As the sun sank below the hills on the afternoon of January 24, students lounged on picnic blankets and worn, wooden tables in Cal Poly’s grassy student-run garden. Cats prowled the site as community members swarmed like insects to the sound of music from an “Open Mic” in collaboration between the Garden Club, Field Studies Club and the Music Production Union (MPU).
Beyond the acres of the Student Experimental Farm — passing horses and cows — members of Cal Poly’s Garden Club gather every Sunday morning to maintain their plants. Yet, on this particular Friday afternoon, the farmland became a venue for student artists and beyond to pursue their talent while building connections through music.
PIN IT
PIN ITAva Romano, an officer of MPU, held a small notepad detailing a sign-up list with names of participants ranging from acoustic guitar sets, spoken folktales and even a beatbox-style rap cover of XXXTENTACION’s “SAD!”
Approximately fifty people gathered eagerly to appreciate the unique nature of each performance.
The first band set to take the stage was Big Head Little Feet, composed of Meghana Kohlar, Clyde Oh-Keith, Isis Stenn and Declan Swan, four freshmen students who came together organically for a jam session and have stuck together ever since.
With renditions of Haley Heynderickx’s “The Bug Collector” and Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi,” the band took the Garden Club stage as their third Open Mic and live performance together.
What does Big Head Little Feet mean? How did this name originate?
Swan: “We were tossing around a few different band names, just throwing stuff out there, and then I was like, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if our name was something like Big Head Little Feet?’ Everyone was like, ‘That’s not really that funny.’ Then when we introduced ourselves the first time we played, Isis said ‘Oh, we don’t really have a band name.’ And so then I took the mic and was like ‘No, we’re Big Head Little Feet,’ and it stuck.”
Why do you think events like “Open Mics” are important gatherings for upcoming musicians and the local music community?
Kohlar: “Open mics are super awesome, especially when they’re run by students too, that’s such a cool element of community for community, just making a space for everyone to share their ideas. And it’s such an inviting space, everyone feels welcome to play. It’s just super special to have the opportunity to do that on campus.”
Swan: “For the music community, I think it’s great because it allows bands like us who otherwise wouldn’t ever really have a place to perform. It allows us to get practice performing with each other and just get stage experience.”
Stenn: “It’s just a very vulnerable, vulnerable experience. It’s funny because sometimes there are moments when you’re maybe uncomfortable, or uncomfortable for somebody else. But if you’re playing, then you know what it feels like on both sides.”
How has playing in a band impacted your experience as freshmen students? Does it ever become hard to manage on top of academics?
Oh-Keith: “I mean, I’m studying engineering and people tell me engineering is going to get really hard, so I think it’s nice to have escapes where you can just have fun and enjoy entertainment. Especially when it’s students, you meet people on campus and It’s just like a good time. I feel like good times are important.
Stenn: “I feel like for me it’s definitely the most fun part of my schedule, but I often prioritize it over studying.”
What is ahead for Big Head Little Feet? What are your goals as a band?
Stenn: “We want to get our message out there. If you have a big head, it’s okay if your feet are small.”
The four-piece hopes to gain more experience and eventually branch out to playing house shows and the farmers market with more instruments and original music.
Soon after Big Head Little Feet kicked off the afternoon, freshman mechanical engineering student Joel Coldiron performed an original song titled “Staying With the Wolves,” accompanied by Nathan Carrero on the cajon. The song follows a cowboy that blossomed from his experiences spent at a backpacking camp in New Mexico, where he contemplated feelings of stress and heartache while surrounded by folk music and desert air.
What was your musical/ personal process leading up to this performance? What is the significance of the original song you played at the Garden Club Open Mic?
Coldiron: “I was unsure if I was going to perform because of my workload, but then I had to write this essay for my English class [about music] and I was reminded how I had planned to make a commitment to my music. I said, ‘Okay, well, I have to do this thing.’ I wrote that song at the end of the summer of 2022, at the end of my sophomore year in high school. The song follows the story of some sort of cowboy who feels like he’s separated from the world or running from the world, and then goes out into the desert, and ultimately does not find an escape there. And so, I went up with one of my friends Nathan Carrero who plays percussion, and I think it went very well.”
How did you and Carrero decide to work together for this performance and what inspired you to combine your vocals and guitar with percussion?
