Off the hook and the cuff

Teens smoked outside on a warm night as a wave of surf-pop rock leaked from an Oak Park living room.

Heads bobbed to melancholy dadwave. Alexander L’Chaise of The Bottom Feeders sang about lost love.

“Who else is getting sweaty?” L’Chaise said. “Who wants to get sweatier?”

Katherine Palacios, a 20-year-old Sacramentan, was there to support her friends, but she also had a festival to promote.

The Bottom Feeders took SN&R’s Sammies award for indie in June. They’ll be joined by 11 other bands in Palacios’ new, homegrown art and music festival on Saturday at the Latino Center of Art and Culture. It features a hefty lineup of visual artists and musicians from Sacramento: “mutoid body slime” from Vandalaze, soothing electronic ballads by Vida Solstice and avant-garde pop by local favorites Pregnant, among others.

Palacios began organizing Daydream Festival to create a day of local music at an affordable price.

“It was just supposed to be a festival for friends at first,” Palacios said at the house show. “But everyone who played music I knew was interested.”

Palacios tried to organize a house show in May, but her roommates weren’t into it. She thought of making it into a festival on her own, but The Red Museum was too expensive. So she put out the call on Facebook: Does anyone want to go to or play a festival?

A community of creators volunteered sets, art, zines and outfits. Organizers at the Latino Center of Art and Culture wanted to host more events, and Palacios picked the venue as a place where artists of color would feel comfortable. Queer, nonbinary, multiethnic participants agreed to play. Visual artists and bands liked that the festival put the music first.

“We have locals and local favorites with strong connections,” Palacios said. In contrast to Concerts in the Park, her festival wouldn’t focus on blowing up or attracting visitors from outside of Sacramento.

Palacios works by day at a multicultural counseling support center. To her, it was important to make the show accessible to all ages and people. Many pitched in: The venue discounted rent; artists will split sales; TUBE. Magazine is sponsoring the event; Palacios’ friend Sam Fields built a website; and the Library of MusicLandria is loaning an entire sound system for free.

MusicLandria rents instruments as if they were library books, so co-founder Buddy Hale said this collaboration makes sense.

“Creative expression shouldn’t be limited to people who can buy what they need—in fact, it should be the opposite,” Hale said.

What’s more, Palacios and Fields founded a booking agency, Peach House Presents, to keep promoting musicians around the city.

A few days before the show, Palacios posted: What about a zine festival?

“I’m going to keep throwing [festivals] for however long Sacramento lets me,” she said.