Hard Summer 2011 announced for downtown L.A.: Odd Future, Duck Sauce, DFA tent, more -- and a much later curfew
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Now that you’ve perfected your dance moves at Coachella and, presumably, have awakened from the post-weekend crash, time to start thinking about summer in Southern California and all that it portends: Hollywood Bowl season, Lightning in a Bottle, Santa Monica Pier concerts, outdoor musical joy at the Greek, nights on the Standard rooftop, and dance parties galore.
Add one more to that list: Hard Events has just announced the line-up for Hard Summer, its annual dance fete.
The headliners for this year’s event, which will again take place at the Los Angeles State Historic Park in downtown Los Angeles, include Duck Sauce (the dynamic duo of Armand van Helden and A-Trak responsible for the wonderfully silly ‘Barbra Streisand’), German fuzz-tech producers Boys Noize, dueling-guitar instrumentalists Ratatat and, most important for many Angelenos, hip-hop collective Odd Future, who are riding high through a memorable spring but seeking to recover from a relatively disappointing Coachella turn this past weekend.
The L.A. dance-music community this season is seeking to recover too -- from last year’s bummer summer in which the massive Electric Daisy Carnival drew massive attention for its ill-fated rave at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, in which a teenage girl died after attending the festival and YouTube clips depicted scenes of general chaos on the field. In the aftermath, The Times reported that a Coliseum administrator who helped plan security and emergency medical services for EDC 2010 also worked as a paid consultant to the company.
Hard Summer got caught up in the blowback from the incidents even though it is unaffiliated with Electric Daisy Carnival and, as a result, faced increased scrutiny for its two planned events at the State Historic Park in the months following. Ultimately, Hard Events owner Gary Richards canceled one due to a combination of poor ticket sales and projected extra security costs.
But the single-day event Hard Summer went off without a hitch, and attendees, though not nearly as many as at Electric Daisy, proved that a well-planned, secure electronic music concert can succeed on public property in the same way that a country, rock, banda or jazz festival can.
Also scheduled on the August 6 bill are Digitalism, Busy Pictionary (Busy P of Ed Banger and artist/producer So-Me), Gaslamp Killer, Acid Jacks and Karlsson & Winnberg of Miike Snow and others. As well, an entire tent will be turned over to James Murphy, formerly (sniff) of LCD Soundsystem and his DJ partner, Pat Mahoney. Dubbed the DFA Tent, the dance moves you uncovered at Coachella will no doubt find new life within their grooves.
The event, which ended at midnight last year, has been granted two extra hours at the end of the evening; the party is now set to run until 2 a.m.
RELATED:
Hard Summer concert in downtown L.A. on Saturday: The safest place on Earth?
Giant rave will not return to L.A. Memorial Coliseum this year, official says
-- Randall Roberts
