Charting the Meteoric Rise of Sacramento’s LAUNCH Festival

When the Canadian duo Chromeo unleashed their brand of electronica-imbued funk on the masses at Cesar Chavez Plaza last year, it was like a shockwave of electrofunk energy surged through the crowd, sending thousands into a music-induced trance as the hoard heaved in time with the synth-laden beats.

It was at that moment that Sacramento’s LAUNCH Music Festival appeared poised to join the music festival glitterati. And now, after five years on the summer music festival circuit, the little festival that could appears ready to take on the mainstream.

“The basic ethos [of LAUNCH] is celebrating the overlaps of art, architecture, fashion, music—music really being the backdrop of it all—and celebrating the creative culture,” says LAUNCH founder Michael Hargis. “And really, since we’ve grown into this, it’s really about creating a culture that keeps the local creators here in Sacramento.”

Hargis says LAUNCH was born out of a passion for all things creative and a commitment to expanding the reach of the Sacramento brand. Through his experience as an architect and fascination with the entirety of the local creative culture, Hargis’ “Why not here?” mentality is what inspired him to bring a little bit of the Coachella magic, a source of his inspiration for LAUNCH, back to Sacramento.

With major buzz surrounding the event, LAUNCH has also become a major talent magnet, bringing in acts that are blowing up on the national and international scene. Case in point: this year, Hargis is flying in Van She from Australia to complement this year’s already stellar lineup, which includes indie-rock powerhouse Imagine Dragons..

“This year…bands started coming to us,” says Greg Patterson, one of the LAUNCH partners and co-founder of the ticketing and concert logistics company Ground(ctrl). “So, Blonde Redhead is a prime example of where, it’s a band that I wouldn’t even have thought that we could have gotten, but their agent reached out to us.”

“This is the top agent, the owner of The Windish Agency, which is one of the biggest independent booking agencies,” Hargis adds. “He’s the owner and the personal contact for that band, [and he] reached out to us, and that’s kind of a big deal.”

In just five short years, LAUNCH has grown from a single-day event exhibiting the talents of local creative types to a few hundred attendees, to a multi-day, multi-venue collaboration of local and international artists exposing their talents to a few thousand voracious music, art, fashion and design enthusiasts. Proving that last year’s surging crowds wasn’t a fluke, Patterson says this year’s event is on track to sell as many tickets as it did last year. And with a budget in the high six-figures, you know this year’s event is going to bring it.

Riding the wave of success from 2012’s behemoth of an event, after which the festival was nominated for a 2012 V.I.B.E. (Visionary Innovators in Building Excellence) award by the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, the worlds of music, design and fashion blasts off again on Sept. 4. And its partners are convinced that this year’s festival will prove that Sacramento can hang with the festival big boys.

With the meteoric rise of the festival, Hargis realized that in order to really pull off an event that could top last year’s spectacle, a team of local producers, booking agents and technicians had to be employed. This year, Transmission Events is managing the fencing and some of the other logistics once managed by Hargis and crew. Eric Rushing, owner of Ace of Spades, took on the role of booking the bands. Rushing says the process of developing the lineup was like assembling a dream list of acts.

“We basically sat on a committee and kind of put together a bunch of acts that we’d like to see,” Rushing explains. “LAUNCH has a certain demographic and art about it that Michael really wants to bring across, so it started as more of an electronic and art festival and it’s kind of evolved a little bit, but [we’re] still keeping a lot of the creativity of the festival intact now that there are a lot more partners involved in the festival.”

Local multi-media company Ground(ctrl) also proved to be a major asset to the LAUNCH team, handling some of the other logistical details like ticket sales, website design and helping the LAUNCH team realize their staggering vision to transform the park into something that would top last year’s staging.

“You’re not going to believe you’re in Cesar Chavez Park,” says Patterson. “You’re not going to believe what you’re going to witness. It is going to be freaking incredible.”

From its humble beginnings, including a heavy personal investment from its founders—yes, even Hargis had to dip into his 401(k) to make it all happen—this year’s party in the park promises to deliver big.

“I feel like, from my perspective, it grew from a very organic, really small arts and fashion and music festival into a multi-day, multi-location festival,” Rushing says. “We have the MARRS location with the kick off on Wednesday, Thursday night we have a pre-party at Ace of Spades, Friday night we have the fashion show and then Saturday and Sunday we have the big blowout as well, and we have after-parties planned. It’s one of the biggest things Sacramento has ever seen when it comes to music in the inner city.”

So, if you think that you have to caravan down to the dust bowl that is Coachella or jet out to Austin for South by Southwest to see some of the best music acts to hit the scene, then think again, and prepare to unpack your bags, because LAUNCH is about to jump off, again.

2009

• In 2009, the inaugural Launch event featured local music heavyweights Sister Crayon, electronica maestro Tycho, family trio Dusty Brown, DJ Mike Diamond and Must.Not.Die.

