8 March 2017

"There was never a like, cementing moment for me that I can think of, I just know that this [being a musician] is what makes me happy and I couldn't live with myself if I spent my time doing something else. I make music for myself; I’'m thrilled when other people like projects I'm in but I do it all to make myself happy."
 

- Oliver Pinnell of Valley Girls, Crush, Jay Som

As told to Erika Delgado
Art by Kingpalewave

 

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OLIVER: Facebook 

KINGPALEWAVE: Facebook

 

28 December 2016

“I can't think of one single woman who inspires me, because I am inspired by all women every single day. I say this a lot but I feel all of me falls in love with every woman that I meet. Especially people who identify as women who decide to do music, because you are constantly told that 'you can't' or 'you’re not good enough' or 'it's not worth it.' There's not enough women in music, the numbers are just way too low, but I have noticed a change. Especially with the music that's happening now, that's getting more popular, there are so many female artists. It's ridiculous. It's such a good time (in music) to live in. To be part of that...blows my mind.”

- Melina Duterte of Jay Som

As told to Erika Delgado during the Group Effort Vol.1 recording session on May 29, 2016.

Art by Lauren YS

 

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MELINA: Facebook 

LAUREN: Website

 

3 November 2016

"After the Giants won the world series in 2010. I was walking around the sunset to observe all the celebration. I hi-fived a woman I didn't know and we exchanged a few words. Something along the lines of 'We did it and it feels so good.' Everyone that night was so bonded. I know a lot of my artsy friends aren't into sports, but those championships brought the city together in a really beautiful way."

- Megan Dabkowski of Flail and Sirena Victima

 

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MEGAN: Facebook 

MICHAEL: Facebook

 

22 October 2016

"I put together this show at the The Sylvan Annex for a handful of touring bands that just kept spiraling out of control as more and more people told me they just happened to be in town that day and local acts I'd asked who hadn't gotten back to me suddenly did until the bill ended up like 9 bands deep and we had about 100 kids packed into our tiny attic bedroom. Miraculously everything stayed on schedule, no one took hour long breaks, and every single act was incredible. Then my band (kind of selfishlessly hanging on to our space on the bill) went up and played, and I was super nervous because the audience felt intimidatingly cool and then every single person in the room started singing along. I was tempted to never play or book another show again because it felt so hard to ever top."

- Dan Weiss of The Yellow Dress 
 

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Dan: Facebook

Rachel: Facebook

8 October 2016

"I’ve lived in San Francisco, specifically the Sunset District for almost 9 years, so I’m a transplant. I moved here from a small town in the central coast to go to school at San Francisco State.
That being said, I love the Bay Area. I love San Francisco. I love seeing the golden gate bridge when I walk down the avenues. I love walking down to the beach, especially when it’s foggy and you can’t even see where the horizon begins or ends. Just a grey void with faint grey waves crashing. I love the people I have met. I have the most amazing friends and work creatively with some of the most talented artists and musicians there are. There is a beautiful community building here right now, that I feel very lucky to be even a little bit a part of.
It’s not easy living here. It’s a constant struggle, you are kind of always hustling, even when you’re having fun or on your day off. San Francisco is what you make it though, any place is really.
Electric skateboards are hella dumb tho."

- Shannon Marie Bodrogi of Void Boys and SOAR

 

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SHANNON: Facebook

 

30 September 2016

“To be honest, I consider quitting music a large percent of the time that I see a candid photo of myself playing and think about how I wish I was more photogenic or whatever. Sadly, playing music has not made my corporeal form disappear altho sometimes at practice or when I’m listening to my own bands I do forget I have a body for a little while, which is I guess why I love playing music so much. I am really not interested in performance myself, I am interested in content and intent and emotion. But I still regularly struggle with feeling insecure about being a woman being looked at by men when I’m playing music and all the weird implications about having a body that I’ve internalized for so long.“ 

Jenna Marx of Joyride!, SOAR, Crabapple, Salt Flat 

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JENNA: Facebook

SHANNON: Facebook

9 September 2016

Mykki Blanco 9.3.2016
by Kristina Bakrevski Photography

"Do the things that you would like to do, experiment a lot, and fail a lot, so you can get better. Fail all the time and you'll get like hella good later on."

