In a local music scene budding with guitars on dorm beds, cafés turned venues and Music Production Union meetings, there’s an overwhelming number of talented artists to be heard in San Luis Obispo. Whether a mosh-enthusiast or a wallflower, there’s a sound for everyone in the never-ending cycle of college town creatives.
In the last year, these four bands have paved their way in a changing music landscape, introducing their own noise to the mix.
Ramp
Ramp explores jazz, rock and fusion with an eclecticism reminiscent of the jam band culture seen with Phish and the Grateful Dead. Band member Trevor Sandler recommends Ramp for King Gizzard heads, skaters and senders.
Ramp has become a musical and creative outlet for Sandler, alongside his buds Kai Lehr and Reid Kemble. Lehr mostly plays guitar, Kemble primarily on bass and Sandler with the drums – a lineup susceptible to change depending on the day.
“Once we’re all locked in, whatever we’re feeling that day, it just kind of flows,” the junior graphic communications student said. “It’s just so different all the time.”
After graduating from their high school jazz band, Sandler and Lehr took the opportunity to get away from Pacific Beach and the formalities of sheet music and structure.
The hometown friends met Kemble during their freshman year at Cal Poly, and the trio, like many others, made the yakʔitʸutʸu dorms a home for their developing sound. It wasn’t until the following year, and the transition into a house off campus, that the love of music developed into a formalized band.
“I built a skate ramp and we were just jamming and I was like, Ramp,” Sandler said on the name’s origin.
The band debuted at an event they call “Lamb Jam,” an Argentinian style cookout in partnership with Hermanos Andinos at their house last November. With an entire lamb roasting over a fire and no setlist, Ramp’s funky tunes echoed from the backyard in a camaraderie of fun despite the large noise fine received.
With no singer, Ramp is often accompanied by roommate Santino Pryor who has acted as a vocalist in some capacity. In the corner of the Libertine stage, he would set up a comfy chair, a table and lamp and read a book into the microphone.
Carefree jamming is channeled into all of their shows, from coffee shops to Santa Cruz’s 420 Festival. Ramp’s groove is built on the will to do whatever feels right in the moment, no planning, just a good time.
“Ramp’s just ramp,” Sandler said. “Being with your boys and growing up with Kai and playing music and getting to this moment. It’s so fun.”
Disparage
It started as Title Fight covers in the North Mountain common room on an electronic drum kit. Two years later, the dawn of hardcore in the San Luis Obispo music scene is upon us.
Disparage’s heavy sound merges the crowd and performer into one chaotic force. Whether it be screaming into the microphone or doing cartwheels, hardcore is meant to get listeners riled, running, throwing and swinging. The mosh knows no limits.
“Scary looking punk rockers are like the nicest people you’ll ever meet,” drummer and graphic communications junior Omar Sanchez said.
Guitarist and electrical engineering junior Owen Vance jumped in, “They’ll smack you in the head and knock you on the ground and then they’ll be like helping you up the next thing, and trying to make sure that you’re okay.”
Vance, Sanchez, guitarist turned bassist Tate Morse and singer Evan Upton drew on their shared taste not only in music, but in the experience they wanted to create when deciding to form a band together.
In the Bay Area, where Sanchez and Vance grew up, hardcore shows painted their youth and left them searching for the familiar rush that is few and far between in San Luis Obispo.
“I just grew up surrounded by this chaos all the time,” Sanchez said. “I would leave with my ears ringing and I would just be so tired and be like, ‘that’s the type of music I want to play.’”
Post-freshman year, when the band had access to cars, moving carts and the Poly Canyon Village parking garage, the practices continued, still susceptible to the frequent obstacle of a noise complaint.
A three-piece team at the time, their sound developed instrumentally. On his way home from an errand of sorts, Upton approached the band who he had heard jamming before. After Vance handed over his guitar, Upton strummed the riff of Drain’s “Feel the Pressure,” a perfect choice to impress the heavy fans.
Before the band could ask for his name, let alone invite him to join a band, the police cut the conversation short.
“We were like, dude, we lost our singer,” Sanchez said.
Fate, or maybe the shared appreciation of a South Park T-shirt Upton was wearing at an event weeks later, brought them back together. With vocals added to their noise and a new generator that let them play anywhere, the forest became their studio and an echo chamber of intensity.
A seven-and-a-half minute set at SLODOCO launched the band’s arrival into the local music scene.