• A contingent of out-of-town bands ripped through the Green Hotel enclave, including L.A. Riots, Wallpaper and Dances With White Girls.

• Set up like an interactive wonderland, the Greens was transformed into a three-stage, mid-century modern homage to Sacramento’s vibrant artistic community. The main stage, poolside deejay station and electro lounge provided booty-bumping grooves while the hotel rooms served as vignettes for vendors and artists to showcase their wares and talents. Adam Saake also helped plan
the event.

2010

• The fashion set included designs by several local design mavens, including Adrienne Cheng’s Reject Clothing line and the futuristic designs of Van Der Neer, Velvet Leaf and Artifacts.

• Invigorated by the success of Launch’s first year on the scene, Hargis set up shop at The Artisan Building, a premier, multi-use facility in Del Paso Heights.

• Live musical performances from visiting artists included a deejay set by The Faint’s alter ego, Depressed Buttons, out of Omaha, Neb.; Woodhands, an outfit out of Toronto specializing in ambient electro-pop tunes; Oakland’s HOTtub; and Los Angeles’ RESA.

• Bands representing Sacramento included The Generals; New Humans; Shaun Slaughter’s project, D.A.M.B.; Sea of Bees; DoomBird and Exquisite Corps.

• DJ sets throughout the night featured the turntable prowess of Jon Droll, Mike Diamond, Sex and Weight, DJ Whores and John Michael Michaels.

2011

• The runway oozed with styles from Krazy Mary’s boutique, R. Douglas Custom Clothiers, Van Der Neer, Fringe and YSJ Vintage.

• The spacious venue also provided ample gallery space to a slew of local and not-so-local artists, photographers, stylists and furniture designers, including Los Angeles-based illustrator, painter and digital artist Brady Tuazon, who also plays in the band RESA; Seattle’s John Horton and Joel Lee; ISO50’s Scott Hansen, aka Tycho; and Sacramento artist Alexa Wolfe.

• Completing the artistic circle, furniture designers David Tracy of Lego, Steve Hamm of Urban Design, Mike Whisten of 12mm Design, Marvin Maldonado of Inform Design, Scott Tiesing of Tiesing Design and Brian Fuller of Brian Fuller Design converged on the scene to display their creations.

• After Neon Indian unexpectedly bowed out of the 2011 Launch lineup, an unfettered Hargis forged on without ruffling a hair on his perfectly coiffed head and invited the reverb-laden Ganglians to join the bill when the festival returned to the Greens Hotel, billed as “Back to the Hotel.” At this point, local promoter Clay Nutting stepped in to help Hargis, and has contributed to the festival ever since.

• Music was front and center when Juli Lydell of the Dreaded Diamond opened the annual fete. The robust cast of musicians also included Chain Gang of 1974 (fresh from Lollapalooza), Sister Crayon, Who Cares, Little Foxes, Exquisite Corps, Favors, Evrika, Sam I Jam, Adam J and Taylor Cho.

• Swimming-pool shenanigans cooled down party-revelers and bathing beauties chilled out poolside while soaking in DJ sets by Mike Diamond, My Cousin Vinny and Jon Droll.

• Local vintage virtuosos Citizen Rosebud and Fringe boutique joined furniture designers Reclamation Art + Furniture and Tiesing Design.

2012

• In its fourth year, the Launch organizers unleashed a fury of events on the Sacramento scene by busting out the heavy guns and showcasing a selected discipline at different locations throughout the grid, concluding with an all-day music festival for its 2012 extravaganza.

• One of the festival’s highlights included a raucous performance by King Tuff at Harlow’s, with equally engaging performances by rockers Jaill and the Coathangers.

• The festival kicked off at Hot Italian with a pop-up shop by Model Citizens NYC, an independent collection of furniture and industrial designers. The crew over at Bows and Arrows then commandeered the reins with a screening of three independent silent films with original scores performed by live musicians.

• The ultimate block party at the MARRS building block erupted as Exquisite Corps set the corridor on fire with a free album-release party. Local architectural group SacDigiFab, longtime partners and collaborators with the Launch squad, created interactive installations constructed out of recycled cardboard that littered the street. The brew team at Ruhstaller was also on hand.

• The festival’s finale, at its new home in Cesar Chavez Plaza, brought the crowd of nearly 6,000 to its collective feet as Chromeo, Grouplove, Chk Chk Chk (!!!), DJ Shadow and others performed throughout the day.

LAUNCH kicks off Sept. 4, 2013 with LAUNCH X MARRS, a free block party at 20th Street between J and K, and features a kickass event every day of the week (LAUNCH X Party Sept. 5, LAUNCH X Fashion Sept. 6) before culminating in LAUNCH x Music at Cesar Chavez Plaza Sept. 7 and 8. All events are all-ages. For tickets, the full lineup and more info, visit LAUNCHsacramento.com.

