A new program intended to aid South Bay youth in creative endeavors kicks off Labor Day weekend in San Jose. A.M.P. (or, Arts & Music Program) offers free art and music workshops for anyone ages 13-21. Hosted by the Roberto Cruz Leadership Academy on Story Road, the program has been organized by one of San Jose’s most active grassroots groups: Think & Die Thinking.

“The aim of A.M.P. is to provide free art services and materials to youth, specifically youth of color, queer youth and youth from low-income backgrounds,” says program director Bean Tupou, a local musician and organizer with Think & Die Thinking. The program will give artistically inclined youth an opportunity to try new forms of expression, hone existing skills and learn from the community.

“We want to put all these tools, resources and ideas that youth might not have access to at home or in school in one place, so that they have a chance to experiment and figure out what they’re good at, what they’re drawn to, what they want to learn more about,” says co-organizer Jenna Marx, another local musician and a regular volunteer with the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp.

The volunteer-run program will be a mixture of scheduled classes and social opportunity, creating an environment that is flexible enough for participants to follow what inspires them, while learning from a large amount of the South Bay’s artistic community. Possible subjects include instrument instruction, screen-printing, singing, dance, writing workshops and physical art.

“It was a natural step for us to work with A.M.P.” says Charles Fowler, RCLA’s vice principal, describing the school’s goals in bringing up community-minded and creatively empowered students. “We want to open up a space for kids to actually be free and use music as an outlet.”

In 2014 Fowler was voted Teacher of the Year—first by his peers, then by his school district, and finally by the San Jose Chamber of Commerce. He attributes his survival to finding music as a youth.

“I used to go to punk and hardcore shows in high school,” he says. “Coming up from a family where both my parents were drug addicts, raised by my grandmother, I wasn’t supposed to make it. Music saved my life.”

For more information on A.M.P., or to donate or volunteer, visit thinkanddiethinking.org

A.M.P.
Sep 3-5, 10am-4pm
Roberto Cruz Leadership Academy

Celebrating diversity through indie music and underground art, the annual Think and Die Thinking festival will be held this week at Cafe Stritch and the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center.

Expanded from its punk-rock roots, the festival aims to promote the work of those traditionally marginalized by mainstream society, especially the LGBTQ community, women and people of color, according to local musician and festival co-founder Christine Tupou.

“We create a space to celebrate what is different about all of us and how we may be forced to suppress those differences in order to just live our daily lives,” Tupou says. “With that in mind, people are able to come together every year to display their art, play music, show their literature and skill share.”

The musicians are chosen for their commitment to the values espoused by the festival, in addition to their artistic merits.

“We strive to prioritize raising the voices of folks who have historically been disenfranchised and silenced throughout, not just punk history but, history in general,” Tupou says. The 2015 lineup is special partly because the event organizers invited mostly artists who’ve never before performed in the festival.

“I’m excited about literally all of the bands but, off the top of my head, I am very excited about Downtown Boys from Providence, R.I., playing the fest,” Tupou says. They are my favorite band to watch live. Victoria, who fronts the band, grew up here in San Jose and always has the most amazing things to say in between songs.”

Downtown Boys, who describe themselves as a “Bi bilingual political dance sax punk party,” perform Saturday at 11:30pm. Tupou, who used to play in the now-defunct lo-fi pop band, Sourpatch, will perform with Try the Pie, at 10:30pm on the festival’s opening night.

The festival is a multimedia affair. This year, in addition to performances by dozens of bands from both near and far, visual art and literature will also be showcased.

“There will be writing workshops, a workshop on guitar set-ups and zine readings,” Tupou says. There will also be a panel presentation entitled “Marginalized Identities and the Current Climate of Punk: A Multi-Perspective Discussion,” which Tupou describes as a way to come together and share community-organizing experiences.

“It will be a very viscerally packed weekend for sure,” Tupou says.

 Think and Die Thinking begins tomorrow, July 9 with a showcase at Cafe Stritch, and runs through July 12.

The Clash sang about the plight of the working class, Bikini Kill advocated for women’s rights, Minor Threat gave a voice to straight-edge kids and Earth Crisis were staunch environmentalists. There has always been a segment of punk rock dedicated to advancing progressive political ideologies.

As times change, so do the issues. Christine Tupou, one of the organizers behind the four-day punk and indie festival Think and Die Thinking, is excited about the direction punk rock is taking.

“It seems like identity politics is playing a huge role in the punk community right now and no matter what aspect of the punk community you’re involved in, you can’t really talk about punk bands without talking about people of color or women or queer folk. It’s just a really interesting time right now,” Tupou says.

