storm. “After 2018, I don’t think I’ll go a day of my life not being concerned about the weather," Pirrone said in 2021. The festival was threatened in 2019 by gusty Santa Ana winds, dry conditions and a heightened fire risk, but everything went according to plan without incident.
Throughout the festival's history, several performers have tossed aside their regular setlists and opted to play their most prolific or well-known albums in their entirety.
In 2019, the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan performed its 1993 album "Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)," The Flaming Lips delivered a colorful and hypnotic set of "The Soft Bulletin" from start to finish and the rock band Ween played through its 1994 album "Chocolate and Cheese."
"I just love album plays and they make me excited" Pirrone said. "At the end of the day, I'm just trying to book my dream show and I love sharing that with people. If there's anyone out there who says 'Oh, this lineup is so good!' I'm like "Oh, I totally agree. This is my dream show, you should come to this.'"
As the festival schedules for each day are being made, Pirrone likes to find moments where something in the lineup speaks to something else. One instance was in 2019 when the metal band Witch, featuring J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. and King Tuff, performed and was followed by the Zambian group W.I.T.C.H. (We Intend To Cause Havoc) on the same stage.
"We don't necessarily plan for stuff like that to happen, but we don't [go] out of our way to avoid it. It's like, 'Wait, let's do that!' That's not the first and only time we've done something like that or when something in the lineup says something to another band. We booked it for that reason and we liked it. It'll be little jokes here and there."
Desert Daze isn't the only beach festival in Southern California. The Santa Cruz Boardwalk hosts concerts from June to August, and Doheny State Beach in Dana Point is hosting the Ohana Festival the same weekend as Desert Daze with acts such as Stevie Nicks, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, White Stripes frontman Jack White and more.
Pirrone chuckled reminiscing about a 2019 afternoon performance by the punk band Parquet Courts while festivalgoers watched on from floaties on the lake and said "it doesn't feel like a festival, and that's what we've always gone for."
"It's like you're on vacation and I don't even know how else to describe it," Pirrone said. "Once you're in, settled and walking on that beach throughout the art installations or whatever. You could be floating in the lake on a floaty watching this year's version of Parquet Courts, Mariachi Reyna De Los Angeles. That's going to be a vacation in your mind and it will be beautiful."
If you go
What: Desert Daze 2022
When: Sept. 30-Oct. 2
Where: Lake Perris State Recreation Area, 17-801 Lake Perris Drive, Perris
Cost: From $139 (single-day passes and weekend passes available)
More info: www.desertdaze.org
A previous version of this article stated there was camping on site at Dillon's Burgers and Beers during the 2012 festival. Pirrone clarified to The Desert Sun there was no camping offered on site.
Brian Blueskye covers arts and entertainment for the Desert Sun. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @bblueskye.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Desert Daze founder looks back ahead of music festival's 10th year
