-Dynamic rock band fronted by singer and dancer Maria Donjacour of Secret Secret and featuring an all-star cast of Bay Area talent. -On a Saturday night, throngs of young people with piercings, neon hair, and leather boots gather at Milk Bar to mosh to the musical stylings of Medscool. Crooning, folksy, sentimental, angst-ridden—front woman Maria Doncajour merges punk sensibilities with catchy melodies, alternating between “screamy and slow and singy” vocals, in her words. To her right, a stack of old TVs morphs the band into abstract purple blobs that are projected back onto the stage as part of an elaborate lo-fi visual setup. Medscool is made up of Maria on vocals/guitar, Autumn Carroll on lead guitar, Marika Stuurman on bass, and Abri Crocitto on drums. I catch up with Maria, Autumn, and Abri at El Farolito on 24th and Alabama, where we munch on chips and salsa under fluorescent lights while it drizzles outside. (Marika isn’t able to join us—she’s driving back from performing at a festival in Idaho.) Maria wears her sky-blue hair in two messy space buns. She has an industrial piercing in one ear and a turquoise stud in her nose, and dons statement earrings of gold-painted leaves. Beneath an oversized windbreaker, she wears patterned cuffed jeans that she refers to as her “clown pants.” Medscool is primarily a vehicle for Maria’s creative expression as a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She describes the music as indie with garage- rock tendencies, referencing late- 2000s San Francisco sweetheart Ty Segall as inspiration. Originally interested in theater and dance, Maria began her music career at nineteen, when she picked up playing drums in local indie band Lofi Legs, through which she met Marika. Eventually Marika invited Maria to jam with her (Marika wanted to get experience playing with more women) and in 2017, they started playing together in a band called Secret Secret. Over time, Maria began to focus on her own songwriting. “I wanted more of my own thing where I could make the decisions,” she says. She started Medscool to bring her songs into the world and to create a group to lift up queer and femme musicians. That’s how she found Abri and Autumn. Abri, with unnervingly green eyes and a bleached-blond pixie cut, has a shyness about them that could be mistaken for standoffishness. They explain over their Super Burrito how they grew up in Reno, moved here to study sculpture at the Academy of Art, and now live in Pacifica. Alongside Medscool, they’ve been the drummer in UMB, a “dreamo slunge” band, since 2017. They say they feel much more comfortable being openly queer in the Bay Area. “Going to public school in Reno, no one talked about that kind of stuff,” they say. “Nowhere else in the world could be better for being a trans chick,” agrees Autumn, scarfing down a taco. She sits next to me in an orange letterman jacket and bold winged eyeliner, with a spiked black fanny pack and myriad facial piercings. Autumn began playing guitar in high school in a garage-rock band called The Twitches. Besides Medscool, she heads up her own outfit as Autumn Carroll. When she’s not playing in bands, she does sound at The Knockout and likes to work on machinery, motorcycles, and cars—she even made a glove that shoots fire. Autumn’s always been the lead person in the bands she’s been in, and she likes that Medscool has given her the opportunity to step back a bit. Later that week, Marika meets me at the Martha & Bros. in Noe Valley wearing dangly earrings, a couple of layered sweaters, and Doc Martens mary janes. She is primarily a guitarist and songwriter, but she studied classical singing in high school at SF’s Ruth Asawa School of the Arts (SOTA). After graduating from SOTA, she studied audio engineering and radio broadcasting at SF State’s BECA. She plays in her own project under the name Marika Christine, in which Maria plays bass. All of Medscool agree that playing in an all-queer/femme band is markedly different from other settings. For one, the members feel safer expressing themselves during the creative process. “We are all way closer, and so much nicer to each other,” Maria says. Marika adds that “working with non-men is a totally different experience musically. Jamming with guys can feel kind of intimidating sometimes.” Abri agrees, coming to the indie scene from the adjacent punk scene, where there was “very little female expression.” Autumn feels that, unlike other bands she’s been in, creative differences in Medscool are dealt with easily, with respect and without ego. An added benefit is that people are “just more stoked when femmes play music.” Later that week, Marika meets me at the Martha & Bros. in Noe Valley wearing dangly earrings, a couple of layered sweaters, and Doc Martens mary janes. She is primarily a guitarist and songwriter, but she studied classical singing in high school at SF’s Ruth Asawa School of the Arts (SOTA). After graduating from SOTA, she studied audio engineering and radio broadcasting at SF State’s BECA. She plays in her own project under the name Marika Christine, in which Maria plays bass. All of Medscool agree that playing in an all-queer/femme band is markedly different from other settings. For one, the members feel safer expressing themselves during the creative process. “We are all way closer, and so much nicer to each other,” Maria says. Marika adds that “working with non-men is a totally different experience musically. Jamming with guys can feel kind of intimidating sometimes.” Abri agrees, coming to the indie scene from the adjacent punk scene, where there was “very little female expression.” Autumn feels that, unlike other bands she’s been in, creative differences in Medscool are dealt with easily, with respect and without ego. An added benefit is that people are “just more stoked when femmes play music.” Since the summer of 2021, Medscool has been playing shows in SF roughly once a month, with appearances at Bottom of the Hill and The Knockout. They’re currently working on their first album, Raw, which they hope to have out by the end of August. Maria notes that the album is about the intense feelings she experienced over the course of last year, a difficult one for her. Her lyrics speak to finding strength in vulnerability.