Estrojam! KTSW Celebrates IWD at The Porch

By Kylie Hogg

Local Music Journalist

KTSW 89.9 got together with the rest of the San Marcos community last Thursday, adding a second day to this month’s International Women’s Day festivities. Each year, KTSW books bands with female-identifying members to play at local venues as a way to highlight some of the women in the Central Texas music scene. This year the spotlight was on Crash Test Girls and Elegy.

Crash Test Girls

Crash Test Girls is a shoegaze/psych-rock band that is very new to the San Marcos scene and has very close ties to KTSW. Composed of Allison (lead vocals/bass), Sammy (guitar), Cal (drums), and Ayden (guitar), the band was a crowd-pleaser and drew in quite a large crowd. The band filled the venue with some originals as well as an entrancing cover of Heaven or Las Vegas by Cocteau Twins and Head in the Ceiling Fan by Title Fight. While these covers are very popular, they did not overshadow the original songs of the band. Overall their set made a very good impression and created a great showcase to show the band to a larger audience.

Elegy

The second half of the night gave the floor to Elegy. The Austin psych-rock band took me by surprise when their set opened with a very punk rock sound. The energy in the air instantly shifted from the relaxing, droning noise of Crash Test Girls to the high energy noise rock of Elegy, the audience did not hesitate to open up the pit and get moving. The set was a continuous flow of music with little breaks from the band to address the crowd. With this, the band established that they are unapologetic with their art, and if you don’t like it, you can leave. With the group having multiple gigs lined up for Austin’s South by South Southwest festival, their performance gave San Marcos a sneak peek into what they were to expect if they were to go this week.

Overall, I enjoyed both performances as well as the venue itself. My only issue lied in the fact that both bands only had one female-identifying member qualifying them for this event. That being said, this might be less of a reflection on the station’s booking system and more of a reflection of the lack of representation within the local scene. When I went to Estrojam last year, there were more women on the full lineup. This begs the question, where are the girls rockers in San Marcos?

Representation has been proven over and over again to be highly important. This, along with the fact that local independent artists are able to curate a closer relationship with their community, increases the importance of young girls who are interested in music being able to see versions of themselves on stage. If you’re a girl thinking about creating a band, I highly encourage you to do so! You never know who you could impress; plus, being a female rockstar is super cool.

Featured Image by Kylie Hogg.