Oakland, CA was having a bit of a moment several days ago. In her convention speech, Kamala Harris, now tasked with saving our flawed little experiment in representative democracy, deliberately avoided mention of Berkeley, where she grew up, or San Francisco, where she developed her political chops. Those cities are too radical dontcha know and might scare the viewers! Instead, Vice-President Harris placed her roots firmly in Oakland, a red-headed stepchild of a city not used to being favored for any reason over its more glamorous sister across the bay. Oakland is, in fact, a great town, plagued by a number of severe problems none of which is the lack of a homegrown music scene. Last week also saw the release of Mucho Mistrust, the second album by Oakland band Fake Fruit. I can be forgiven for thinking the East Bay is in ascendancy and will save the world.
Add Fake Fruit to the glorious abundance of current bands (Mannequin Pussy, Amyl and the Sniffers, SPRINTS, Pom
Poko, Destroy Boys, the list goes on) with a charismatic frontwoman. Hannah “Ham” D’Amato is brash. She’s funny. She’s completely over your shit. She also has an A+ punk superhero origin story, declining admission to prestigious Berklee School of Music because one of the audition panel (a man, of course) hacked her off by turning down her amp. She returned to California to shred with impunity.
Fake Fruit’s debut was in my top 5 of 2021 and got some significant traction, landing the band opening slots for Wet Leg and Dry Cleaning in the States. Fake Fruit is actually better than either of those bands, because D’Amato brings a flash of Deborah Harry or Chrissie Hynde that they lack. And, she reminds me more of D. Boon than anyone else, especially in delivery of the album’s opening line, ‘Who taught you to behave this way?’
The opening song on Mucho Mistrust (that phrase itself a nod to Blondie) shows that the band is steeped in punk Americana. It begins by borrowing the deranged riff from Devo’s ‘Too Much Paranoia’ and then transitions into what sounds like a lost Minutemen song. A good lost Minutemen song. That is about the highest praise in my music vocabulary. Then it kicks into the title track which is now competing with Girl Scout’s ‘I Just Needed You to Know’ for fist-pumping, head tossing song of the year.
The third song, ‘Gotta Meet You’ changes gear into a tune that is ska-adjacent or perhaps even skanking across an easement on ska’s property. If Fake Fruit ever covers Operation Ivy, my head might explode. ‘Psycho’ follows, starting by sounding like a Primus tribute (my East Bay radar may be turned up too high at this point) and then switches mid-song into a traditional punk rager.
D’Amato’s lyrics tell a story of the perils of being a young woman, but with wit and defiance and little, if any, self-pity. ‘That love was so stale/Chipped a tooth on it.’ (‘Mucho Mistrust’). ‘I hope you had a good time/On your sympathy tour/I hope you found everything/That you were looking for” on the scorching ‘Mas O Menos’.
‘Was I moth-to-lighted/Or life-long indicted/Whatever it was wasn’t requited.” That is the sort of spare but hefty and clever writing D’Amato shows off throughout, this on the ‘80’s indie sounding rocker “Cause of Death” that turns up the emotion finishing with a half tempo of sound.
Fake Fruit is the real deal. Long live Oakland and its music.
Words by Rick Larson
Picky Bastards 
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