The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: Gutswurrak

  • Destroy Boys and Margaritas Podridas rock the Gutswurrack

    Destroy Boys and Margaritas Podridas rock the Gutswurrack

    By Ollie Hancock and Kiana Znika

    In masks and makeup, showgoers shook the barrier, moshed, and crowd surfed to queer punk anthems to kick off the Halloweekend in an alternative safe space. Destroy Boys, and Margaritas Podridas filled the Gutswurrak with noise on Oct. 28 with songs about radical self-love and systemic defiance. The show was free to attend and hosted by Cal Poly Humboldt as part of the second annual SAC Halloween Bash. 

    Destroy Boys were excited about the accessibility of their set, as it was their first college show. 

    “Shows are so expensive to put on, and there’s so many people to pay,” the band’s guitarist Violet Mayugba explained. “We try to make our ticket prices as low as possible, but we rarely get an opportunity to do something like this where the funds are there like the promoter is a college.”

    As the opener, the Mexican punk band Margaritas Podridas exhilarated the crowd. Lead singer Carolina Enriquez filled the venue with her scream grunge vocals, sporting fairy wings, and a princess crown. They struck passion in the crowd with their recently released single, “No Quiero ser Madre,” a pro-abortion anthem. The crowd was surging and barely contained by the barrier by the end of their show.

    Destroy Boys walked out to a frenzied crowd. For this Halloween show, they acted out a religious skit in which Mayugba, dressed as the devil, fought over the soul of lead vocalist and guitarist Alexia Roditis, dressed as a nun. 

    The show was preaching to the choir, the choir being a mostly queer cop-hating crowd who sang along to anti-cop lyrics throughout the show.

    The band explains they’ve received a lot of LGBT support within the punk scene, their bassist David Orozco stating, “If you’re in a punk scene where they care about if you’re queer or not, that’s not punk.”

    Roditis enthralled fans with crowd interaction, jumping down from the stage to run along the barrier more than once during the show.  In their asides between songs, they preached radical self-love and acceptance, a message embedded in their music. Their shows reflect the same values; Roditis orchestrated a fems-only pit and encouraged the crowd to confront any abusive behavior. 

    The band hopes to inspire their young fans to find their own unique voice and be themselves.

    “Do what you want to do, as much as you can, without hurting people,” they explained. “That can go into being queer, being trans, dressing a certain way. Do whatever it is you want to do. You can’t fuck up your own heart.”

    The band is growing out of their diss track punk roots and towards more narrative songwriting that tackles bigger, philosophical topics. 

    “I used to write more about my personal experiences, but I’ve kind of wanted to stray away from that,” Roditis said. “I’m becoming a different songwriter.”

    Recently signed to Hopeless Records in 2021, the band is excited to be working on a new album with two songs already done. Roditis said they don’t expect to be fully done with writing diss songs but are looking forward to potentially writing a nice love song for Destroy Boys one day.

  • Local bands rock the Gutswurrak

    Local bands rock the Gutswurrak

    by Ione Dellos

    Band members wait in front of the bathrooms, eyes anxiously fluttering from the stage to the growing audience in the Gutswurrak Student Activities Center. After the deepest sigh one could possibly take, they make their way to the stage and prepare their set. It’s Local Band Night at the SAC. Humboldt’s local bands overcame their nerves and brought the good times to the stage.

    Starting the night off, local duo Cowboy Daddy took to the stage. Composed of lead vocalist and guitarist Skye Freitas and drummer/keyboard maestro Conner West, the two have performed as Cowboy Daddy for a little over a year. They work well together, always looking to each other while on stage. They lock eyes to land the ending chords of a song, or to check on each other mid-set.

    This was Freitas’s first live performance in over a year, but aside from temporarily losing her guitar pick, the performance went off without a hitch. She soon discovered it in the right hand pocket of her jacket.

    “The right is always right,” Freitas said.

    Photo by Abraham Navarro | Shaggy Joon’s guitarist and vocalist Lily Worthington sings at the Gutswurrak Student Activity Center on April 28.

    The second band to perform was Shaggy Joon, composed of local duo Lily Worthington and Grant Apicella. Worthington plays guitar and sings, and Apicella backs them up from behind the drumset.

    They came up with the name for the band in Worthington’s dorm room, and they’ve been playing together for about a year. Complicated strumming patterns and rapid chord changes are handled without a sweat when Worthington is on stage, and the assured confidence with which they handle a guitar are nothing to point a finger at. Worthington dedicated one of the songs to their girlfriend.

    “If you got somebody you love, pull them tight,” they said.

    They encouraged the crowd to dance a little slower to the song. Concert attendees locked hands and exchanged loving stares as they swayed gently, the gentle guitar riffs and bubble lights setting a dreamy mood.

    Shaggy Joon closed out the set with “2 a.m.,” one of Worthington’s favorite songs to perform live. They thanked the remaining audience for sticking around until the end of the show, and began to pack up their things. Despite the small crowd size, most attendees stuck around until the end of the night.

  • Gutswurrak official naming ceremony

    Gutswurrak official naming ceremony

    by Ione Dellos

    On Wednesday, April 20th, the University officially renamed the Student Activities Center to the Gutswurrak Student Activities Center in a ceremony at the building located by the UC quad. Pronounced “guts-wuh-dock”, it is the Wiyot word for “many people gather”. The name for the student union was originally suggested by the Wiyot Tribe, led by Wiyot Tribal Chair Ted Hernandez. He was also a guest speaker at the event, and he expressed his gratitude to the University and to the students, who pushed the renaming effort.

    The event started right at noon, with opening remarks from Wendy Sotomayor, director of the SAC, and Micheal Moore Jr., associate director of the SAC, and the two read Humboldt’s new formal land acknowledgment. Working with the College of the Redwoods, Humboldt has developed the following land acknowledgment:

    “We acknowledge that the land on which Cal Poly Humboldt is located in the unceded territory of the Wiyot people who continue to live and thrive today. It is surrounded by the traditional, ancestral, and present homelands of several indigenous nations including the Hupa, Karuk, Mattole, Tolowa, Wailaki, and Yurok that make up Humboldt County.”

    Following the land acknowledgment, Vice President Jason Meriwether spoke about coming together with the local Native tribes, and on the importance of a name.

    Ted Hernandez gave his remarks after Meriwether’s speech and welcomed students and staff members alike into his home. He offered his blessings to the building, not just to the students who came to the ceremony, but for all students in the future.

    Adrianne Colegrove-Raymond, special assistant to President Jackson, unveiled a new special feature of the building, which is a QR code on the wall that links to a recording of Wiyot youth and adults pronouncing “gutswurrak”. Anyone who visits the SAC can now scan the QR code with their phone and hear the recording of the Wiyot word.

    It was a relatively small ceremony, although, despite the small size of attendees in the SAC, the speakers definitely filled the room with their presence. The event was originally set to be held in the SAC quad, which might have increased the number of students that attended, but was moved indoors to the SAC West Lounge due to the rain. The ceremony only ran until about 12:30, as the speakers were done giving their presentations at that time. Students filtered through the small crowd like minnows, darting from space to space to grab a complimentary t-shirt and a handful of free food on their way out.

    The renaming effort is part of Humboldt’s effort to bring Native histories to the forefront of the University, which has not been the case in the past. The University is attempting to build new bridges and improve their relationship with Native communities through community activities like the SAC renaming.