Cindy: 'All Weekend'

The Sunday Music Drop is a weekly radio series hosted by the KQED weekend news team. In each segment, we feature a song from a local musician or band with an upcoming show and hear about what inspires their music.

Singer and songwriter Karina Gill of Cindy, a San Francisco and Oakland-based “song-based” lo-fi band, started writing songs around 2017, and had never been in a band or played music before.

“One of my roommates at the time was a drummer and kind of overheard me in the house and offered to play with me, and that’s sort of how it got started as a band,” said Gill. “As soon as I started [playing music], I could tell that this was a way that I could make myself understood in a way that really isn’t available in any other medium.”

Gill describes the band’s sound as “song music,” because it adheres to a song structure and the songs are written based on her experiences and thoughts over the years. “All Weekend” was inspired by her experience during an elevator ride in a public library with a stranger who was focused on their own internal world. The song is about people’s “doubleness,” referring to their external and internal experiences.

“You can be thinking about something entirely [different that’s] not in front of you while sitting on the bus or on the train or walking down the street,” she said. “This song touches on that in a lot of different ways, both through experiences of having interactions with strangers and also just that sense of having a private world going on as you walk through a public space.”

Regarding the band’s name, Gill says that she wanted something opaque that didn’t tell anyone much about the music. “It’s one of those names that fits a lot of different types and lots of personalities,” she said. “And so I liked how it was recognizable, but also didn’t lead you down a specific road of thought.”

Gill hopes people will pay attention to the music in a relaxed way. “I think that’s a kind of great thing to hear something and have your ear caught long enough that you’re not thinking about what you have to eat for dinner or whatever [and] that you’re able to just pay attention to the experience of it,” she said.

The band’s members also include Olly Lipton, Stayzhe Rodriguez, and Will Smith. “All Weekend” also features Stanley Martinez on guitar and Mike Ramos on drums. You can see them perform at the Four Star Theater in San Francisco on Oct. 11th at 7 p.m.