                         - Max Freeland of pardoner

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MAX: Facebook

KRISTINA: Facebook

3 September 2016

"When I lived out here in San Francisco I worked at a little cafe. I had to get up everyday at 3 in the morning. This one day I woke up, it was like Monday or Tuesday morning, and I walked down so fxcking pissed because I had to wake up at three in the morning. I'm walking down the stairs, and all I hear is ‘ey’. I look over, it's still dark, the sun is still coming up. I'm walking to my car and I hear the ‘EY’ again, louder this time. I turn around, and there's this fool just standing there, he turns around and pulls down his pants and just starts slapping his a** cheeks at me. Just looking at me."

- Maxwell Carver of guitarist in TONER and filmmaker 

 

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MAXWELL: Facebook

MONY TILL: Website

31 August 2016

"One time, I smoked a cigarette in the downstairs of Great American Music Hall, with a very regarded member of the Bay Area music scene, who proceeded to do an incomprehensible amount of coke using me as a human shield, all whilst telling me to never listen to anybody ever ‘not even once’ and that chilling is literally the most important thing you could ever do." 

                             - Dylan Lockey of PLUSH

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DYLAN: Facebook

Rebecca Sri Sri: Facebook

28 August 2016

"Keep trying no matter and don't let anyone say you can't do what you want to do. Just because you do something and it might suck, it doesn't mean that it's exactly you or you can't reclaim yourself. You learn from the mistakes." 

                                         - Jeff Day of Crush

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JEFF: Facebook

EDUARDO: Facebook

26 August 2016

"When I first moved here, this lady I used to walk by on my way to work had no legs and I would give her a quarter every day and she never said anything.. She was like this quiet, grateful, sweet old woman with huge eyes that looked up at me from the sidewalk and thanked me in her own beautiful way. Then about three weeks later I saw her running after this guy screaming at him and threatening him. She did have legs… she hid them under her dress." 

- Piper Payne (Mastering Engineer, Current SF Grammy Chapter President)

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PIPER: Website

R.Y.A.N.: Facebook

24 August 2016

"It took me a while to realize that there’s nothing wrong with my darkness. There’s nothing wrong (with the fact) that I have a sense of dark and light; it’s a perfect balance. And, like, we need both of them. And there’s nothing wrong about me writing about my experience, and there’s nothing wrong with me being honest about what happened to me. It’s helping other people and I am getting flooded with emails from people around the world, telling me their experiences, and I’m doing something right." 

         - Kristina Esfandiari of King Woman and Miserable

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KRISTINA: Facebook

MADELEINE: Facebook

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SAMEUELITO: Facebook

LAURA: Facebook

21 August 2016

"I grew up listening to ‘Diamond Life’ in my mom's old shitty Toyota, and I remember that car would break down all the time with us. This was around when my parents were splitting up, and we would all be together in the car, we kind of had nothing at the time, and that record was just super heartwarming. At the time, I didn't know who it was, and I was working a shitty job for like 3 years, and would wake up at 4 am and Sade was playing over the PA or something, and as soon as I heard it, I was like ‘holy fuck I remember listening to this back in the day.’ I found out that was Sade, and I got really into it again. She's just like one of the most inspiring writers and singers, who's also gone through a lot of shit, like used to be a squatter and ex-junkie. I don't know, I've just always related to her music and always that's been instantly heartwarming to hear." 

-Samuelito Cruz (of TONER, Happy Diving, Tony Molina Band, and Baja Boys)

18 August 2016

"Playing music in Japan, and hearing like- ok so a conversation I had with a band we were doing before Never Young, we were touring Japan, we were traveling and playing. And one of the people that was taking us around, like was hanging out with one of the other guys that was in one of the bands we were traveling with, and they were like 'Yeah we met because we had a mutual appreciation for your band.' That was pretty insane to be like, these people on another continent met and became good friends because they connected over this band. I think that was definitely a big moment." 

