State Press podcast transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. The official record for State Press podcasts is the audio. Please listen to the audio as this transcript may only contain summary forms of the given episode.

Ava Peguese: 

Welcome back to the podcast! 

Joahan Lopez: 

The Culture Issue is here! 

Connor Greenwall: 

We take a look into the issue and what is has to offer!

Ava Peguese:  

I’m Ava Peguese.

Joahan Lopez: 

I’m Joahan Lopez.

Connor Greenwall:

And I’m Connor Greenwall, and this is State Press Play.

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Ava Peguese:  

Hello everyone. Today I'm joined by Savannah Dagupion, the editor-in-chief of the State Press magazine. While our magazine always has a theme of being really great and super visually remarkable, each issue is its own individual. Well, usually. for as long as we can remember, the State Press magazine has kept the tradition of the culture issue, Savannah, can you tell me a little more about the history behind this special issue?

Savannah Dagupion:

Sure, yeah. So I've been in State Press magazine Since 2021 and that year we did the culture issue. The year after we did the year after that, we kind of skipped over it so, but I know, like way in the past, the culture issue has just been like a common theme that we always go back to. And I think the reason for that is just because culture is obviously ever evolving. I kind of mentioned this in my editor's letter, but it's constantly being redefined throughout the years, and so we just think it's a significant theme to, you know, keep coming back to.

Ava Peguese: 

What are some reoccurring themes that you guys see in each culture issue?

Savannah Dagupion: 

So a lot of times, our reporters will pick, like, a very niche community. I've I've seen that a lot where, like in this issue, one of our reporters covers, like the punk scene, but more specifically in like the 70s, 80s and 90s, in a previous culture issue, I think someone covered like, goth culture. So it's like a lot of people, like stretching the bounds of, like, what you would typically think of culture, and then like diving into like, these fine communities that, like they, like our reporters, have, aren't even a part of, but they just want to learn more of. And so that's a common thing that all the culture issues have.

Ava Peguese:  

What different directions Have you seen the issue take in your time at the State Press magazine?

Savannah Dagupion: 

I think the directions kind of lie in the cover. There's one cover where it's like an illustration of a bunch of people dancing, and I feel like the stories in that issue very much match the vibe of just like people dancing and like just a lot of people coming together. Last year's cover was the mannequin, like mannequin thing with also, like, just a bunch of fun typography, and I that also very much matched. And so sorry to, like, veer from the question and talk about our cover, but we just wanted to kind of encompass, like, just the general population of ASU, and also play with typography again. So, yeah, I don't know. I think that kind of encompasses what we were looking to do.

To hear more from Savannah, please tune in to State Press Play.

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Joahan Lopez: 

Hello, hello, and welcome back to the State Press Play Podcast. I'm Joahan Lopez, and today it's a special day, as the State Press will relieve their magazine the first of the semester, and I got one of the writers who featured his story called Through the Lake of Fire, looking back on the Phoenix areas influential punk and alternative rock scenes written by Mr. Evan Silverberg, who is here with me. Evan, how are we doing today? 

Evan Silverberg:

Good. How are you? 

Joahan Lopez: 

Better that you're here? Evan, so tell me about your story. I read it. I loved it. I'm a big music fan, which who isn't a big music fan, but if you are one of those, you know musically, people that just love everything about music. I'm saying music a lot. Read his article. Is really good. It's amazing. The illustrations are cool. The artwork is so sick and all that. But Evan, I want you to give me some director commentary on your story. What's it about to someone who you're trying to get to read your story?

Evan Silverberg: 

Phoenix, Arizona has a really deep and interesting history of producing really important and influential punk rock and alternative rock music, especially in the 80s and 90s. It was kind of a hot bed for a lot of bands to come up. meat puppets, JFA, some punk bands in the 80s, Jim blossoms refreshments ended up getting a lot more commercial appeal in the 90s, and it's just been a really interesting scene of music to look at for a really long time. And I think that if you live in the valley, it's really interesting to kind of check out, especially with the relationship that certain alternative rock bands from Phoenix, uh, had with the ASU in particular. 

Joahan Lopez:

Great description. Well said, Evan, so tell me how you ended up pitching the story to the State Press. Or were you a fan of the meat puff at JFA and  the blossoms? Or were you just, you know, you love rock so much you want to write about it. You pitch it to mag, and they went with it. So tell me about the story. 

