Carver Jones began his music career living in a van and busking across the country, but on Saturday night he found himself in a basement music venue in Boyle Heights for his first Los Angeles headline show. In the crowd, one particularly on-theme action-adventure hero, Indiana Jones, hyped up the audience.

The man in costume was Michael Tringale, a senior majoring in music industry and the night’s host, who brought together a lineup of indie artists for Ugly Flower Productions’ latest show, “Indie and a Jones” at AboveTheBridge, where 170 attendees filled the room. 

“This is a first step for us,” Tringale said. “We usually don’t throw indie shows. We’re pretty rooted in the punk scene here in L.A., but based [on] the success of this, we might continue to do more indie shows and broaden out in terms of the type of shows we do.”

Tringale, along with fellow music industry seniors Kai Tano, Aadi Pitre, Ariane Villanueva and Vincent Vasquez, began throwing shows as Ugly Flower Productions in Spring 2026, as part of a class: Live Music Production and Promotion. Students in the course act as concert promoters and put on a show, donating some of the proceeds to charity. 

For Ugly Flower’s first show, they threw a punk show in Boyle Heights called “Boyle Ice,” with local artists Spunk, Integra Pink and american woman. They sold nearly 300 tickets and donated $2,000 to the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, a charity that supports undocumented immigrants. Since then, the group has put on four shows in the area.

For “Indie and a Jones,” Tringale brought together a lineup of small artists, most of whom had never played a show in L.A. before. The night began with Junah Blue, a friend of Ugly Flower, followed by Lucaa, an artist from Chicago, then taka from Dallas and headliner Jones coming all the way from Nashville.

Tringale said he discovered the artists while finding new talent as an artist and repertoire consultant, first at Encore Recordings and now at Broke, an independent music label. He said he did independent research online looking at indie playlists and using the companies’ respective proprietary technology to find the artists. 

“I was a big fan of Carver, big fan of taka, and Lucaa was on my radar, and it just so happened that all of these artists were super willing to play their first show here in L.A. and do it with us,” Tringale said.

Luca Dinicola, who goes by Lucaa on stage, moved to Pasadena a month ago from Indiana, and said Tringale messaged him about being part of the show only a few days after he arrived in the city, in what felt like serendipitous timing. 

“This was my actual first L.A. show, so it was pretty cool,” Dinicola said. “It was literally the second day I moved out here, I got a text message, and I thought I was seeing things. I’m like, ‘What? [That] sounds too good to be true.’”

Diniocola said he is releasing a new album called “heaven in static” soon, with a lead single and music video coming out on Tuesday. The project’s title is an ode to the low-budget production software Dinicola used to self-produce the majority of the songs. 

Jones also recently released an album, “8,” and said while he has experience opening for other artists in L.A., “Indie and a Jones” was his first headlining performance. He played songs from the album as well as a cover of “Purple Rain” by Prince. Jones said he appreciated that the crowd was open to supporting and discovering new artists.

“The lineup was so good, where everyone here has loved music, and were willing to stick around and see what the next thing is,” Jones said. “I find that with [the] young generation, people are wanting to hear live music again.”

Tringale said that to continue to grow Ugly Flower’s audience, the group wants to throw diverse shows. While the production company is rooted in the punk scene, they want to appeal to R&B and indie fans too.

“We want to have our fingers [on the pulse of] all of the artists that are coming up, and we want to be able to create platforms to support them,” Tringale said. “That’s what makes Ugly Flower super special: that we all care a lot about music and the artists, not just their music, but them as human beings personally, and we want to create a space where they can share their musical focus.”

Clarification: A previous version of this article stated that “Indie and a Jones” took place in downtown Los Angeles. The article was updated Sept. 22 at 10:12 p.m. to reflect that the venue AboveTheBridge is located in Boyle Heights.

Every June 14, floats and legions parade through Three Oaks, Michigan, to celebrate the biggest Flag Day event in the country.

