cal ear & friends (issue no. 2)

before we start:

When I put together last year’s issue for this project, I thought I had a lot going on creatively, but I don’t think it compares to everything I’ve worked on since then. From finding my parents’ old digital cameras, to really honing in on music for the past year, I’ve put out a LOT of my silly little art projects and it makes me really happy!

Besides all of my creative endeavors I found myself in, a lot happened in my personal life (at least more than usual). I ended an unhealthy friendship, made new friends, and reconnected with old ones too. Despite all ot the ups and downs from the past 11 months, I think I’ve had a pretty good time overall. I hope this issue of cal ear & friends can showcase what I’ve worked on, as well as share the stories and my thoughts behind it all!

Hope you enjoy!

-Claire

Photo by: Rebecca Li

LAST PACK OF FILM

The first semester was definitely full of ups and downs. Enrolling in AP Chemistry and hating every second of it and stressing over deadlines for all my classes while having what felt like the time of my life preparing for album releases, drawing, and subjecting my friends to what I call “silly billy behavior,” Fall 2022 was an emotional rollercoaster of sorts.

These photos were taken for a few reasons, the main ones being: I wanted to use the film pack before it expired, and I needed material to use for an album cover for my second cal ear project, The Rise and Fall of Calorie Cloon. These photos are quite the accurate representation of what school was like at the time: some days went perfectly, other days I dragged my feet in an attempt to do the bare minimum. This film was a nightmare to work with since some photos processed perfectly, while others came out of the camera completely blank.

I remember taking the top three photos in the sweltering heat. We constantly complained about how uncomfortably hot it was outside, yet we did nothing to change where we sat (we sat by the amphitheater completely exposed to the sun). The view, fortunately, was quite nice and there was enough room for all of us to sit, so that was probably why we stayed there for so long.

The middle three photos are more so unrelated. On the left, I tried to take photos of my friends, but my camera started behaving abnormally, so the film was stuck inside the camera. Like I do with most things, I overreacted and thought that I would need to buy a new camera, but fortunately, that was not the case and I was able to fix the issue

rather quickly. The middle photo was taken as a test shot and it’s of my styling head, a Rapunzel styling head I received as a Christmas present in elementary school, but I repainted it a couple years after. It ended up as the cover art for my song “Dudebro,” as well as part of the album art for the album. The third photo was taken at the dojo, when Parker and Yara visited while I was in class. It was fun to see them there after a couple of years.

The third row was taken during a rally we didn’t go to because they hurt my ears, and we just weren’t interested in going into the crowded gym that day. Our extended brunch was fun that day, the weather was perfect that morning.

I think I’ll get around to buying more instant film sometime soon, catching glimpses of my life and being able to look back at physical items from certain days makes me happy and keeps me motivated to make more memories with the people around me!

“did it work?”

what a great question, i wish i knew!

Ever since my mom took out our old digicams, specifically my mom’s Canon Powershot SD750, my dad’s Nikon Coolpix P1, and my grandma’s Canon PowerShot SD1400 IS, I’ve tried to find ways to use them in my creative projects. Album covers, music videos, vlogs, and this magazine, these cameras (mostly my mom’s and grandma’s) have been through quite a lot in their 12-15 years of use, especially in the last six months. Whenever I would check to see if my photos were in focus, or if the colors looked the way I wanted them to, I found myself asking the question, “did it work?” Half the time, it didn’t, but it was just an opportunity to fool around with the funny-looking shots, or find a way to work around the issue (this is probably the more productive response). The next couple pages will show some of my favorite photos that I (along with my friends) have taken this past year, enjoy!

i think we’re

omkar

kyle, me

rebecca, kaylyn

kaeden, paulo

kaylyn, emily

kaylyn, rebecca, emily

jackson

WHAT WAS

my thought process and stories

CLOONSTRUMENTALS - Cloonstrumentals was born out of me wanting to make an album but being too scared to add vocals. It stems from “Cloony,” the original name of the album. Even though listening to this physically pains me, I’m glad that I put it out because without it, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to release music that I actually enjoy listening to!

THE RISE AND FALL OF CALORIE CLOON - After releasing Cloonstrumentals, I really wanted to make music that was more influenced by shoegaze and what I think of as noisier genres of music. Looking back, some of the riffs on the songs are lowkey annoying, but I still like the ideas I had since I chose to make more music similar to this. I also still really like how the album art turned out, it reminds me of what things were like while I was working on this project.

OGULAR - I remember most of this EP being recorded within the same day because I had so many ideas. I wanted this project to be short, but still have songs that I made with intention, for lack of a better term. I was really influenced by bands like Deftones and My Bloody Valentine, so I tried to focus on making music that had a lot of distorted guitars, but I also added two acoustic tracks just because they came to mind while brainstorming ideas for this project.

I THINKING?

about my cal ear projects!

