Photos and Column by Brode Voigt
June 10, 2026 – Bigger stage, bigger artists, same venue.
I’m told I can be very sentimental about these types of things. I suppose I’m not surprised, as it takes a special type of dedication to shoot four hours of music after a nine-hour shift two days in a row. Every spilt beer and shared cigarette, every twisting smile through shaking arms, they’re all parts of the public’s brilliant call to arms against the pending heat.
Dog Days 2026 started with a blast of local highlights, including the return of Ratzap! (see Bizarro Catzap! #05, true believer!). When I (or we, if you want to make this a group thing) last saw Catzap, they were filling living rooms, so it feels important to mention that Ratzap’s Dog Days set packed the entrance and space surrounding Starland Yard’s Critz Auto Stage. It’s a bit like shoving your sibling into a pool to speed up their frustratingly slow indecision; except, let’s be honest, they really wanted to start swimming, and I felt like I was already in the water.
To better suit the venue upgrade, Ratzap! brought the backing support of Luke Rola, Maxwell Park and Helen Stout (drums, keys and clipboard, respectively). I’ll leave most of the praise to the last column, but just know that since the weekend, Ratzap! and their backing band have decided to record an album separate from the Catzap name.
Right as (and I’m not kidding, right as) Ratzap’s set ended, I watched droves of people flock to the headliner podium that is the Lucky One Lemonade Stage as ATL queer punk legends Upchuck led a set much better than that name implies. Upchuck has been on my radar since 2023’s Ty Segall-produced Bite the Hand That Feeds and the subsequent revisit Segall took to their debut record, but nothing could prepare me for the stage presence they commanded.
The garage sound that hooked me was mixed in a bowl so full of punk-punch, psych-soup and home cooking that I instantly felt like I was watching the rise of one of the next greats. You hear that a lot, but passion is what makes good art, and if the ferocity that passed between band members as they traded lyrics (and instruments at times) is any indicator, I think Upchuck has more than enough passion to captivate the world.
The following act also had its bones, or at least one pair of feet, rooted in Georgia. LA’s EDM-punk duo Sextile is composed of Melissa Scaduto and Brady Keehn. The latter was part of SCAD’s 2009 graduating class, the former has Keehn’s alma mater in her last name, and yet somehow Sextile had never found themselves playing a show in Savannah.
Until now, and what a show it was.
Sextile’s specific brand of garage-soaked EDM made it impossible not to get sucked into the whirlpool of performance. From smoke machines to getting water on my camera (at least I hope it was water), this was the moment that showed me just how far Kyle and the rest of the team have come since last year’s waterboarded crescendo. A rave in my backyard, with my favorite people, led by two incredibly talented musicians. Not your average Friday night, and not even the craziest act in the festival.
If last year’s Dog Days ended in a tsunami of pre-psyop avian hype, this year I found myself witness to a private earthquake.
I sprinted to the yard to catch the LA psych legends Thee Oh Sees, or Osees, or OCS (mood and tune depending). To help clarify the weight of their name appearing in our little corner of Georgia, these are the guys that brought the concept of two drummers into psych punk so hard that King Gizzard tried to copy them (at least before one of them left for a label). They are pioneers of DIY distribution, and as if that’s not already enough, do you know how prolific you have to be to be almost universally treated as the inventor of a subgenre when you change your band’s name every year and have no social media presence?
Despite a 20-minute delay spent tweaking the sound to frontman John Dwyer’s specifications, once they started, I was dragged through a hell crafted by Thompson’s Fear and Loathing and enough Dungeons & Dragons to scare your grandparents.
Dwyer, the lovable brute with his decorated axe. Tim Hellman, the druid on bass. The pitter-patter of Tomas Dolas’ wizard keys. All of course enclosed by the castle of their double-drummer machine.
The one-two march of Dan Rincon and Paul Quattrone was tectonic, over and over, sliding in and out of sync with each other like it was nothing.
Hypnotic, in a word.
It was an experience completely unlike anything from their albums, live or studio, and one that will keep me coming back for more and more. But perhaps the luckiest part of it all was the presence of fan-favorite vocalist Brigid Dawson. Brigid (the cleric of the bunch) provides a more whimsical tone to the grout slime of Dwyer’s lyrics, and Savannah was lucky enough to hear her and the band close Dog Days 2026 with a staggering 15-minute “Block of Ice” jam.
Lord knows it beat the heat.
If you gotta sweat, do it outside with beer in hand.
Long live Upchuck,
Long live Osees,
Long live Dog Days Festival,
And long live Savannah, GA.
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