- Nikolas Soelter of Never Young 

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NIKOLAS: Facebook

KINGPALEWAVE: Facebook

16 August 2016

"Look, you can be whoever you want to be. You can make a reality of all of it. You have power that you don't even understand so take your time, breathe and search inside of you for what is the realest and sit on those ideas. Take your time and breathe." 

                                - Squadda B

As told to Erika Delgado
Antwon performing at LMSFN "Escape From First Fridays" 8/5/2016

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SQUADDA B: Facebook

ERIN CONGER: Facebook

14 August 2016

"I almost quit music in high school. I had a really small acoustic band with my friend Carlos and we just sort of grew apart. I really didn’t have any inspiration at the time, and I thought my voice sounded like garbage. Nothing was happening for me. I didn’t think that I could do any art justice; I really just didn’t try. I was honestly going to pursue a different career in college, but then I realized I could not live without making music. Even if aliens somehow took over the planet or the ghost of Mozart said to stop, I would not give it up." 

- Zachary Elsasser (from Summer Peaks, Jay Som)

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ZACHARY: Facebook

MADELEINE: Facebook

11 August 2016

"I’ve played Great American Music Hall once. It was the first show with the new band I was playing in. It was a real quick ‘we want you to join and we have a show in two weeks at Great American and it's sold out.’ After I played that show, I was just like, I never want this to end. This is so amazing and fun. Playing to a packed house, I had never really played a big show like that before, so it just felt crazy to just have all those people there and to hear the crowd, it's cheesy, but to hear how loud of a response we got. It felt good. After doing that show, I want to keep playing bigger shows."

- Kevin Figueroa (from Crush and Cotillon)

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KEVIN: Facebook

ADRIAN: Website

9 August 2016

"I grew up 90 miles away in a conservative suburban Sacramento town, and every time I had the chance to cross the Bay Bridge as a kid I would feel a quickening excitement as well as peace. Comforting, but also exhilarating. I could see myself (stereotypically) writing in a cafe among people more creative and sophisticated than myself. I could see myself going to too many shows, getting lost in too much fog (didn’t expect the mold), and partying too hard. Every experience would be a release of what I had pent-up in my childhood. Of what I expected an artistic adulthood lifestyle to be."

- Valerie Veteto (Music Journalist + former Promotions Coordinator at Polyvinyl Record Company)

 

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VALERIE: Facebook

CHAROLETTE: Website

"I know talking about it helps, sharing my story and feeling at home in the fact that, even if my identity is somewhat unrelatable to people in my daily life, I can stay connected to those who empathize with and share my history. I really want to put to rest the idea that a space I inhabit defines who I am (i.e. spaces seemingly dominated by white folks or men) and I want to be empowered in knowing that, because I inhabit a space, it has now changed. A space changes when you inhabit it and that is what I think of people of color/WOC in indie music."

- Bean Kaloni Tupou of Try The Pie, Sourpatch, Salt Flat, and Crabapple

 

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Bean:Facebook

Luna:Website

"If none of this matters, then why not go on these trips and feel like shit all the time? And why not spend all my money on buying a van for us? Why not feel like shit all the time and do this instead? Then you make it to the other side and remember this is exactly where you need to be." 

- Nikolas Escudero of Never Young and etc.

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Nikolas:Bandcamp 

Jared:Tumblr

I just think, cities they change, all cities are like that, it's like inevitable. You can still find great things about the Bay Area. Maybe just not in this neighborhood right now. You just have to look a little harder. 

- Tony Molina

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Tony:Tumblr

Joey:Website

TAKEN ON 6/8/2016

"I think it's just like any other big city. Just like people, people change and have good years and bad years. Venues close and new venues open up. And it's just life. I don't think the Bay Area has ever sucked. People are just really cynical and pessimistic and just refuse to really check out what's going on. Go to Rickshaw Stop or Bottom of the Hill, just go one night. Get a beer at Bottom of the Hill and see what's playing. You might love it, you might hate it, but oh you got to see something new."

- Fil Calá (Wave Dweller / Future Shapes) 

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Fil Calá:Facebook (Wave Dweller)

Molly Decoudreux:Website