In 2013, Andrew Shea and Melissa Shea, who graduated from USC in the ’90s, started spending their summers in a small town near South Bend, Indiana. Near the end of their first summer there, Melissa Shea met Sandra Strauss, who recommended they go to the small town’s Flag Day parade.

“[Strauss] happened to be Miss Three Oaks and was on top of the float … and we just fell in love with it,” Melissa Shea said. “We didn’t know what Flag Day was, and had never experienced that. So we really fell in love with the event and the town.”

Flag Day in Three Oaks is considered to be the biggest Flag Day celebration in the country, bringing together all of the town’s businesses, associations and coalitions to share and honor their patriotic spirit. As they became more integrated in the community, the Sheas were inspired to profile the town and make “Flag Day,” a documentary about the town’s parade, which had its Los Angeles premiere in Encino and Glendale this past week.

“It occurred to us that the parade, which had come to mean a lot to us, might be a good subject for an observational documentary, especially as we were coming up on an election year in 2024,” Andrew Shea said. “This would be an opportunity to profile a community that bridges the political divide and all kinds of divides on that one day of the year; it really makes an effort to come together and show up for each other.”

The many groups that participate in the parade every year include the Miss Three Oaks pageant winner float, the tractor owners of the town, the Michigan City Soul Steppers and the American Legion. Albert Brayboy Jr., a member of the American Legion, was excited to have the opportunity to reframe the narrative on what patriotism means to him, and share what Flag Day has done to bring people from different backgrounds together in his community.

“We’re all veterans, and we all love each other. But our society and our world [are] trying to diminish some of that, and I saw this as an opportunity to shine a light on this one particular town where people are drawn together by the flag and by patriotism,” Brayboy said.

In the documentary, the Sheas demonstrate how the flag brings the Three Oaks community together. According to Melissa Shea, there’s an “element of nostalgia” that she carries from the bicentennial in 1976 and a strong emotional reaction to the Flag Day flag raising that she wanted to bring to her audience.

“People had tears in their eyes watching the flag flying,” Melissa Shea said. “We really wanted to bring that moment to the audience … and remind you to feel pride in this country … to kind of sweep you into what it feels like for us being at Flag Day.” 

The film opens in a classroom full of kids answering their teacher’s questions about Flag Day and the importance of the event. That was a deliberate decision, according to Andrew and Melissa Shea, to drill in how foundational Flag Day is to the Three Oaks community.

“For me, at least, the flag [was introduced] when you do the pledge in school, and you were forced to do the pledge — just do it,” Melissa Shea said. “This kind of takes it to the next level in a place where there’s more behind that. There’s a ritual in this town that educates the kids about the veterans and the fight for freedom that sometimes gets lost.”

In addition to the Pledge of Allegiance scene, Andrew and Melissa Shea also used the soundtrack to drive this idea of reassessing what patriotism and freedom mean.

Some of the songs in the documentary included Raye Zaragoza’s “American Dream,” Jon Batiste’s “FREEDOM,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “America,”and John Mellencamp’s “Small Town,” all of which represent the theme of “American dream,” according to Andrew Shea. 

Despite the documentary’s overarching core idea of reframing the American dream and showcasing a community that unites over patriotic values rather than separating, the film didn’t sugarcoat moments where there were differing opinions. 

“We didn’t want it to be a Chamber of Commerce ad,” Andrew Shea said. “We told everybody, ‘This is not going to be a glossy promotional video for Three Oaks Chamber of Commerce.’ We want it to be an in-depth observational portrait of a pretty complicated community where there’s a lot of love.”

According to Melissa Shea, at its core, “Flag Day” is a portrait of a town where, despite all their differences, people show up for each other. 

“I asked Diane Thomas, who is the parade coordinator, ‘What is patriotism to you?’” Melissa Shea said. “A lot of people assume it’s just about this dedication to the flag in America, but it was really interesting because for her, and I think [for] Three Oaks, it’s really about service, being in service and showing up for your community.”

The film will be screened at multiple locations in the coming year, including the U.S. Navy Memorial on Veterans Day.

