Fremont, California isn’t typically the place that comes to mind when thinking about the Bay Area music scene. The scene was in San Jose, Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and Hayward even. Not Fremont.
With a population of around 220,000 and with the title of the happiest city in the United States, Fremont was about as suburban as a city in the Bay Area gets.
However, upon stepping into Tamper Room on the night of a show, it was easy to see that hidden underneath the city’s shiny streets and tidily lined suburbs, there was a bloated swarm of a music scene, ready to burst forth from the city’s neatly stitched seams.
Tamper Room is a quirky refreshment of a cafe. Its shelves and walls feature pieces from local artists, both for sale, and for display. It has become a hub for all sorts of different, mainly queer and BIPOC-run events. I actually hosted my first ever meeting of the SF Bay Area Tamagotchi Club here with their help, an event that was made incredibly successful with their accommodations and support. During the daytime, Tamper Room welcomed people into its brightly lit space, the air usually buzzing with the sounds of clinking cups, conversations, and coffee machines.
It had completely transformed for the show. The space at the front of the cafe, between the register and the glass windows had been entirely cleared, making space for a drum kit, speakers, and amps. Wires criss-crossed the floor. Purple, green, and yellow lights melted together, transforming the space into something more intimate, more cavernous.
Outside, people milled around comfortably, each in their own island of friends and acquaintances. Everyone seemed to know someone. I also ran into a few familiar faces, most, if not all from the East Bay. As I sat on a bench outside of the performance space, I couldn’t help but look up at all these people who knew each other, these people who knew someone who knew someone, and feel almost at home. As someone who had lived in this little suburban scramble of cities surrounding Fremont for my whole life, I knew that the DIY community in Fremont and its surrounding areas were not as large as the ones in San Francisco or Berkeley, but it was persistent, the way a scene should be.
The lights dimmed, and people began to idle into the cafe as the first band, A French Project, began their set. A French Project is a three piece, alt-rock band from Fremont that leaned headfirst into punk influences. To my delight, two of the members were named Aidan, one on guitar and vocals, the other on bass, with Daniel, the drummer, completing their trio. The singer was all smiles as he welcomed the audience with a contagious energy.
“What’s up, Fremont?” he shouted before nodding to his bandmates and launching into their first song. Their music was fast and breathless, letting go as soon as it found a handhold. The band members seemed to pitch themselves forwards into their sound, head over heels over head over heels. The crowd nodded along, some beginning to playfully push each other around and forming a small mosh pit. It was a perfect firecracker of a band to start the show with.
The breaks between sets were strangely serene. The tables and chairs that usually sat inside the cafe had been moved outside, so there was ample seating to be found. Tamper Room was in a plaza surrounded by all sorts of Chinese restaurants, some still open, and people wandered in and out in search of late night snacks. The sky began to bruise blue-black as the sun set and a surface-level chill settled into the air as cigarette smoke spiraled its way through the crowd. Before I knew it, the lights dimmed once more, and everyone began to file back into the cafe as the next band began to tune their instruments.
The second band, Little Critter, was more subdued than the energetic A French Project. A self-described sludgepop band composed of Joon (Vox/Guitar), Ethan (Drums), Ivan (Bass), and Angel (Guitar), Little Critter’s sound was, for lack of a better word, overcast. Distant, dim, and distorted, Little Critter’s music made me feel like I was floating at the bottom of a murky pond, a byproduct of a daydream. There were a few technical difficulties during their set, as there are at most DIY shows, all of which they handled with grace. As they played around with synthy, shadowy instrumentals combined with unique audio sampling, I felt that they truly hit the nail on the head when they used the word “sludge” to describe their music.
friendship games attracted the largest crowd by far, with stragglers who had been outside for most of the show beginning to squeeze themselves into the crowd. I had personally also come to this show to see friendship games, having had their song “self-destruct,” a song about regret and the feeling of missing someone, on repeat over the course of the last summer when it first released. They were a four piece band, made up of Jenny (Guitar/Vox), Aubrey (Guitar), Cole (Bass), and Julius (Drums). Their sound was math rock, power pop, and emo, all combined into one wistful package. The band was themed around the series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and pony references were abundant, overflowing my childish, cartoon-adoring spirit with a near raucous, uncontainable joy as I sang along. Their set carried so much obvious love, passion, and sincerity that I could practically feel my heart on the verge of bursting as I listened to their songs, so reminiscent of end-of-summer nostalgia, so bare and so raw. I can confidently say that they are one of my favorite bands to have come out of the Bay Area scene in a very long time.
Finally, Antlion came on. Two of their members, Jenny and Cole, were also in Friendship Games, the other two, Ethan (Guitar/Vox) and Judas (Drums) were fresh additions to the stage, but possessed the same obvious passion that Friendship Games had. Their set, inspired by the game Half-Life, consisted of songs containing dynamic riffs and instrumentals that carried me like an ocean wave, fast and free and yearning for more. Like the game that they take inspiration from, Antlion felt subversive, screwy, and of course, fun. Their devastatingly sentimental melodies combined with the sharp edges of hardcore made for an addictive set that was over far too soon.
I left the show with a full heart. I said goodbye to people I knew and stepped outside, lingering to appreciate the sparkle that the show left in my heart, my mind still spinning in dizzyingly gleeful circles. As I drove away from Tamper Room, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride for this small part of the Bay, this little shelf of the scene. It had carved out its own cranny of the subculture, with an energy and familiarity that was entirely its own, in no small part thanks to the musicians who continue to march to the beat of their own drums, and to the people who recognize the importance of music and hold space for it.
Words by Gwen Tam
Photo by Alani Angeles
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