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Summer Band Camp Series

by The Uncivil Society

Suburban Utopia Projects


Project Manifesto:

Let’s face it, as we get older it is hard, hard to balance the demands of work, life and family.  Where we suffer is that we loose the connection to the formative communities that helped shape us by finding our place, our voice and people.

When I moved to Wisconsin in 2001 from the bay area, I struggled to connect with the community, and found solace in recording solo projects.  When I moved to Washington in 2005 I encountered the same constraints and in the 20 plus years since I have continued to write, record and produce by myself.

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34 years of DIY … and just getting started

by Tuffy Brazil of STROMBLE FIX

STROMBLE FIX


It all started in 1990 when five teenagers formed a new punk band. In fact, STROMBLE FIX was a merger of two bands that rehearsed door-to-door in the local youth center in the Ruhr area of Germany.

We played many shows in the early 90s and recorded our songs on 8-track or 16-track tape machines in a friend’s studio whenever we could afford to spend a weekend. The music was published on compact cassettes, and there was a culture of sharing tapes with other bands or even taping tapes to get the music heard. Mail orders these days worked so that you requested a printed catalog first and then ordered your vinyl or cassettes by writing a letter.

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No Easy Way Out

by Ezra Meredith of Supplemental Pills

No Easy Way Out by Supplemental Pills


On our sophomore full-length album, “No Easy Way Out,” we examine tragedy underneath a bed of pulsating drone-rock following the murder of our bass player Aron Christensen in 2022, inspired by artists like Spacemen 3, The Velvet Underground, and The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

We do a lot of things: heavy blues, psychedelic, and atmospheric rock. It’s not as psychedelic/jammy as our first record. It’s more dark and brooding. It has some jams in it, but it’s far more focused.

Tragically, the biggest story isn’t our sound but the death of Aron Christensen, who was murdered while hiking with his four-month-old puppy, Buzzo. Inept police work, a lazy district attorney, and many questions that will probably never be answered have led many news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, to write about Aron’s mysterious murder. However, before his passing, we were finishing what would become No Easy Way Out, an eight-track collection of songs that explore, examine, and contemplate life, death, and how nobody makes it out alive.

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From Infinite Vacation to Central Pacific State Beach

by Rey Montano

Rey Montano - Central Pacific State Beach


I guess if I had to describe my “story,” the story that at least gets told through my music, it would be a story of adolescence, at least for now. I have lived in Fresno for all of my (admittedly short) life, and I think it can show through my music at times. But I’m always looking for a way to escape. Whether it be the mountains or the beach, make no mistake that I’d rather be anywhere than Fresno from at least July up to September. Our summers are scalding and long.

If I can’t do that, though, I still have the long-standing escapist cliche of music.

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The Amok Sun Rises in The East

by Amok Sun

Amok Sun


When I was proposed to write this article, I was thrilled, but also asked myself if my story as a musician was interesting enough to write an article about. But like music, you don’t know how it will be received until it’s out in the world.

I’m Amox, an independent music artist. I’m located in Bucharest, Romania, for now. My project is called Amok Sun. I like to think about Amok Sun as a band. It needs collaboration as a foundation to work as I envision it. I currently do everything by myself. And I mean everything. Promotion, videos, artwork, social media, and others. All of this is on top of a full-time job as a UX Designer.

Thinking about Amok Sun’s sound, it is difficult for me to define the main genre. Maybe call it electro-rock. I hope that it will determine its own style. This is something for the community to decide. I would describe the music I create as a mix of genres and themes like alternative rock, electronica, IDM, medieval or renaissance, and world genres. Well, that’s the goal anyway, right now I’m pretty much isolated from the artist community because of my late bloom.

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Seeking Out the Unbeaten Track

by Ian C. Thomas of Busker’s Dog

Ian C. Thomas of Busker's Dog


Music ebbs and flows, back into time immemorial and forward into the unknown future. I was late to the party, learning instruments and theory as a self-funded young adult long ago.

After many years of compiling former band and personal demos for my own interest, I thought it was time to finish an album for release. Sea to City began with a bunch of “lost” songs from other abandoned collaborative projects and a cover concept. The songs seemed to join hands as a thematic collection, so I then wrote into the spaces, and painted the cover to go along with them.

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Accepting Life Through Music – The Uncanny Valley

by Vincent Cecchini of Tiki Bar

The Uncanny Valley by Tiki Bar


Two years ago, at 17 years old, I would be exposed to crucial elements that would rock my understanding of myself and my place in this world.

I was first introduced to Erik, my best friend and co-founder of Tiki Bar, through mutuals at a house party. At that point, we didn’t have many similarities: He was the embodiment of a modern-day hippie, and, unbeknownst to me, I was still searching for a purpose to assign me individuality.

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A way to connect with yourself

by Irene Sánchez

A way to connect with yourself by Irene Sánchez

Music has always been said to be a universal language, but I don’t agree. Music has as many meanings as people who listen to it. What for us can be a sad melody, for someone from the other side of the world, it can be the happiest of songs, that’s why I refuse to believe that music is universal. However, I don’t think this is a problem, but an advantage to be able to communicate with ourselves. Art shows us the reality that we need to see.

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Vampyre Villa

by Zach Pliska

Vampyre Villa by Zach Pliska (Vazum)
My band Vazum‘s new album Vampyre Villa has a variety of moods and styles which people have picked up on. It floats between deathrock, shoegaze, goth, and post-punk which is why we call ourselves a deathgaze band. We’re interested in combining the rawness of deathrock with the depth of shoegaze.

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2020 – A platter of songs for you to snack on

by Oliver Scott Draper

2020 - A platter of songs for you to snack on by Oliver Scott Draper
My short 4 track EP, “2020”, first took form before the year it’s named after before all of this insanity took over. I often think it’s best to leave a song’s meaning up to the interpretation of the listener. But, if there were an outlet to air out my thoughts of my songs, it would be here. So I’ll go through each track in the lineage of which they’re recorded and break them down.

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