In 2023, a Sacramento indie band called Humidity Glow threw a house show at their drummer’s house. The show featured Humidity Glow, local indie band Blonde Star Wig, and Sacramento’s Philharmonik, who would go on the following year to win NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest.
The drummer, August Rose and their partner Dove Rose, would go on to host a series of shows in their home, which they dubbed Humidity Glow Headquarters, or HGHQ.
In the summer of 2024, Humidity Glow broke up. But, the Roses decided they still wanted Sacramento’s music in their home.
Dove Rose said they always wanted the space to feel more like a place where the community can gather and not just another venue. So, they decided to keep throwing shows, and call their new community “The Hearth.”
“I’ve always just really liked the imagery, the figurative hearth at the center of the home, the place where people gather, the place where you come in from the cold and feel safe,” Dove Rose said.
Their living room-turned-venue features vintage CRT televisions and VHS tape decks, cassette tapes, and a wall scrapbooked with memories from shows in the past. Dove Rose said that the inspiration for their vintage aesthetic came from their own love for old technology, and the analog feel of physical scrapbooks.
“The goal was to have it feel more like a community hub than someone’s living room,” August Rose said. “We were trying to bridge that space between professionalism and comfort.”
They said that, ever since they started throwing shows, Sacramento’s music scene has shown support.
“I think it’s always going to be a concern, letting a bunch of random people into your home, but at the same time, we’ve been doing it this long and people have been showing that they’re respectful and receptive to what we’re doing,” August Rose said. “A lot of times, like random showgoers will just be like, ‘Oh, is there anything I can help with here and there?”
The Hearth has thrived on its relationship with Sacramento’s community, and an ethos that centers around mutual aid and respect. At all of their shows, which are all volunteer-run, they charge admission but they always specify that no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Davis jangle-pop band Illbie played at the Hearth on July 11, 2026.Courtesy of the Hearth
From music venue to the wider community
The Hearth also has expanded their work outside of just live music performances. In 2021, they worked with Demo Books to put together their first gender-affirming clothing swap, where transgender Sacramentans could come together and bring clothes they no longer needed and exchange them for ones more befitting of their preferred identity.
August Rose said that for the first fair they put out a call for volunteers to help run the clothing swap and to help shows in the future.
“We expected maybe three to five people to help with the door,” August Rose said. “We got over 50 submissions and took on 25 volunteers with our first batch.”
With the overwhelming amount of interest that was shown for the Hearth, the Roses felt as if they needed to put all this effort into something bigger.
“We had a lot of writers, we had some people who work in copy editing and illustrators and designers, so we were looking for ways to use everyone’s skills,” August Rose said.
So, they decided to document this community that they had in a short magazine, or zine, called the Heart.
“I think the main overarching thing for me is just like authenticity, whatever that means for whoever’s submitting a piece for it,” Dove Rose said. “Whether that be your political beliefs or an emotional story that you have, just spreading that authenticity, that little piece of your heart.”
Ammi Lane-Volz is one of the volunteers that signed on with that first call for volunteers. They had worked for two other student publications in the past, and they moved to Sacramento in 2025.
Lane-Volz said they love to make collage art, and work with physical media.
“With physical media, it can never be deleted, and the technology to interact with it can’t be deleted,” Lane-Volz said.
The first issue was crafted solely by the volunteers like Lane-Volz. They included a spread by Lane-Volz, in which they wrote a piece about their great-grandmother’s quilt, and the impact her death had on them at her funeral.
“Learning more about her felt like getting into a band years after they’ve already broken up,” Lane-Volz wrote. “Kicking myself for lost time, but happy that I got to experience the wonder of it at all.”
They said that working on the zine helped them understand Sacramento’s community more deeply, and that even their day job as a librarian lends their calling to serving the community that surrounds them.
“I want to make what I’m doing with my life giving back to the community,” Lane-Volz said.
In June, The Hearth hosted their second gender-affirming clothing affair at Flower Fist Art Market, and they received overwhelming donations.
“I cannot describe how large the pile of clothing was when we started unloading those bags,” Dove Rose said.
After the clothing fair, they filled their garage with leftover clothes.
“People were walking out of there with multiple bags in their arms full of clothes,” August Rose said. “Thousands of garments.”
August Rose said they couldn’t have possibly done all the sorting and work needed for it without the help of their volunteers, who worked tirelessly through the night up until the day of the event.
“We had people staying as late 8:30 a.m. the morning of the event, going home, taking a quick shower, and coming back to help run the event,” August Rose said.
At this second fair, they also had free haircuts, free on-site alterations, a DJ and live performances.
For shows at The Hearth, the Roses said they’d be giving away clothes at upcoming events to anyone who needs them. The next series they’re working on is called Hearth to Heart, where they’ll release performance videos of Sacramento artists that play at the space.
“The community is hungry for a gathering space where they can meet each other and talk and make connections with other artists or other fans,” Dove Rose said.
You can follow the Hearth on Instagram to catch their next show.
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