Tag: Music

  • Sidebody’s road from Newton South High School to Boston Calling

    Sidebody at Boston Calling (Ben Stas/Noise Floor)

    In 2007, Lena Warnke transferred from the United Kingdom to Newton South High School, where she met a spunky girl, Martha Schnee, in her math class who had dark, curly hair and a distaste for arithmetic. 

    “Martha would raise her hand every day in math class and ask, ‘Why do we need this in real life?’ Every single day,” Warnke said.

    “It’s so funny and ironic that I’m now the drummer,” Schnee said. “It can be mathematical. Not that it is for me specifically, but I’m learning a very applicable use.”

    The two became friends and started playing music together in their senior year with another classmate, Hava Horowitz. The three members of the Newton South Class of 2011 and a fourth member, Cara Giaimo of Sherborn who joined a few years later, make up the Somerville-based indie rock band Sidebody.

    After over a decade playing local venues and basement parties, they got the chance to play at one of New England’s biggest festivals, Boston Calling, last month, sharing the stage with major acts such as Cage the Elephant, Luke Combs and Sublime, with at least 40,000 people in attendance that day.

    With Horowitz on vocals, Warnke on bass, Schnee on drums and Giaimo on guitar, the group creates a distinct blend of punk, rock and electronic influences. However, each member refuses to bind themselves to one genre or instrument. The women are known to rotate instruments and make up songs onstage, and occasionally introduce a synth or “street trash horn” into the mix.

    They all have day jobs. Horowitz, 32, is a leadership and communication coach. Warnke, 32, is an educator and cognitive scientist. Schnee, 32, is an artist and visiting lecturer in studio foundations for drawing at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Giaimo, 35, is a freelance science journalist. But by night, the women tear up local venues.

    Their success can be traced back to their freshman year in the halls of Newton South High School.

    Warnke met Horowitz in a global studies class. Coming from the U.K., Warnke said she experienced “culture shock” when she saw Horowitz’s eccentric style.

    “I remember you had short pink Uggs that were signed by all of your friends in eighth grade, and I had never seen Uggs before,” Warnke said.

    “Yeah, I think they had a hole in the toe,” Horowitz laughed.

    They got close while participating in Newton South’s WISE program, which allows seniors in good academic standing to pursue a part-time or full-time community service, research, or personal project instead of taking a full course load.

    “We were like, ‘Hey, let’s drop out of classes and do something fun,’” Horowitz said.

    The three friends dropped four of their six classes and opted for part-time projects exploring photography and visual art. Soon they started to jam. 

    It was this class that planted the seeds of their project, and after years of honing their skills and hours locked inside together during the pandemic, it bloomed into the distinct sound they make today. With synth riffs and spoken-word lyrics, the band’s style is reminiscent of ‘80s pop grooves and the ‘90s Riot Grrrl punk.

    “Lena and I did the project together,” Horowitz said, “and she taught me how to draw, and we made a comic book together, and Martha did a project related to photography.” 

    The women from Sidebody pose for a picture, date unknown. Courtesy photo

    One day in school, less than a year after they started playing together, the band discussed names. After an amusing conversation about body parts in which Martha mentioned her side body, they decided on the name “Sidebody.”

    They began playing their instruments in high school, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that the band took their music to the professional level.

    The band members credit Newton South’s many extracurricular resources and programs with fostering creativity among students. 

    “The school itself was really invested in the arts … the theater, music program, band, a cappella,” Horowitz said. “There was just a lot of investment.”

    Many of Sidebody’s projects are made possible through connections they made at Newton South. The videographer who filmed their latest music video was the beatboxer in Horowitz’s high school a cappella group, the Newtones. Their music producers also went to Newton South.

    “By the time we graduated high school, it was like a 300-person friend group,” Horowitz said.

    Giaimo met the group several years later, after her roommate let the band practice in her basement in Somerville. She taught herself guitar at 15 years old and has played and written music ever since.

    “We like to say that Cara has an honorary degree from Newton South High School,” Horowitz said.

    One night, Giaimo and her roommates had a party, and Sidebody played a few songs for the crowd.

    “I don’t know, I just thought they were awesome,” Giaimo said. “I just really liked the show. And I could tell that they were just goofing around and having fun, but I thought the songs were really good.”

    The band is now deeply involved in the Somerville community through local venues, zines, and activist movements. They make their own designs for T-shirts, costumes, and other merchandise.

    “We’ve lived here for a long time, and we’re pretty rooted and invested in sustaining living here,” Warnke said. “It’s not easy to live in Somerville as an artist. It’s very expensive.”

    They rent a space at Central Street Studios in Somerville to house their printing press business and other art ventures. Recently, they learned that the owners are selling the building. They and 30 other tenants who are part of a nonprofit called The Arts and Business Council are trying to purchase it.

    “We started a fundraiser,” Warnke said, “and we are raising money from the community to try to get the sale to go through so that the building can remain as an affordable artspace in perpetuity.”

