Cowpunk, community, & queerness at Burning Ma’aM music festival

Photos by Hannah Almon Matangos

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Over Memorial Day weekend, a field in rural Central Pennsylvania was turned into a honkytonk meets mosh pit during Burning Ma’aM‍, a 501(c)3 nonprofit music festival organized by local band Ma’aM.

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How to describe Ma’aM the band? As a local I’ve seen them numerous times, but fail to find just one word or genre to encapsulate their spirit. Known for their unique sound, which they’ve termed “country junk,” Ma’aM has released two LPs with Nudie Records, Rules 2 Ramblin (2023) and Out the Window (2025) - the latter of which was just featured on Bandcamp’s best country roundup of May 2025. The seven-piece band, complete with guitar, bass, drums, horn, harmonica, banjos, & sometimes keys, slings songs in which alternative country meets garage rock meets punk meets folk. Take a listen - “No Cadillac” is a personal favorite.

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Burning Ma’aM began in May 2021 as a humble party at a local rock quarry. Through the efforts of the band, locals, and volunteers, it has since grown into a weekend-long gathering with camping, art, vintage wares, food & beverage vendors, a ceremonial bonfire, and a genre-bending musical lineup of alt country, alt folk, punk, metal, zydeco, and good old-fashioned rock & roll.

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Since 2021, the audience has also grown fivefold, with folks traveling from across the country, urban and rural, to both perform onstage and experience the festival. Burning Ma’aM is now held each summer at Winkleblech Fields in Woodward, PA (home of Woodward Camp), which is located about 30 miles outside of State College, PA (home of Penn State University) and nestled among the forests and hills of Penns Valley and the Allegheny Mountains, a northern range of the Appalachian Mountains.

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The festival officially became a 501(c)3 nonprofit in 2024 and has started giving back by fundraising for local causes. This year, proceeds from Burning Ma’aM benefited fellow local nonprofit Centre LGBT+, which provides resources and support for LGBTQ+ folks in our rural PA community - which is especially important as Penn State Health and UPMC, major healthcare providers in the area, have begun to deny gender affirming care for trans youth under 19 years of age.

Contrasting with last year’s festival that saw lots of sun and temperatures in the high 90s, Burning Ma’aM 2025 took place amid near constant rain and temperatures in the 40s - though folks still turned out in head to toe in leather, cowboy hats, boots, and blankets to camp the whole weekend and raucously enjoy every band.

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At one point just before sunset on Friday, the rain clouds parted and everyone celebrated as a rainbow appeared overhead. This felt especially fitting considering the Centre LGBT+ benefit, but moreso because the festival - and the Ma’aM scene in general - has become a rare and vital space for intergenerational country punks and queerness in rural PA. Last year, a couple from featured band Mandy Valentine even got engaged on stage in the festival finale.

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Burning Ma’aM is also rooted in the culture and creativity of the region, drawing from Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs for on-site art installations, plus musical nods to the rich folk traditions of northern Appalachia. Even the festival’s tongue-in-cheek social media strategy shows Amish buggies making their way between the fields near the festival grounds.

Music has a strong presence throughout Central PA, with singer-songwriters, bands of every genre, festivals, and old-time jams dotting the valleys - and with many artists (including Ma’aM) hitting the studio at nearby Millheim’s 145 Recording, where Ma’aM even shared the stage with The Replacements’ Tommy Stinson late last year.

Ma’aM’s brand of cowpunk feels like an emergent social form for my generation and Gen Z - a continuation & resurgence of the alt country/insurgent country scene of the 80s-90s as we came of age during an increased politicization & polarization of the perceived rural-urban divide - and when being a rurally-based country artist comes with it a host of stereotypes and misconceptions.

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Countering these misconceptions comes a myriad of “y’allternative” folks - including Southern leftists & rural members of the LGBTQ+ community - reclaiming the genre and rural identity on TikTok and elsewhere. I’m especially reminded of Clover-Lynn, the trans Goth banjoist known under the screen name “Hillbilly Gothic,” who left the tech industry out West and returned to her hometown in rural Appalachian Virginia, drawn back by the music and creating to “[reconcile] disparate elements of her identity” as explained in this article by G. Samantha Rosenthal for them.

Throughout Burning Ma’aM 2025, this generational reclamation was pervasive, as was the vibe of Ma’aM’s Out the Window title track: cowboys on the cusp of apocalypse, amid a society falling to corporate greed, fascism, and environmental collapse. This vibe was quintessentially captured in Ma’aM’s final number before an encore, in which they closed the festival with a haunting cover of David Bowie’s “Five Years,” with lead singer Araelia “Rose” Lopatic’s impassioned vocals sonifying a plea for care, community, and compassion - a call woven throughout the weekend’s multigenre sets by bands from across the country.

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Burning Ma’aM closes out with a ceremonial bonfire each year - and of course, an afterparty that keeps the tunes coming, this year featuring dancing to zydeco under a chicken-shaped disco ball. I’m excited to see how this festival continues to grow, show off, and deepen the wildly talented & welcoming community of our valley in rural PA.

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You can donate to Burning Ma’aM, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, at burningmaam.live. Be first in the know about 2026 dates by signing up for the festival’s mailing list and following on social media.

Check out all the bands in this year’s lineup: Ma’aM (Rebersburg, PA), Old Lady (New Jersey), Daddy Long Legs (NYC), Phil Spector’s Gun (Philadelphia, PA), Giovanni Orsini (Pittsburgh, PA), The Pink Stones (Athens, GA), Nathan Xander (NYC), The Wild Shoats (Morgantown, WV/Millheim, PA), Caledonia (Lemont, PA), The Out-Sect (Philadelphia, PA), The Abyssmals (Schenectady, NY), Mandy Valentine (Philadelphia, PA), Van Vreeland (NYC), Dusty the Kid (Montana), Bad Vacation (Brooklyn, NY), Red McAdam (Austin, TX), Mary Shelley (Brooklyn, NY), Underground River (Johnson City, NY), Heavy Bone and the Good Time Zydeco Band (Ithaca, NY), Nordista Freeze (Nashville, TN)

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