She and her bandmates in Sourpatch created the Think and Die Thinking festival in 2011 specifically to provide space for bands with members who are queer, women, trans and people of color because they felt like such bands were under-represented in the punk scene.
And in its three years, Think and Die Thinking has only continued to grow. This year’s lineup of 50 bands more than doubles the number that played at the inaugural event, and the festival also has expanded its schedule from three days to four. Here’s a small sampling of festival highlights:

Sourpatch (Indie-pop)
Thursday
The members of Sourpatch founded the festival, so their performance at Think and Die Thinking might be especially bittersweet: it’s their last show, ever. Though the years they’ve built a loyal local following as one of the few bands to pull heavily from the ’90s twee-pop sound. The members are all still friends, they’ve just moved on to other bands, several of which are playing the festival (Bascom, Crabapple, Permanent Ruin, Salt Flat and Itzel).

Hot Tears (ambient-pop)
Friday
This project out of Olympia, Wash. is the brain-child of Molly Fischer (Songs for Moms, Fisting Crystals). She creates lo-fi, ambient, melancholy arrangements with just herself playing the guitar, drums, percussion and singing—at the same time. Her songs are moody, dreamy, weird yet actually quite vulnerable.

Jabber (Pop-punk)
Saturday
Pop-punk is a crowded sub-genre. East Bay’s Jabber formed in late 2012, and are one of the best pop-punk bands going on right now. Their songs are fun, catchy and drive hard. They nail their harmonies every time, even when playing basement shows with no sound system. Their songs are mostly sugary-sweet love songs with some serious introspection mixed in. Though they claim Oakland as their hometown, San Jose ex-pat Danielle Baily (the Pillowfights) plays bass and sings in the band.

Leer (Math-rock/post-hardcore)
Saturday
The band members of this group range in age from 17 to 21 and yet they are currently one of San Jose’s best punk bands. They mix highly nuanced math rock with hyper intense screamo. The music is surprisingly complex, and executed so amazingly well. Meanwhile, lead singer Brandon Holder screams at the top of his lungs emotional lyrics in their rawest form of expression.

Stillsuit (noise-rock/punk)
Saturday
The riot grrrl scene was a major driving force in the ’90s in giving a voice to feminism and female empowerment in music, yet the term eventually came to connote a very specific high-energy, catchy punk rock sound. Oakland’s Stillsuit are a feminist political riot grrrl band à la Bikini Kill and Bratmobile, yet their music sounds nothing like either band. They play really bizarre, experimental noise-rock. It’s rhythmic, dissonant and challenging, but totally original.

Watercolor Paintings (Acoustic-punk)
Sunday
Plan-It-X duo Watercolor Paintings formed in Berkeley in 2005, but have since relocated to Santa Barbara. The group consists of brother and sister, Rebecca and Josh Redman, who play gorgeous tunes that are whimsical and eccentric, generally sweet and adorable, and occasionally heartbreaking. They’ve been known to perform frequently with a harp and a ukulele, but their latest album is much more guitar-bass-drums-focused.

$7-10 per day sliding scale; $20 full fest pass

Jan 2
Café Stritch, San Jose, 9pm

Jan 3
Billy DeFrank Center, San Jose, 5pm

Jan 4
Billy DeFrank Center, San Jose, 3pm

Jan 5
Billy DeFrank Center, San Jose, 3pm

After making it’s debut last year, the Think and Die Thinking music festival returns this weekend with two days of punk and indie music performed by bands with women, people of color and members of the queer and transgender communities.

Last year, Rich Gutierrez and Christine Tupou introduced the idea to San Jose with two days of music at the Billy DeFrank Center and one day of music Streetlight Records.

“It was a trial thing (last year),” Tupou says. “We didn’t quite know how it was going to go. We had never booked a fest before. It went better than we expected.”

This year, the focus remains the same, but they’ve made a few changes, like hosting all three days at the Billy DeFrank Center.

Though, last year wasn’t without its problems. They were faced with some last-minute band cancellations, plus several local bands got upset that they weren’t allowed to play, not fully understanding the mission of the festival. According to Tupou, women, people of color and members of the queer and transgender communities are underrepresented at punk and indie shows and therefore don’t always feel comfortable there. They wanted to do their part to help to change that.

“There’s always going to be those few people that are mad because they can’t play a fest,” Tupou says. I felt personally responsible for telling each and every one of those people why we were doing this. At the end of the day it’s a pride thing. I think it was good to have full disclosure and be really transparent of what our intentions were. The mission statement still rings true because we’re still making space for people in San Jose that don’t really feel comfortable at shows and don’t get to see people like themselves on stage playing music.”

This year the organizers decided, while still staying steadfast to their original mission statement, to book a broader range of artists including non-punk bands, performance artists and comedians.

“I want to expand the fest as much as possible,” Tupou says. “I want to keep the theme punk and indie, but I want to show people you don’t have to limit yourselves to one form of art. You don’t have to play punk. You can get a drum machine and play that kind of music and still hang out with punks. It’s making room for anything that you don’t usually see and sometimes you don’t even know you want to see, other than when you see it it’s completely insightful and inspiring.”

Think and Die Thinking is August 24 to August 26 at the Billy DeFrank Center. Tickets are $7-$10. More info.