Disparage, meaning to talk poorly about something, represents the larger scope of hardcore as a subculture that the genre was built off of.
“It isn’t really about us,” Sanchez said. “It’s about just getting hardcore out there and spreading the word.”
Special Forces
For punk band Special Forces, the relationship between them and listeners is conversational. On stage, there’s no platform. They’re in the crowd, getting people involved. Online, they aren’t promoting themselves as much as they are promoting the causes they care about, in a persistent strive to give back.
The bond between singer Jose Luis Lange, guitarist Reily Lowry, bassist Tyler Sheldon and drummer Micah Betros was truly formed when they survived the pit of Santa Cruz’s “Scowl” together, a spirit they channel in their own shows.
“If you come to a Special Forces show, we’re not going to wow you away with our raw technical abilities,” Sheldon said. “We’re gonna bring high energy and we’re gonna have a lot of fun.”
Exploring punk gives Lange, who experienced a stroke in his youth, a musical outlet with his vivacity and passion at the forefront.
“Because I’m disabled, it’s hard to actually play an instrument,” Lange said. “So that’s where I was like, maybe singing would be good. I can wiggle around and make people move, so punk rock is great for that.”
His lyrics often reflect on growing up in the state of not being perceived as disabled while not being completely able-bodied. Their debut self-titled song explores what it is like to navigate disability: “Special forces living in me/Affecting me more than people see/Special forces living in me/I’m a person, I’m not a disease.”
Their message is embedded into the music. Billionaires, political criticism and anything that people are afraid to talk about has become the source of their sound, emphasizing that it’s not us versus each other, it’s us versus the problem. The goal is engagement – respectful conversation sparked by their music.
The participation extends into the pit, with a bull mask and matador fights, the band has countless ways to get the crowd involved (and countless more ideas for the future).
Through the sale of DIY T-shirts, Special Forces has now raised over $300 for 805 UndocuFund, streamlining the platform they’ve built as a band into direct support for the causes they care about.
“It’s awesome that the community wants to engage with us,” Sheldon said. “It’s not us doing that, It’s the people that come out to our shows and they’re supporting us and supporting the programs and doing all this to help us out.”
“Just be weird. Come and be weird at our show,” Lange said.
Grayce
Described as “post-something,” Grayce’s dissonant sound is the culmination of guitar-heavy instrumentals and distinctive time signatures with the occasional spoken word or trumpet thrown in the mix.
“We make scary music that’s also beautiful,” said English senior and Grayce drummer Jake Marsh. “It’s slow and it’s fast, and it’s also loud, and it’s quiet.”
As students return and the local music scene is revitalized after a quiet summer, the band is feeding their fans with a show nearly every weekend. They were set to play in Lompoc and Simi Valley during their first month back, alongside the quintessential San Luis Obispo venues: SLODOCO and a friend’s backyard.
Grayce has reached audiences across the Central Coast during their first year, after their journey began with a Facebook post in the fall of 2024. Days before moving into school, biochemistry junior Andrew Gezon made a post to search for roommates in a last-minute attempt after being left stranded. Marsh’s mom replied.
The random roommate duo became familiar through their shared musical passion, and well-understood desire to start a band. With Marsh on drums and Gezon on bass (and occasionally trumpet), they completed their goal through outreach on a Music Production Union ‘Musician Mixer’ spreadsheet.
With the same post-hardcore and math rock influences (and any other genre that can be used to describe Slint), business sophomore Lucas Hensley and journalism sophomore Henry Olfert soon brought their guitars into the equation – and the apartment.
“It was almost immediate that we were like ‘Oh this is a band. This is working,’” Marsh said.
After a family friend of Marsh’s, Grace, passed away, the band built on her namesake with an additional Y. Five months and six original songs after their formation, Grayce played their first show alongside Avalynn, Krooks and Oxnard’s Faint at SLODOCO.
“We definitely kind of just chanced on a really great first opportunity,” Gezon said.
Their sound was what many were searching for in San Luis Obispo, whether that’s described as post-rock, post-hardcore, post-something or “Slint at home.” But they continue to emphasize the importance of showing up for local musicians.
“I think there’s no better reason to listen to us than any other band,” Marsh said. “Just go and find new music. And if you see an artist on a flyer that you haven’t seen before, I think you should go see them.”
“Go to every show you can,” Gezon said.
