LAT34.COM
Published June 15, 2009

Quite a few skaters took part in the Eco friendly activities but in a different fashion. As a part of Santa Rosa, California’s 31st Annual Harmony Festival over the weekend, 2009’s first-ever Eco Cup captivated a colorful and crunchy audience with a Mini Mega Ramp and Rail Jam set up. The battle for a purse of $40K took place over two days of friendly competition.

2009 Eco Cup Mini MegaRamp contest results

1. PLG
2. Bob Burnquist
3. Andy MacDonald
4. Adam Taylor
5. Buster Halterman
6. Rob Lorifice
7. Lincoln Ueda
8. Omar Hassan

Eco Cup Rail Jam Winner

PLG

Results are in for the prelims.  Finals tomorrow at 3pm

1. Bob Burnquist
2. PLG
3. Adam Taylor
4. Andy MacDonald
5. Buster Halterman
6. Rob Lorifice
7. Lincoln Ueda
8. Omar Hassan

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
By JOHN BECK
Published June 12, 2009

Friday’s Harmony Festival kickoff mounted what may have been the most unlikely, bipolar spectacle in its eclectic 31-year year history.

On one stage, you had Steve Kimock’s Crazy Engine noodling incessantly, winding through epic, 15-minute jam-band songs.

“They don’t love you like I do, baby,” keyboardist Melvin Seals wailed.

On the other side of the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, the Dead Kennedys (sans original frontman Jello Biafra) tore through ’80s hardcore punk songs built for two-minute attention spans, singing, “California uber alles!”

“We’ve got everything from the Grateful Dead to the Dead Kennedys,” said program director Sean Ahearn. “And believe it or not, they have something in common and we’re trying to hit that core.”

First-time Harmony attendee Steve Rosenfield, who was selling CDs for the Love is Life nonprofit organization, sized it up this way: “Today, it’s kind of segregated. But I have a feeling tomorrow everybody’s going to start to come together and by the end it will be one big happy family.”

Several months ago, festival organizers were going after A-List acts like Lauren Hill, Beck and the Grateful Dead — “and then we realized we have to get back to our roots with people like Michael Franti and Spearhead. We said, ‘What do we do best at Harmony? In Sonoma County we’ve got hippies, punks, straights, gays, Republicans, ultra-liberals — we’ve got ’em all, let’s put the music out that appeals to everybody.”

Backstage, while Kimock posed for photos with fans, Ahearn joked about how “insane” it was to raise the budget during a recession year, going from $1.2 million to $1.7 million this year.

“Who does that?” he said. “Then again, you have to take risks in this market.”

This weekend’s big risk is the inaugural Eco-Cup, a gnarly skateboard competition with a $40,000 pot, a three-story “mini-MegaRamp” and throwback ’80s hardcore bands like Bad Brains and the Dead Kennedys.

“That’s the big gamble — would the alt-rock, skate world embrace the rainbow hippie world?”

Amid hydroponic gardening, solar energy and “holistic hooping” booths, the MegaRamp loomed like a massive monstrosity of change and adrenaline-pumping X-Games spectacle. X-Games gold medalist Bob Burnquist took a break from skate practice Friday afternoon to watch a nervous 9-year-old skater stand on the lip of the 35-foot ramp and peer down before taking the stairs back down without skating.

“It’s not that crazy to have a 9-year-old go down it, but to him, right now, it’s pretty crazy,” he said.

Or as X-Games and Eco-Cup skate announcer David Duncan summed it up: “The MegaRamp equals MegaSlam! It’s that simple.”

The big Eco-Cup competition goes down at 3 p.m. Sunday at the MegaRamp.

SLAP SKATEBOARD MAGAZINE
By JOSH SOUTH
Published June 11, 2009

The crew from Slap were also covering the Eco Cup! Check it out HERE.

BNQT.COM
By COLIN BANE
Published June 11, 2009

There was a time in my life when I would have given my left nut to see a concert like this weekend’s Harmony Fest with Bad Brains and Dead Kennedys on the bill. Bad Brains have mellowed but are still worth seeing. Dead Kennedys are sans Jello Biafra and, so, not really Dead Kennedys, but still: Good to see some old school punkers still at it.

Also on the bill at Harmony Fest: The Eco Cup, some kind of scaled down “Mini Mega Ramp” contest, featuring Bob Burnquist, Pierre-Luc Gagnon, Andy Macdonald, Jake Brown, Omar Hassan, Lincoln Ueda, and Adam Taylor, with $40,000 on the line and judging by Steve Caballero and Christian Hosoi. The event is sponsored by SLAP, Fuel.TV, Peta2, Guardian, Comcast, and Verizon Wireless.

The “Mini Mega” has a 30 foot roll in, 25 foot gap, and 18 foot quarter pipe – much smaller than the X Games’ beast – and should be interesting. Looking forward to seeing some footage!

June 12-14, Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa CA.

Here’s some press release hilarity on why this event has been folded in to the 31 year-old Harmony Festival:

Programming Director Sean Ahearn explains, “The common connection is a shared enthusiasm and respect for the environment, great music, and social activism. Producing the Eco Cup skate zone is our way to reach out to youth and action sports fans and show them that there is indeed a common path to a conscious alternative that is hip, cool, and based on mutual respect, which is what Harmony is all about.”

Shanti Davidson and Michellee Senn of Rude Boyz Present agree, “Skaters have a very organic awareness of their place in the natural environment. They repurpose and utilize traditional spaces like abandoned ditches and freeways for their personal expression. Skaters generally are not overly materialistic or part of the consumer culture; they use recycled blocks, wood and other found materials as props for jumps. Their skateboards get passed down, reused, recycled. But what’s cool is that they don’t know how eco-aware they really are, they don’t typically evaluate their lives like that.”

Darryl Franklin from MegaRamp Productions adds, “Danny Way and Bob Burnquist, the founders of MegaRamp, are also founding and board members of the Action Sports Environmental Coalition (ASEC), a team of action sports athletes and industry professionals all dedicated to raising conscious and environmental awareness among young people. Bob is also well known as an organic farmer. The Harmony Festival is the perfect place to debut the first mini-MegaRamp contest in America.”

Harmony Festival CEO Howard Sapper and Founder Debra Giusti chime in, “The Eco Cup is our opportunity to break down the stereotypes of traditional Harmony folks and the new generation, represented by skaters who will lead the alternative lifestyle into the future. We see the Harmony and skater communities as two conscious and spirited groups of like-minded people. And in their own distinct ways, both groups clear their minds before ‘dropping in’.”