The Wild Honey Pie Pizza Party is an event producer that merges two simple human pleasures: food and music. They work with different brands, chefs, and musicians to create a free, curated, and intimate evening—building a space for connections to be made and stripped-down music to be heard. Last week, Wild Honey teamed up with the electric-vehicle company Rivian, famed Prince Street Pizza, and artist STRFKR.
The event arrived on many people’s phones as a Partiful invitation. Since word had spread about the success of their Passion Pit event two weeks prior, the 200 or so RSVP spots filled up very quickly. Many of the friends whom I suggested come along to enjoy some free pizza and music were put on “pending” and ultimately rejected from coming to the event. However, of the 200 RSVPs, only about 130 individuals showed up. Which goes to show that if you don’t have skin in the game, it doesn’t matter how good the thing is; you may not value it or your commitment to it.
This interesting turn of events meant that there was a lot of space and extra pizza for everyone who managed to get themselves there. And it was very refreshing to be at a space with room to breathe. I had an expectation that we would be packed in shoulder-to-shoulder like a sardine in a can, but that was not the case. The host of the event flitted about the venue, offering signed posters and fresh vinyl to attendees enjoying their Detroit slices and complementary beverages.
After about an hour of mingling, STRFKR came on and performed four songs with a Cellist called yeemz. It was a gentle acoustic set with people paying respect to the artists and conversations limited to the far peripheral of the crowd. The venue was the Venice Rivian office and showroom. Trucks were sprinkled about the mini campus, shining their (albeit slightly aggressive) headlights around the campus. The crowd was friendly and sociable, and the bathroom line, long. There was a warm, large atrium library with curated books of all kinds, as well as large couches to camp out on with our slices of pizza.
STRFKR (frontman: Joshua Hodges) rose to prominence during the Tumblr era of the internet. They represent a kind of millennial alternative that fits into the chill wave of the Portlandia generation. Their accompaniment, yeemz, is a Santa Monica native and music professional who produces her own music in addition to recording strings for major studio artists like Sabrina Carpenter. The two of them on stage together created a nice bubble of sweet tunes under a gentle palm tree evening of seventy degrees Fahrenheit. The event ran from 7:00 to 9:30 PM, allowing us to keep our evening plans if our Saturday nights were to continue.
The Wild Honey Pie Pizza will be doing a tour-de-force of intimate food/music gatherings across the united states many of the Rivian locations. The next event will take place in Denver on April 18th with Elephant Revival. And while they haven’t announced beyond that, if you live in Austin, Chicago, Dallas, New York, or San Francisco, feel free to sign up for the newsletter here for when that pizza party is coming to your town.
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