The West Valley College campus was buzzing all day, but around 6:30p, the atmosphere shifted. DJ John Beaver’s upbeat EDM set boomed across the valley, guiding folks from the parking lots into the Cilker School of Art and Design Grad EXPO.
Outside, food trucks lined the Northwalk. Near the entrance, 2026 San Jose Creative Ambassador Jorge “J.Duh” Camacho was pulled up in his modified U-Haul Pop-Up Box. Built as a mobile art gallery, it was created to make art viewing more accessible for and by the community. This evening’s exhibition featured a mix of art. It included works from artists in issue 18.3 “Perform,” such as a community art piece by Crossthread SJ, and hardcore show photos shot by Sherrise Sexton (on loan from 365—a visual archive of Bay Area hardcore that was on view at Vago Super). Paintings by Hargun M. Mann and welded metal sculptures by Alana Lin were also displayed.
Moving inside, Content Magazine supporters gathered for an intimate VIP reception headlined by Los Panaderos, whose performance beckoned guests to the Cilker Courtyard for food, drinks, and dancing.
As the fashion show approached, folks started making their way across campus. They took in the full spread of what was happening—from student art sales and gallery exhibitions to the live performances in the Cilker Lounge. Before hitting the grass, guests could catch Lindsey “HELLA Famous” Leong selling books on revolutionary ideology. They could also tap in with the Crossthread SJ crew. The group held it down for the community by pairing show promo with vital harm-reduction support like contraceptives and test strips. While critical theory and fentanyl test strips probably weren’t on the official college tour brochure—and may have surprised a few guests between wine refills—activations that merge and showcase community perspectives across contexts are exactly the point of Content Pick-Up Parties.
By 8p, all paths converged on the runway, the crown jewel of the night. This event celebrated the 5th year of the Cilker graduate showcase and partnership. This year’s Annual Graduating Fashion Design Student Fashion Show displayed elite growth and experimentation. For nearly an hour, models strutted the catwalk in student-designed garments that pushed boundaries. They mixed materials from latex to lace, and patterns from plaid to polka dot. The sheer diversity of the collections proved that the future of South Bay fashion is unapologetically bold.
The energy didn’t drop when the runway cleared. Immediately after, Silk Road took the stage. Fronted by sisters Alana (featured in the current Issue 18.3) and Amara Lin (featured in Spring 2024’s Issue 16.2), Silk Road rocked a heavy set of covers and originals to a lawn of listeners, leaving the audience wondering why the college doesn’t host a regular concert series on that grass.
Even as the performances wound down, the chairs were being folded, and the food trucks pulled away, guests could be seen mingling and chatting. While the EXPO has grown massively over the last five years, the core of this collaboration between Content Magazine and West Valley College remains unchanged: it is a definitive showcase of what happens when higher education, local arts, and authentic community dial into the same frequency.
Missed out on the action? Grab your copy of Issue 18.3 “Perform” and mark your calendars for our Issue 18.4 “Profiles” Pick-Up Party on Thursday, August 27, where we will bid a fond farewell to the founder and Cultivator of Content Magazine, Daniel Garcia, as he embarks on retirement.
Wowing crowds with outstanding performances at just the age of three, Amara Lin is no stranger to the music world. Fast forward to today, and she is the lead singer for two bands and teaches music at three different schools. She’s really come a long way with music.
Though she doesn’t come from a musical household, being involved with music since she was so young was the main cause for her wanting to make a life with it. Never has she had to figure out what she’s wanted to do with her life, because she’s been doing the thing she’s loved since she was a toddler. “My mom’s a music lover, so she put me in music classes when I was really young just to be exposed, and it took, but I didn’t really come from a music household,” Lin says. “I’m not sure things would have turned out the way they have if I were. Since I was young, I never had any other aspirations for anything else. Music was the only thing that made sense.”
Up until the pandemic, Lin always considered herself a solo artist writing her own music and performing. It wasn’t until one day at her job that she got an invitation to be a lead singer for her current band, Silk Road. “So the local band Silk Road came together when I started working for San Jose Guitar Center. My boss’s son was performing at an event with me and said, ‘Hey, I’m starting a band. Do you want to join it?’ ” Lin says. “They already had some parts together, then we came along and dragged a few other people in, and I got my sister to join us doing backup vocals. That was cool, and very unexpected.”
Lin’s music can be considered multigenre, but her main focus is on making pop rock or progressive alternative. If you ask her, she’ll tell you her sound is quite different. “I do a little bit of everything. I like the singer/songwriter aspect when it’s just me and my instrument,” Lin says. “I do some pop rock, progressive rock, present rock, with metal elements.”
Lin’s musical sound is so unique that you cannot really label it into one genre. She attributes a lot of her sound to music greats from the ’70s. “I listen to everything, but primarily ’70s music. I love psychedelic progressive stuff like Pink Floyd, the Doors, and Electric Light Orchestra,” Lin says. “Of course, I like the female songwriters of that era—Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and the more recent Alanis Morissette. Those are the mains.”
When it comes to making great music, every artist has an area that they hone in on, trying to perfect it. Some focus on the sounds of a song, such as vocals and riffs, whereas some are more into lyrics and storytelling. Lin likes to focus on storytelling and relatability with her fans. “I’m such a lyricist, I really care about lyrics. It doesn’t matter to me if the song is catchy, but if it doesn’t have good lyrics, it doesn’t hit as hard,” Lin says. “So I have to have a concept. Sometimes I write a poem and then write a song off of that, or I’ll come up with a melody and find words to match it, but when I do that it doesn’t feel as real and raw. When I’m writing with someone else, it’s nice because I don’t have to focus so much on the instrumental aspect. I get to nerd out and write something as somebody from an outside perspective and match how it feels with lyrics.”
Lin is passionate at what she does, and when it comes time to retire, she doesn’t see that in her future. Being in love with making music, she wants to create even in old age. “I love performing so much, and I love writing so much, I can’t decide which one is better,” Lin says. “I don’t think it’s ever been a concept in my mind that I would not be writing at some point in my life. I don’t care if I’m 80, so long as I can always express myself in that way and have the lenience to be able to do that.”
Wanting to help people is an overall goal for Lin. Along with doing music, she is currently a double major at De Anza College in music and psychology. She hopes to land a job in music therapy one day.
“Music was always a constant. It was always something I did, but I didn’t realize why. When I began writing at fourteen, I realized that it was kind of the thing holding it all together,” Lin says. “Music keeps me sane, so if I could make music that helped keep other people sane, that’d be pretty cool.”
Having recently released the song “Breathlessly,” Lin reveals that there is plenty of music on the way, and that they have more projects on the horizon. “We’ve been releasing over the past couple years. We’ve been dropping singles here and there, and we’re hoping to drop a project,” Lin says. “We have a lot in the vault. We’ve been doing a lot of music video covers, and for my other band in the works, we’re hoping to work on an album in the next year.”