Coldiron: “I met Nathan through the Music Production Union. The Music Production Union has a quarterly thing where they do this songwriting competition, and I got placed in a group with him. It was really fun and we worked well together. Percussion is usually a really good way to combine with acoustic guitar playing, especially cajon. Anytime you see a band, I mean, there’s a reason why people don’t perform alone because it makes it more interesting when you can add other flavors rather than just having one person. When you play with other people, you can have other interesting elements and add extra rhythm.”
What has been the most rewarding part of pursuing music and getting involved as a freshman student at Cal Poly? How do you hope to move forward in the music scene while pursuing your degree?
Coldiron: “A big reason why I came here was because the music scene around SLO is very full of small college bands very open to new people. There’s always events going on, so that makes it easy to get involved and to gain experience. What I like about SLO is that people are always willing to go and work with you on a band. That makes it really fun and really easy to do all these events. I’ve written a number of other songs, but first I am going to try focusing on getting a band together to do live performances and being able to work together to produce those songs themselves. But once I get a group, I might work on releasing some more.”
Shortly following Coldiron’s duet was junior liberal arts and engineering studies student Ava Romano, who strummed her guitar to Bright Eye’s “First Day of My Life.” Her vocals soared above the leaves, below the seeds and into the ears of the audience, as she was not only a participant, but an organizer for the event.
Romano plays bass guitar in the band “The Plums,” accompanied by bandmates Ashton Blair and Ryan Marienthal, whom she met through the Music Production Union. The band often plays gigs at venues like The Libertine and The Bunker, contrasting the calm and casual essence of Open Mics, where she often performs acoustic sets.
As an officer, what was the planning like for this event and why did MPU choose to collaborate with Garden Club and Field Studies for this Open Mic?
Romano: “I feel like we have a lot of overlap in our audiences. MPU more than anything is just an organization that wants to form a community and support a community. We’ve done open mic at Garden Club before. It feels like it’s such an opportunity that we have to create a nice environment because it’s outside in this lovely garden and we have all of these wonderful people come and hang out and talk to each other and play music. I think it just creates such a nice atmosphere, and so I think anytime we have an opportunity to do something as a club, I take it.”
As someone who has played at larger venues like The Libertine, why do you think live events like the Garden Club Open Mic remain valuable for students and our community as a whole?
Romano: “Anything at all that brings people together is incredible. I mean, I think that’s why MPU does what it does. I think it’s so important to see your peers in the context of what they care about, and that you’re doing things they care about. I feel like in college, you get to understand people as students, but also college is when people start really developing their passions and forming their foundations of who they will be as adults and what they care about and what they spend their time doing. I feel like for a lot of people, that’s music or it’s gardening, or it’s being outside. So we can bring all of these people together who have these wonderful interests and then you get to learn about people and you get to hang out with them and figure out why everyone is so unique.
Was there a moment that really stuck out to you from the afternoon?
Romano: “My favorite part was anytime somebody got on stage and was a little nervous and said, ‘Oh, I’ve never done this before, this is my first time performing for anyone,’ or talked about something like that. The crowd would clap and everyone was so supportive. I really, really appreciate that MPU and Garden Club created an environment where people felt comfortable to do that even if they’d never done it before. And that people wanted to do it, even if they were nervous, because I think that’s so important.”
Do you have any words of advice for the up-and-coming musicians of Cal Poly who are hoping to become more involved in the local scene?
Romano: “Keep showing up. Keep showing up and be personable. It’s not a social climbing type of thing. There’s no way to get in and really make it without just showing up and making friends and being kind and talking to people and wanting to learn about them. Everything I’ve ever done in the music scene has been because of the connections I made, because I just wanted to make friends. So I think just show up and genuinely care and advertise that, and don’t shy away from how passionate you are about things, and something will happen.”
Garden Club, Field Studies Club and the Music Production Union all brought their distinctive audiences to the event, with gardeners, nature fans and music enjoyers alike overlapping to create a truly appreciative crowd for the performers and the space itself.
The afternoon reflected harmony through music. As gentle strums echoed off the rolling trains and afternoon birds cheered performers on, it was a serene scene of passions intertwined as students came together to foster the future of the San Luis Obispo music community altogether.