    Sidebody at Boston Calling (Ben Stas/Noise Floor)

    Sidebody at Boston Calling (Ben Stas/Noise Floor)

    The band has survived years of physical and mental obstacles together, contributing to the band’s ever-changing identity. After over a decade with each other, Sidebody embraces their collective chaos.

    “It’s very hard to define what the kind of music we create is, how we all switch instruments,” Horowitz said. “It really just reflects the changing nature of the band.”

    From their high school years to now, they have categorized the phases of their band into three eras: pre-music, music, and post-music. In high school, the musicians used to “wing it” during performances; now their sets are thought out. 

    As they have worked together longer, they have put more structure and attention to detail into their sets.

    “I think we did go through a curve where we got better enough to be like, ‘We don’t know anything,’” Giaimo said. “Now I think we have moved past that, and we are, like, learning more and stepping into our confidence again.”

    Even at Boston Calling, the band made sure to include an improvised jam in their set. Playing at Boston Calling was a dream come true for them.

    “It was unreal… And to be on the biggest stage in New England was so fun,” Schnee said. “All of our families were there, and parents were there. That was really cool to have.”

  • ‘To the People Like Us’ — Students tackle community changes through opera

    From left  – Katelyn Geary, Nina Evelyn, Timothy Steele (piano), on the floor is Cerise Jacobs and Kayla Faccilongo, Linda Maritza Collazo and Jesús Daniel Hérnandez. Miu Tung Rong photo

    Daniela Martinez, a graduating senior at the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, joined 826 Boston in the fall of 2023, thinking she’d be writing plays, not the libretto for a new opera. But for six months last year, Martinez worked alongside other students at the writing nonprofit brainstorming, scene writing, and creating the text for the opera “To the People Like Us.”

    A year later, on June 28, the opera is set to premiere at the Strand Theatre in Uphams Corner.

    “To the People Like Us” follows three teens living in an unnamed city neighborhood. Costanza and Malakai, who are native to the area, confront the possibility of displacement when Indigo, whose mother is the developer responsible for the pressure, moves onto the scene.

    The opera was created by a dozen students from 826 Boston’s Youth Literary Advisory Board — a program that offers students stipends for their work as writers and editors — in collaboration with White Snake Projects, an activist opera company.

    Above: Nina Evelyn. Miu Tung Rong photo

    “White Snake came to us with the idea of students writing the libretto,” said Asiyah Herrera, a teaching artist for the Youth Literary Advisory Board. “I was cautious and hesitant because I’ve never written a libretto before.”

    Herrera said there was a steep learning curve for everyone involved, herself included. The writing they had worked on together previously was done on a much smaller scale, she said.

    She split the students into three groups, assigning each team specific scenes in the story to work on. Two individuals from White Snake Projects came to the sessions to guide the students through the writing process.

    “It was mainly just us and the writers at White Snake,” Martinez said, “making sure the plot points would be something that White Snake would want to represent, or the characters would be something that they would want on the stage and be okay with.” 

    Mezzo-soprano Kayla Faccilongo. Miu Tung Rong photo

    Each season, White Snake Projects assigns a social justice issue as the focal theme of their shows. The organization chose climate change for 2025.

    While students centered the opera on climate change, they used the opportunity to adapt the story into a real-life issue they’ve seen firsthand: gentrification.

    “They wanted a story that was about themselves and their own experience, like all of the places they’re talking about are real places in Boston,” said Pascale Florestal, the opera’s director.

    “The 826 Boston location is in Jamaica Plain, and Jamaica Plain is currently being gentrified,” Martinez said. “A lot of us — including myself [because] I live in East Boston, which is also being gentrified — had experience with it, so that came from ourselves.”

    Jorge Sosa, who composed the music for the opera, said it was important for him not only to stay true to the students’ vision but also to use art as a tool to explore related social issues.

    “I think that music is speech. Art is speech, and we can use it to say whatever we need to say,” Sosa said. “For me, I use my right to free speech to talk about the issues that are important to me.”

    Even though Sosa has never met the students in person, he said he shares their vision and concerns, and though the music may not change the world, he thinks that it still has the potential to create an impact.

    He said the music needed to reflect the characters and the world in which they lived. He jokingly describes the opera as an “electronic zarzuela,” a Spanish operetta style that alternates between spoken and musical scenes. He also included references to salsa and bolero in the show.

    Florestal acknowledged that opera has a reputation as a higher-class, elitist activity. She said it will be interesting to see how typical opera-goers react to the performance.

    “My job is to show people in opera who may not think about what it means to tear down this building and build a skyscraper, to the families who live in that building or the families who rely on that corner store for groceries,” she said. “Those people, oftentimes, who are affected by these larger implications of the system that we live in don’t get an opportunity to have their voices heard.”

    Martinez said she wants this opera to motivate people “to open their ears and listen to each other and have actual conversations, instead of just yelling back and forth at each other and sticking by their stubborn ideals.”

    “To the People Like Us” will have two performances on June 28, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Ticket prices are “pay what you can.” RSVP information is available on the White Snake Projects website.