Stage diving, crowd surfing, moshing and screaming may not be on every USC student’s bucket list, but for Amélie’s shows, it’s become the expectation.

“The energy that we come with at shows is kind of different compared to a lot of the bands that are in the USC circuit,” said Michael Tringale, a guitarist for the band and a senior majoring in music industry. “We like to have people moshing, and I feel like you don’t typically see that at a lot of USC house shows.”

Though Amélie’s origins date back to Fall 2023, the student band has taken a more permanent shape over the past year. In 2025, Amélie played several concerts around Los Angeles, ranging from KXSC Radio house shows to a Battle of the Bands competition at the Troubadour.

Tringale said the band’s target demographic isn’t necessarily the USC student body, as their shows bring high-energy punk rock to the stage as opposed to other student bands that lean more toward pop.

“For someone who’s going to a show, it might be a little bit jarring to hear what we’re playing,” Tringale said. “That’s a challenge, but it’s also an advantage, in a way.”

It took a while for the band to resemble what it is today. Guitarist and vocalist Will Gray and bassist Gia Carmenate first met at freshman convocation in 20243 and brought on Tringale shortly after. The band even had Gray, a junior majoring in music industry, drumming at its first show. 

But it wasn’t until Spring 2025 that Carmenate, a junior majoring in fine arts, approached Shalen Farahi at a KXSC event and shared some of their music to recruit him as the band’s drummer. Thus, Amélie became what it is today.

“I remember hearing ‘Morning’ for the first time, and I was like, ‘Oh, I can beat the shit out of the drums in this song,’” said Farahi, a senior majoring in cinema and media studies. “It’s also a really well-written song, so it was really great to be able to play with these guys and their good songwriting abilities.”

Each band member pulls musical inspiration from different artists. Still, they all agreed artists like Pinegrove, Modern Baseball and MJ Lenderman most influence their sound, even covering some of their songs.

“We played a lot of covers, just playing shows, practicing, trying to figure ourselves out as a band,” Gray said. “Now that we have some songs written ready to bring to the band, it’s gonna be easier [to perform].”

With Carmenate being the only girl in the band, she wanted the band’s name to be a girl’s name, ultimately landing on “Amélie” after the 2001 film of the same name. The rest of the band still hasn’t watched the movie.

“I mainly played with a lot of female musicians growing up, so [I have] that kind of grit I try to approach [performing with] when we’re playing shows,” Carmenate said. “I try to get people more riled up by moving around a lot.”

When Amélie faced off against bands from USC, UCLA and CSU Northridge at the Troubadour in April, the band realized they could use their unique sound to their advantage thanks to a pep talk from their now-manager, Bolan Delange, who encouraged the group to embrace being a “black sheep” in the competition.

Even after they “bombed” their first song, Amélie won the crowd over and finished in second place. 

“Eventually, the crowd started to dig it, because it was different, and because [the band was] telling the truth,” said Delange, a sophomore majoring in music industry. “[The audience wasn’t] seeing the same masquerade over and over again.”

Amélie’s Troubadour debut was their most recent performance, but the band is gearing up for more shows this fall, as well as releasing a music video and recording original songs, Tringale said.

Tringale said that as Amélie looks to grow, even though they understand the importance of social media, the band is most concerned with the energy of their live shows and making sure fans and bandmates are having fun.

“We’re tight-knit, and we’re making shit that we love, and we’re playing shows with people we love,” Carmenate said. “It’s a whole other cathartic practice away from all of my stress, like [my] career, business, making money, supporting myself. If anything, music is like an escape from all of that.”

Carmenate said she doesn’t see playing shows or being part of a band as a path to fame, and she doesn’t want the band to force achieving popularity. Playing music together is enough, Tringale said. 

“Being invited to play music with these guys is such a gift,” Tringale said. “It’s great to be able to look beyond that, but ultimately, if I could do that every day of my life and be alive, that would be heaven on earth.”

Disclaimer: Aden Max Juarez currently serves as DJ and photographer for KXSC Radio.