A cozy expose of the best folk California has to offer, nestled in the Sierra Foothills, adjacent to the cool waters of the Stanislaus River

In early June I took the Amtrak from San Francisco to Modesto, where my best friend picked me up for a weekend of music at Knights Ferry Art and Music Festival. In its third year, the festival’s main organizers have built out the programming and accommodations into a full-fledged phantasmagoria of music, art, storytelling, beer drinking, and camping.

The setting is intimate, with a wooden stage at the base of a gently rolling hill. Vendors and musicians set up behind The 50’s Roadhouse, a restaurant and homestead that stays open during the festival and serves beer and basic cocktails out back. Attendees can buy tacos, aguas frescas, and kettle corn from food vendors among art installations in the sculpture garden and community mural tent. There’s also a Native Clay and Ceramics booth, along with massage, face painting, vintage clothes, and antiques to peruse between acts. The festival lasts three days, with camping accommodations available.

After a decade of taking the train past the refineries, glimmering delta, and hypnotic agricultural sprawl of the Central Valley to visit friends, I’ve become closely acquainted with Knights Ferry. A tiny town encompassing 100 acres and as many inhabitants, it sits beside a cold, fast river and has a campsite, three restaurants, a school, and a general store. There’s a covered bridge marking where the original ferry used to cross the Stanislaus. In the center of town stands a Gothic Revival building that houses a museum—where I once had a painting exhibit. Ulysses S. Grant’s wife was the sister of one of the original inhabitants. It’s got that kind of lore.

The hills are usually yellow, the long grasses still except on rare windy days when they billow like waves. The residents are a mix of Joshua Tree eclectic and Central California conservative, but they all get along and share stories over $3 canned beers at the local saloon, housed in a barn-red one-story building with a fenced yard. It seems an uncanny place for a music festival, but the attendees come from nearby Gold Rush towns and the Bay Area alike.

I stayed under a large tent where massage was offered for Pay What You Want. In the mornings, I woke to chickens from the homestead pecking through the grass beside my camping pad. From there, I could see the musical acts—ranging from freeform banjo-picking with deep-Mississippi-style scatting (Possessed by Paul James), to an indie rock band (Salacious Wizard Cult) with songs like “Heaven is a House Party in Modesto.” I would be remiss to not mention The Talking Ghosts, FKA Awahnichi, a 5 piece rock group out of Merced who use their indigenous ancestry for subject matter in the content of their lyrics.

At night, things moved to venues at the saloon and restaurant. We watched San Francisco band Pine Box Boys flex their decades of musical bravado over psychobilly lyrics about werewolves and illicit crimes. Trumpets blared and epic drum solos abounded. The crowd swooned for acts like Soda Gardoki, a slide guitarist with a perfect pompadour, and Willy Tea Taylor, a lovable, bearded goofball wielding an acoustic guitar and a million classic folk songs. His precocious daughter, Rita Taylor, haunted and hypnotized the crowd with lyrics that felt like they were written by someone who’d lived ten lives.

The festival also featured spoken word performances and oral histories from locals, honoring the indigenous roots of the land and memories of regular sights and hijinks from years past. Amanda Russell, a founder of the festival and one half of the Randy and Mandy Band, MC’ed to the delight of everyone, offering hilarious and off-kilter commentary throughout. (In one note from my journal, I scrawled: “Our sponsor Blackwing Pencils provided the pencils up here in the front, in the drawing area. I don’t know if anyone uses pencils anymore—I do. Really good for journaling. Sometimes I journal, sometimes I don’t because I don’t know what’s gonna come out, because it might scare me.” And: “Don’t miss tomorrow morning’s church service—it’ll follow with a performance at 9 o’clock. I have heard a beer crack in there before. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I have. I know who it was. I’m not gonna say who it was, but I do know. Anyway, here’s our final act of the evening…”)

Founders Amanda Russell, Taylar Mason, and Randy Russell have shaped the festival into both a celebration and a preservation of Knights Ferry’s cultural legacy. As Amanda Russell describes, “KFAMF is about carrying on a rich legacy of music and art in our community… acting as a catalyst for celebration and relationship in a small community setting.” She says curating the lineup is one of the festival’s most exciting aspects, especially when reaching out to artists who’ve passed through before or are connected to the local music family tree. “For such a small town, we are extremely heavy on musicians and talented artists,” she notes, with an eye toward the next generation.

Taylar Mason adds that the festival invites people to “celebrate, explore, and enjoy historic Knights Ferry’s immersive gathering—connecting with old and new friends through shared moments of inspiring music & art integration, education, and environmental appreciation.” She highlighted that the 2025 festival was 100% sponsor funded, with no money up front from venues. She and Amanda Russell personally raised $25,000, and they’re actively seeking sponsors and offering advertising opportunities to help the festival grow. As Willy Tea Taylor put it, the music in Knights Ferry runs “deep down in the water”.

Swimmers in the ice cold Stanislaus

The festival was a family friendly event with lots of happy children running around barefoot, having the time of their lives

Soda Gardoki playing at the Saloon

Brook climbing the sculpture at night

A sketch I did of FKA Awahnichi, Now the Talking Ghosts