From the KWCW radio station, to local bands producing sick beats or to our very own music faculty keeping music alive, Whitman and Walla Walla has a thick tapestry of music talent.
Our very own Love Brunch, a band including David Lopez-Garcia, Will Singer and Ruby Morgan brings an alternative indie rock vibe to Walla Walla’s music scene.
Lopez-Garcia, Love Brunch’s bassist and a senior History major, said one of his favorite things about being in Love Brunch is hanging with his friends.
“It feels amazing that we are capable of coming up with cool little songs that people enjoy, listen to and actually memorize and [then they can] sing along [with us] at shows,” Lopez-Garcia said. “Being in a band has also brought me along a path of going to new places outside Walla Walla and experiencing different scenes in other cities.”
The name Love Brunch originates from when the band was hanging out one afternoon.
“I had a fascination with 90s Seattle rock bands, and I like this band called Mother Love Bone and I was obsessed with Nirvana’s cover of a song called Love Buzz, so you can kinda see the naming convention that I was working with,” Lopez-Garcia said. “It’s a fun little name, reinforced by Whitman and Walla Walla’s predominantly white population, and white people love brunch! I like the name. I think I would’ve cringed if we tried too hard to come up with a band name.”
Love Brunch is currently working on finishing up an album that is set to be completed within the next month. But until then, catch them performing at Wallapalooza on May 2 alongside other bands that Whitman’s very own KWCW radio station has planned.
KWCW is a student-run, non-profit college radio station that broadcasts from Reid Campus Center.
KWCW’s general manager Lucky Eden is a senior Anthropology major at Whitman. They share how KWCW operates and what they love most about their job.
“First and foremost, we are a community radio station. So we have about 150 DJs, mostly students, but also faculty, staff and community members, who are broadcasting. We broadcast 24 hours a day, but we have DJs in the booth about 16 to 18 hours a day,” Eden said. “That’s kind of our main thing, but also we do events. We put on concerts with local and professional bands.”
In addition to concerts, KWCW throws fun events including mixtape night and craft night. They also collaborate with other organizations. They worked with an interest house on campus, called the Outhouse, to throw a concert titled UNPLUGGED.
Another main function of KWCW is booking bands.
“We try to book bands about six months in advance. Even better if it can be more like nine or 12 months in advance,” Eden said. “Mostly we’ve had bands come that I or a staff member have seen in concert, and usually we see them at a club and then we talk to them after, get their contact information. And then we figure it out. But also, we just cold email a lot of bands.”
Eden sees band culture as an important aspect of community.
“I think all art is important because it can give people new ideas and it can spread messages in ways that can’t otherwise be spread,” Eden said. “A concert is one of the most incredible experiences of people coming together, especially if it’s a smaller show where the band and the audience are kind of close together and they can create an incredible experience together. I think that’s really great, especially in a time when we’re so divided by technology and everything else.”
Other bands on campus include Big Joe and Canary. There are countless more in town, including Antimxb and Heel Klick.
Eden is excited for Wallapalooza on May 2, where KWCW, WEB, blue moon and quarterlife have partnered to bring six bands to campus— three professional bands from Seattle, Buenos Aires and London, as well as three local bands.
However, students are not the only ones involved in Walla Walla’s music scene.
Senior Lecturer of Music, Professor Michael Simon, was in an independent rock band from 2003 to 2010 called Stepanian. Stepanian made two full albums, an EP, a live album and a live DVD.
“The energy of getting to play live in front of people, particularly once we had developed a following, was really great,” Simon said. “It was super fun to have a crowd of people sing songs back, but I think [having my] primary focus be on creativity, especially at that point in my life, I was in my mid to late 20s, it was amazing. I don’t think I would trade it for anything.”
Whitman’s band culture goes back to when Simon attended Whitman himself. He remembers when they used to have a coffeehouse series for local bands that took place in Reid.
“Music’s just always around for me. And it was when I was growing up too,” Simon said. “It taps into something that is indescribable. It’s hard to put words on sound.”
Simon remembers when he started his first band in high school, and the feeling of bringing something to life.
“It was like, we can make this thing that exists in the world, that doesn’t exist unless the four or five of us are doing it in the room at the same time,” Simon said.
With many fields and sectors in the music industry changing due to the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI), some worry that AI will take over many aspects of music production.
“In music, I have really mixed feelings on AI because, on some level, being able to separate stems, being able to take a recording and pull apart the vocals and hear that independent of the guitar is a really valuable learning and teaching tool. That part is really cool. The generative part of it is terrifying,” Simon said.
Critics worry that Generative AI in music is a copyright issue, since the music it generates is a combination of other artists’ work. Simon argues that being a musician is already not easy.
“I really do worry because it’s trained on other people’s intellectual data or intellectual property that’s never been acknowledged or paid for,” Simon said. “Musicians are having a rough go making a living right now. If we want creative acts in our life, we have to support it. Streaming has more or less made it impossible for most musicians to make a living.”
The switch from CDs to streaming services changed the game for musicians.
“If you think about it, you sell 2000 CDs and you make $5 each, that’s $10,000. Not a ton of money, but it’s $10,000. And you’ve only sold 2000 CDs, right?” Simon said. “That would not even barely count as an album sale on Spotify. Plus, Spotify is deeply invested in AI and is actively putting out stuff that is trained on the music that’s already on Spotify [and] created by people. They’re undercutting their own artists.”
Simon encourages students to keep playing and creating.
“I really think everybody should pick up an instrument, even if you don’t know how to play it, and play in a band. It’s the best experience,” Simon said. “I think there’s something cathartic about making noise with other people. Whether that be gentle noise or aggressive noise, it doesn’t matter. There’s something wonderful about bringing something into creation.”
Walla Walla and Whitman have an incredible music scene, from rock bands to jazz and classical orchestra, and from students, faculty and community members.
