We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Josh Icban a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Josh thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
The most meaningful project I’ve worked was something I produced in Decemeber 2023 for the United States of Asian American festival in the bay area entitled ‘To Cross: Aganakake Tatang Ko (I remember my father).’ The title is in Kapampangan, the language that is spoken in my father’s ancestral province in the Philippines, Pampanga.
The project was dedicated to my father who passed in October 2020. It was a music suite and theatrical multimedia presentation that focused on his immigrant journey to the United States. As part of the process, I was able to conduct oral interviews with his siblings, my mother and my older brother about their favorite memories of him and how they remembered him best. I heard stories I hadn’t before and it pieced together for me parts of his becoming I didn’t know. I was able to edit these audio interviews together with family photos and home video footage that I synced up and played in conjunction with the music pieces. His story intersects with many of my own peer’s parents’ journeys, as he lived through Martial Law in the Philippines and came to the United States by way of the US Navy, a pathway many of his generation took out of necessity. I hoped also to share a glimpse of the complex colonizing history and cultural assimilation that exists between the United States and the Philippines through the lens of my family’s story. A part most audience members were surprised by was hearing my mother recall in elementary school that families could be fined for their children speaking a language other than english, which shows the enforced precedence that took over their own native language.
The music was composed as a response and contemplation to my dad’s story and I was able to present it live with a full band. I also worked closely with film artists champoy and Christian Linaban and movement artists Jon Mercado and Poko Devis to create a projected visual element depicting a dance between Filipino deities of life and death and embed it into the story.
It was the first time in my life I was able to share something so personal and close to me publicly to an audience. It also allowed me to move through some initial stages of grief and many who attended found reflections of their own family figures through the testimonies of mine.
The accompanying EP is up on my Bandcamp.
Josh, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I have been a working and gigging guitarist/composer/arranger/performer and educator based out of the bay area for 15+ years. I was the youngest in my family band growing up in Vallejo, CA & when it was apparent I didn’t want to do much else, slowly started making my way in the local music scene. Since then I have worked with bay area based figures such as Fantastic Negrito, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, The San Francisco Philharmonic Orchestra (with Andre Nickatina), the Awesome Orchestra and Grand Nationxl. Being a working musician is interesting as you can find yourself in a room with people you didn’t imagine you’d be be in a room with before.
As a composer and sound designer I’ve done a lot of cultural work with different organizations in the SoMA Pilipnas cultural district of San Francisco including KULARTS and Bindlestiff Studios. I’m incredibly proud of the fact that I get to explore different dimensions of my ethnic, spiritual, and communal self by being involved with the communities of this cultural district. Through KULARTS, I’ve also been able to be in community with indigenous peoples of the Philippines in Luzon and Mindanao and be exposed to their arts, culture and histories. This is something that I value highly as a first generation Filipino American, in which deeper knowledge of the over 7,000 island country my parents came from used to be hard to find.
As an artist I value projects that deepen relationships to transformative justice. I want my artistic offerings to support anti-oppression and collective liberation.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
It continues to be lost on me that, in a society that says it values artists and arts, the economic reality is that many of us struggle heavily to meet the requirements to meet the ever growing cost of living expenses that include food, shelter, child care, and everyday transportation. It has become a common news headline to see budget cuts for arts and education programs in public school and higher learning institutions. For musicians, gig pay for playing live has not grown and many live music venues in the bay have had to close their doors post CoVid-19. Basic protections for musicians who want to play/create and have space to do their own music are not promised. Regulations around the streaming of music (the most popular way we listen now) has not benefited the artist and artistic team, with many of the profits instead going towards the privately owned platform. We live in a society that is ok with treating music as something that is ‘free.’ Even Spotify released a statement recently that said content creation for artists is something that costs them ‘close to zero’, a quote that many of us in the creative field angrily refute.
Though I paint a somewhat dreary picture, I want to encourage anybody reading to please support arts any way you can locally. If you encounter a band or artist you like please buy from them directly. Go to their shows! Support the venue that is hosting them. You can follow the United Musicians and Allied Workers for ways your vote can help us out. Write letters to your representatives about better protections and funding for arts. Call out practices and laws that make you feel gross. Talk to somebody in line while you’re at the grocery store about a show or album that you’re absolutely in love with. And please stay informed as best you can about the world around you and listen to our stories and experiences.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I wish I was more educated about the history of labor and the worker’s rights going into the music field. This is a incredible time for labor unions as workers around the world are learning their worth and refuse to accept the below standard treatment that profiting employers want them to think they are worth. I encourage readers to follow platforms such as Working Class History as well as the United Musicians and Allied Workers.
As personally fulfilling as it is to pursue music and arts in my life, the fact of the matter is that our labor is not always respected nor materially reciprocated appropriately. This is especially hard as we live in a society that requires us to meet a standard of profit in order to live a basic, healthy life. I wish I had known earlier about the history and definition of capitalism and the alternatives that can and do exist. This is crucial knowledge to navigate the complexity of the business end of creative field. Not to mention just generally growing and fine tuning your chosen craft.
For a more arts specific literature, I want to recommend the Business of Art by the Center of Cultural Innovation, which I read and own as part of a course of the same name.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.joshicban.com
- Instagram: @jicban
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@joshicban
- Other: https://joshicban.bandcamp.com/
Image Credits
Personal Photo-
Janeece Marmolejo
1- Erina Alejo
2-Mogli Maureal
3- RJ Muna
4- Paciano Triunfo
5-Adrian David
6-Mido Lee