SPEED BUMP - This album was by far the most fun I’ve had working on a project. I tried to go more out of my comfort zone by working on songs that were longer and more well-thought out. I listened to a lot of midwest emo and indie folk music during this time, so I wanted to work on making riffs similar to the ones I liked in the albums I played on repeat at the time. I still find myself listening to “Loose Screw” and “Rheumatoid Arthritis” sometimes, which isn’t something I do with my other songs.

YOU GOOBER - I wanted to revisit some of the sounds I tried playing with in Cloonstrumentals with this project, and I think I did well in making songs that made my creative vision in that first project a reality, which makes me really happy. It was originally supposed to be around five or six tracks, but I kept creating new riffs, which turned into the songs I put on here. I was super indecisive about the cover art, but I’m really happy I chose this photo because I think it really encapsulates how I

WAIT, PEOPLE ACTUALLY LISTEN?

When I started sharing my music on Soundcloud in middle school, I mostly did it as a way to track my guitar and songwriting progress. The more music I made, the faster I became at finishing songs. After a while of posting random songs online here

and there, I decided to work on an album, eventually turning into Cloonstrumentals. I promoted it a little bit on social media in case any of my friends wanted to check it out, but I didn’t expect anyone to actually give it a listen, but to my

surprise, I was wrong! Even if I didn’t like how my music sounded after releasing it, my friends encouraged me to keep going, and I feel super grateful to have them all in my life. Every time I’d change things up with projects, whether it be in my releases or the videos I posted on my YouTube channel, they would always let me know what they thought about it, and it really makes me happy knowing that my peers actually enjoy what I do, because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have to say anything and I wouldn’t have that added layer of excitement when putting out an album or even just a small riff idea.

In addition to my classmates hearing my music, having people online react positively was quite a new experience for me. Even though I’ve been posting my drawings online since sometime in middle school, sharing my music felt like a completely different experience, but I’m not too sure why. Maybe it was the process of uploading my music to streaming platforms, finding ways to promote my work online, or the fact that I was able to talk to other musicians going through

the same processes, but it felt like this whole new world and it was (and still is) so interesting to look at and be a part of. It makes me wonder how the musicians I look up to felt the same way I did when they began their careers.

My most recent profile picture for all my music platforms. Photo by Rebecca Li

The small victories and other things; my thoughts after putting up music online!

But what’s next for cal ear? While I was working on You Goober! I began working on another album with more music influenced by emo and shoegaze. These songs are also going to have vocals, which is something I’m really excited for! I’ve shared rough versions of some of the songs online and I’m really excited to actually record and eventually release them. I want to go outside of my comfort zone with this album and so far, I’ve had a lot of fun working on it, even if I’ve run into challenges along the way.

Fun fact: the original Cloonstrumentals album artwork was a photo taken in Santa Monica!

WOAH THERE!

Here are some of my favorite artworks I’ve made recently.

DOODLE after

me a little sad because whenever I want to draw nowadays, I get super art-blocked. After a while, I realized that I don’t need to make something “good” and as long as I make something and have fun doing it, I’ll feel satisfied. With this change in mindset came the copious amounts of doodle pages. Whenever I have a creative block, I can only get myself to draw two things: silly doodles of little characters and self portraits. As a result, I have an ungodly amount of doodle pages covered in drawings of my face, dogs, my music equipment, and more! It might be a little repetitive, but I’m having fun.

When I had the motivation and ideas to make something that wasn’t a page filled with twenty self-portraits, I would work on paintings, which I would almost always regret halfway through painting (I have a love-hate relationship with painting if you haven’t noticed). I would spend the whole day working on paintings of bands I like or random landscapes I thought looked neat on Pinterest, ending up tired, my arms and legs covered in paint, and shocked that my white shirt wasn’t stained with paint. Somehow, I always ended up painting while wearing a white shirt, which is a stupid thing to do, but I don’t think I’ll stop. I think I’m getting better at painting too, so that’s also a plus I think.

The past year in terms of my art was mostly focused on traditional mediums, like graphite, acrylic paint, colored pencils, watercolor, etc. It was quite nice especially since for the past couple of years, my art was largely done digitally, a

and easy for me to start and stop since I use my iPad regularly (iPad kid behavior, I know), but since sometime in 2022, digital art has been more difficult for me to do because I seemed to lose almost all motivation and ideas whenever I wanted to draw digitally. Luckily, I’m slowly regaining my motivation, so I hope I can draw digitally even more this summer!

One of my biggest goals for this summer--and the rest of the year--is to find a balance between working on music and drawing because I love both art forms and I don’t want to neglect one to work on a different one. Despite not working on drawing as often as before, I’m still really happy with my art and I hope it stays that way!

Here are some of my favorite artworks that I’ve made within the last year!

doodle god is my middle name!

where do I even begin?

The past year has been interesting to say the least. From the strange weather, to questionable interactions with classmates and teachers, to reuniting with old friends, I have so many stories, too many to fit in this magazine. I’ll try to include as many as I can on here, but bear with me!