The New Humans’ Avalanche Drops, Finally
Words by Vincent Girimonte | Photo by Raoul Ortega

Don’t broach the time before The New Humans with The New Humans; it’s akin to rehashing a saga and you’ve missed the first couple of installments where some real heavy shit went down. Sitting in front of Temple Coffee on 10th, that savory little nook of downtown Sacramento that feels like a downtown, Cole Cuchna and “new” singer Scott Simpson gingerly sidestep their previous selves as if they were officers in some cult; Simpson speaks briefly on his days with Sacramento rock outfit Still Life Projector while Cuchna is less forthcoming.

“I’m going to drop [Cuchna] out right now too–Cole was in a band called Red Top Road that was kind of big around the same time,” says Simpson. Once you’ve jumped from the ‘burbs, all that noise must be like Calvin Klein to Mark Wahlberg.

But nobody likes the then, especially when the now has finally shown up. The New Humans release their first EP, Avalanche, Aug. 21 with a Korg shakedown of sorts at The Townhouse, supported by Dusty Brown side project Little Foxes and those plucky FAVORS kids making their live debut. And yes, this is The New Humans’ first EP, which is no doubt a little surprising given the all the buzz The New Humans have created over the past few years, playing as an instrumental band nonetheless.

“It was never planned,” says Cuchna of the band’s instrumental phase. “We always thought the songs sounded incomplete. It was never really what we wanted to do.” Simpson took over the vocals after an arduous search for that elusive frontman, futile as they often seem to be. “We got tired of it. Trying out a bunch of people, no one was really going to grasp what we were going for besides one of us,” Simpson admits, though the group maintains that perhaps it was for the better.

The New Humans were conceived on a laptop, initially with a fairly direct “screw the guitar” mentality stemming from their previous ventures. Simpson and Cuchna, childhood friends from their days growing up in Elk Grove, wrote dozens of songs before picking up bassist Robert LaCasse and later adding current drummer, Mike Steez.

“When we started we were a lot more excited about it. I almost forget about it now,” recalls Cuchna. “Our intention was never to be like, ‘Oh check out this band, they don’t have guitars.’ I guess that would be one cool thing about us now.”

No guitars in today’s Midtown doesn’t turn any heads. It’s not uncommon to see a show with the MPC 1000 or something of the like running things on the floor, people kneeling over it awkwardly like some Ouija board. The New Humans occupy a very different side of this trend, though. Sugary, glam-y, coked-out even; it’s glitzy–not janky–in the way K Street is trying to be. “Fever” is the punchy single that predates the EP by what seems like eons, but it’s “All the Kids,” the EP’s opener, that does well to outline the album’s general framework: catchy synth melodies, live drums with percussion loops on top and a piano underneath trying to tether it all down.

“[Not having guitars] lets in the stylistic, bluesy or jazzy undertones–there’s a song on the EP with a Latin-y undertone. It lets all that color come through,” says Simpson, the pipes of this sassy “disco generation.” Some opening falsettos belie his trepidation over taking the lead vocals, and I wasn’t the first to mention that his inner diva was beginning to surface.

“I feel like every show we play, it’s coming out a little more, and in another year I’ll be a complete fucking monster.”

If there’s a sense of relief following the completion of any project, The New Humans are the divorcee who finds love again after Dad packs up and leaves. Six months were spent recording in a Sacramento studio (names are omitted per band’s request), and though both parties remain cordial, those six months were scrapped due to artistic disputes and “fake promises.”

“He wanted to produce it, so we were like, ‘OK, produce it,’ not knowing how far the producing would go,” Simpson says. “It’s a lot of trust to put in someone when you’ve never heard anything they’ve produced before. I don’t trust anybody with my band that way, unless maybe you like, produce fucking Radiohead.”

Cuchna adds, “I think that it was probably our fault for not really setting ground rules.”

Cuchna cites differences in process rather than the actual material being recorded; Simpson recollects on an uncomfortable foray into “L.A. bullshit,” where the band was allegedly being pushed into a deal with a sheisty label.

“It was a commercialized process, which could work for us, but it was an over-commercialized process,” says Simpson. “All the bands, they were trying to get them on The Hills, shit like that.”

The group self-produced with some guidance from Ira Skinner, using his studio space essentially for their own devices–“[Skinner] put in advice where we needed it and where we asked for it,” says Simpson. The New Humans purport to be in the “electric piano rock” vein, and though we can’t derive too much from that, the production doesn’t always speak to the band’s live panache–some tracks lack articulation, components grind together, coming up a little short in the “pop” factor that one generally demands with any electronic project under the umbrella of “dance-y.” But it’s their first production, more of a “demo” according to Cuchna, and he stresses the fact that they were past due on getting the EP released.

“That’s my only thing with the EP–it’s kind of all over the place…not all over the place, but we’re kind of treating it more as a demo,” he says. “At this point, we just needed to get the songs out.”

A mini-tour is planned for the fall, hopefully with a label supporting it. At this point the band is eager to get the EP “in the hands of the right people,” whomever they might be. Suffice it to say they’re in no particular hurry.