Evan Silverberg: 

Yeah, well, I'm from Phoenix, born and raised. I'm from North Phoenix, and I've always been a big fan of alternative and punk music. I was raised with a lot of alternative, listening to Arizona bands like The gym blossoms, like the refreshments, like the Meat Puppets, from my parents, who were really into that stuff. You know, they were in their 20s in the 90s. They moved to Arizona in the mid 90s, so that kind of music has just always been important to me. And being from Phoenix, it's really interesting to kind of look at the bands that have come from here. And I usually, kind of, my articles tend to be more political, but I thought that it would be interesting to do an article, kind of just doing, like a deep dive into this world of Phoenix rock music, of the punk scenes that came from Phoenix in the 80s, in the alternative scenes in the 90s, that alternative rock kind of developed from punk rock. So it's kind of an interesting evolution to see how Phoenix produced so many great, iconic, influential bands in how how different they all are, and how much changed over time I've I'm a huge fan of the me puppets. I'm a huge fan of JFA, Jim blossoms, professionals, every band I mentioned in that article. So it's just been really cool and interesting for me to to be able to do this article

To hear more from Evan, please tune in to State Press Play and pick up a magazine in newsstands across campus.

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Connor Greenwall:

I'm here with Paulina Soto. Paulina is the deputy design director for State Press magazine. Paulina, the theme of this issue of the magazine is culture. Could you tell me a bit about the design process that went into creating this issue?

Paulina Soto: 

Yes. So as you can imagine, culture is a very broad subject topic. There's so many of them, and especially at ASU, where we have such a variety, I think it was definitely difficult to get the ball rolling, but our multimedia team got it together, and we just started throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what worked. Taking a lot of inspiration from, well, the cultures of the people here at ASU, our personal experiences, Arizona, the desert, all these things, and getting these, this, this mix of ideas together in some sort of way. So we just thought multimedia like, let's do like collage vibes and illustration and photo, which we already do in a lot of the things and a lot of our past issues. But in this issue, we really wanted to collaborate with one another. So you'll see like Ollie and Ollie, our photographer and our Illustrator Andrea, they did some really cool collaborative work. I mean, Lavanya is always working with everybody on the team to make our stuff seem cohesive, and that was especially important during this issue.

Connor Greenwall: 

And in this issue, you had a few illustrations that were included in some articles. Can you tell me a bit about those illustrations and maybe the process that went into creating those?

Paulina Soto:

Yes, definitely. So one illustration was for a satire written by one of our reporters, Abby, wonderful. We get the process for getting these multimedia elements started by hearing out the pitch of the story, and then we'll just be talking about what ideas come to mind when it comes to that story, what settings, which medium would be best and for that story, I thought this, I can picture this in my mind. This feels like I I can get this done. I could convey what's being talked about in the story very well. And Savannah and everybody else is just like, Okay, go for it. Like, that's that's perfect with us. So I just started ideating, especially after reading Abby story like, dinner ideas like what a fancy dinner looks like, and and should I be more abstract or more literal. And what colors do I use? And what do you usually see at a dinner, like the guy orders a drink and the girl orders a drink, and maybe their faces are reflected on the drink, or just this sort of imagery come up with, like mood boards and stuff is definitely an important part of the process. And for the other designs that I did, it was like a choose your own adventure sort of story that was very difficult, because it's these ideas, connecting them all over the place and making them cohesive on a page. This definitely took a lot of trial and error, but I just simplicity and then adding a bunch of filters to make it more visually interesting, with color and little illustrations here and there, throughout the pages, felt like the way to go, and at the end of at the end of the day, I really used the feedback from our editors so much, definitely very encouraging workplace. And without that, I would not even begin, I couldn't begin to feel comfortable and confident in what I make without their support. So definitely a collaborative process. Even though they're illustrations that I did it, the ideas I got from all the people at these meetings were just so helpful.

Connor Greenwall: 

And how did you get involved with State Press magazine? And can you tell me a bit about what your role exactly with them is?

Paulina Soto:

Yes. So I got involved because my one of my best friends, Monica Navarro, she graduated from Cronkite last year, and she was the Design Editor for State Press magazine last year. And she was like, hey, they're looking for people. And I was like, Oh, my God, I could be one of those people that would be so awesome. Cool, very amazing. Since I had some social media experiences, experience prior to this, I applied for the social media engagement job for the State Press magazine, and that was my role last semester, also helping out with the design for those issues that we published last semester. But this semester, I was very lucky to get the opportunity to become the deputy Design Editor after Savannah and the other editors and Lavanya were like, Hey, you, you, you really help out with the layout. Let's, let's get you more involved in the layout process. And now Wendy, she's our engagement person, and she does an amazing job with social and now I can just focus on. My illustrations of my designs and making the layout look pretty, which is so awesome. And now, what was the second part of that question? Sorry.

To hear more from Paulina, please tune in to State Press Play.

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Ava Peguese:

And that’s all for this week’s State Press Play. I’m Ava Peguese.

Connor Greenwall: 

I’m Connor Greenwall. State Press Play is produced by our podcast desk editor, Kylie Saba. Our original music is by Ellie Willard and Jake LaRoux. 

Joahan Lopez:

And I’m Joahan Lopez, special thanks to our managing team, Morgan Kubasko and Matthew Marengo. 

Ava Peguese: 

You can check out all these stories and more on statepress.com. See you next week

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