THE COME UP - The Community Performs

Written by Grace Talice Lee Photography by Daniel Garcia

A musician performs at an open mic. He comes off stage to find a stranger in his seat. The stranger apologizes, moves aside, and compliments the musician on his singing—an original piece called “San Jose.”

The musician is Riley McShane. The stranger, Isaiah Wilson. A couple months after that fateful open mic, they huddled outside Café Stritch hatching a plan for their very first show when another stranger tapped each of them on the shoulder and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I want in.” Enter their third founder, Leo Macaya. And thus began The Come Up—a grassroots booking agency and production company for musicians in downtown San Jose.

Fast forward four months to February 2, 2018, when their inaugural show came to life in the newly established Uproar Brewing Company with four musicians, three comedians, and a borrowed sound system. Riley took charge of setting up mics and speakers, Isaiah played host to the incoming talent, and Leo documented the evening with crisp, clean photography that’s since solidified as the collective’s visual identity. More than a hundred people came through, generating so much interest that The Come Up soon landed a monthly showcase, a performance series at SoFA Market, and a stage at SoFA Street Fair.

But the best part of that first show wasn’t the lively crowd or the gigs that came after. It was the end of the night, as the last round of applause died down, and it finally dawned on the founders what they had just pulled off. As Leo said of that moment, “It was like, ‘You had fun? You had fun? Let’s do it again.’ ” And so they did—again and again and again, 27 shows in their first year—at least once every two weeks.

With such a rigorous schedule, it’s no wonder that the founders turned from strangers to close friends—or as they call themselves, The Come Up Kids. Their professional dynamic evolved in tandem, the three now working in perfect unison. Riley shows a keen mind for logistics. Isaiah trades in social capital. And Leo’s the third star in a Michelin rating, adding his knack for branding that takes their shows from “worth a detour” to “exceptional, worth a special journey.”

Image Courtesy of The Come up

Image Courtesy of The Come up

Of course, it’s all for the love of music, and maybe even more so, the love of musicians. What started as a simple mission to activate local businesses into performance spaces has now proven itself a vibrant exchange of ideas, culture, and friendship between artists—resulting in new albums, new styles, and new collaborations. “There are certain people who perform with us, who come out to shows on a regular basis, who come out to different parties that we throw,” said Isaiah. “[The Come Up] is always going to be a platform for local artists, connecting people to the Bay Area sound—but another aspect is that it’s a community for people to connect and get to know each other.”

Image Courtesy of The Come up

With Riley, Isaiah, and Leo, this sense of community is where everything begins and ends. It’s how they got started, funding their first show by winning a $1,000 grant from the Awesome Foundation’s local chapter. It’s how they operate on a daily basis, curating each lineup and crafting each performance with the audience experience as their priority. And it’s how they work as a trio of leaders, both now—pursuing their shared dream with equal parts enthusiasm and egolessness— and in the future. When asked about where they see the collective a decade from now, Riley said, “This is going to sound a little bit weird, but The Come Up in 10 years would be run by different people. We love what we do, and we want to keep it going for as long as possible, but at some point there’s going to be a new generation of really talented creative people. There already is. It gives me a lot of hope seeing kids who are 19, 20 years old who are already producing some really cool stuff. Handing off The Come Up to somebody like that, down the road…that’s how I see it.”

Isaiah said of their project, “It’s our love letter to the San Jose music scene.” But clearly, from the dozens of shows they’ve put on, all the way back to what Riley sang at that very first open mic—it’s really much more of a love song.

Follow The Come Up at sjcomeup.com and on Social Media @sjcomeup