1. T-SHIRTS IN DECEMBER, SNOW IN FEBRUARY? Everything before March 2023 has been a blur for me, but I vividly remember how warm it was on Christmas. I know that there isn’t really such thing as winter in California, but 75 degrees? Bonkers! It was also shocking to see snow in February when I was wearing shorts at that time in 2022.

2. “WONDERFUL” SUBSTITUTE

(AND PERMANENT) TEACHERS

The 2022-23 school year was full of learning experiences, even if I wasn’t really learning anything academically. I took AP Chemistry my first semester, and while my classmates were great, never before have I experienced having a teacher so incapable of teaching. I know I should’ve dropped the class within the first two weeks of the semester, but I tried to stick with the class for the semester in hopes of eventually learning the material and having fun. I did not learn the material or have fun.This was definitely a regrettable experience. I also had a lot of interesting substitute teachers this year, but I’ll keep it short. There was the teacher that used a xylophone to tell us to be quiet (similar to my preschool and kindergarten teachers, except our class was made up of 9th-12th graders), the one who has a very patriotic fashion taste (I respect it though, the American flag button-up with the giant Jesus graphic on the back goes crazy, but none of the substitute teachers top the one that made me the most uncomfortable--the one people refer to

as Pizza Woman. Pizza woman made us sing the “I Am A Pizza” song twice in one class period and also brought up the “woke mob” enough times to make me feel uncomfortable. While it doesn’t sound horrible in writing, the actual experience was one-of-a-kind, that’s for sure.

3. WHOSE KID IS THIS? While substitute teachers were only temporary during the school year, many of my classmates were not! I’ve told most of these stories multiple times throughout the year so I’ll refrain from explaining them here, but in short, I’m glad that it’s summer break because it means that my friends and I don’t have to be harassed by one of my classmates at PE, and I no longer have to hear the most obnoxious EDM music playing on a Bluetooth speaker every morning when I have a headache, or just other obnoxious people in general (if you know you know).

4. FIELD TRIP! On a more positive note, in May (the day after the AP World exam), we went on a field trip to Santa Monica for Yearbook, and it was super fun just roaming around Third Street, The Promenade, and the Boardwalk. It was a lot less stressful and exhausting compared to last year’s Disneyland field trip, but that’s probably because the bus didn’t break down and we didn’t have fifty kids crammed into one bus. Another plus was that the field trip was on a Friday, so we didn’t return to school the next day feeling like zombies distributing hundreds of heavy yearbooks (and I did not cry!). Also the food was good (I had chicken and it tasted good despite me not being the biggest fan of chicken, yay).

5. PASSING TIME AFTER THE FINAL DEADLINE

After our final deadline, yearbook became a study-hall period, but instead of being productive and preparing for the AP World exam, I was very…creative. I started a blog with the most headache-inducing design, filmed a couple of videos, but I spent most of my time working on one thing--the worst Google Slides

presentations any of my friends have ever laid their eyes on. These slideshows covered topics such as: reasons should purchase a yearbook, taking over the world through the Garlic Bread Nation, “family” recipes, and job applications (this was actually a Google Form but shhhh). I filmed a number of unlisted YouTube videos with these projects when I would get home from school, and I spent way too much time on them.

6. MY BIRTHDAY! I spent my birthday at a karate tournament except I was the only person in my division so I was a little disappointed. I was still able to perform my kata and I won gold, so a win is a win, right? It felt a little silly, but it was fun, so I guess it’s fine. A week later, my brother and I had our birthday party. It was like when we were younger because we would have our parties the week between my birthday and his birthday. We had a lot of fun doing the activities my mom planned, watching Bullet Train on full volume on the TV, and walking around the neighborhood. I took an absurd amount of photos that day, many of which I use to torment my friends with regularly, and one that I used as cover art for You Goober! :)

7. OLD FRIENDS, NEW CONNECTIONS

This past year was eventful for my friendships. I started talking to some of my old classmates, many of whom I’ve known for over five years. It was nice being able to become friends with people I have so much in common with in terms of school experiences since most of us went to elementary school together. Even though this year was a mess for many of us, many of the good memories I had this year were the times I spent with them as well as the people I’ve called my best friends for years! These people are here, thank you for everything, you guys are the best people ever and I feel so lucky to call you all

This year made me realize how much easier freshman year was and how terrified I am to go through junior year! I know I can’t stop or go back in time, so I think I’m really going to cherish this summer break. I was super lucky with most of the teachers I had this year, so hopefully that will also be the case next year. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll be fine, I’ll just have more stories to share here.

Despite school sucking this year, I’m glad it happened because everything that happened outside of school was pretty okay. Of course it had its ups and downs, but I’m left feeling grateful for the memories I made with my friends, family, and when I worked on my silly little art projects this year. From chasing my friends with old cameras, to learning how to sing, I’m quite happy with the memories I made and I can’t wait to make more!

Hope to see you next summer!

HOORAY!

You made it to the end! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed working on it. After working on the first issue last year, I knew that I wanted to make another one this year and I’m glad I actually did it!