Erica Tyron

A Scripps College alumnus, Erica Tyron ‘92, is Pomona College’s Director of Student Media and full-time advisor for KSPC. Erica was raised in the Mount Washington / Highland Park neighborhoods in Los Angeles. She came to Claremont in 1988 to attend Scripps College but ended up spending most of her time, and now over half of her life at KSPC. 

As Erica describes, “I started at KSPC during the fall semester of 1988; I started as a newscaster, then was a DJ, Publicity Director, Summer Music Director, Summer General Manager, and Production Director for several semesters. I started full time at KSPC as Station Supervisor in July of 1992 and was eventually given the title of Director of College Radio and Television. Last fall, my title was changed to Director of Student Media to encompass advising the The Student Life newspaper as well as Studio47 and CCTV (the Claremont Colleges’ student filmmaking and television production clubs), in addition to KSPC.”

“A lot of the friends that I made through working at KSPC were locals and many of them were musicians, so it was great fun going to each other’s shows and nerding out on records together. Music was always on in the car and in the house growing up. My mom took me to my first concert at a very young age. When I was five or six, I asked my parents to get me the drum kit that was in the Sears Christmas wish book. It had paper heads that you could put a hole through if you looked at it wrong. I veered off into many other instruments after that but came back to drums in high school. My brother was definitely a huge influence on my musical pursuits.”

Erica has been in many music groups and special side projects over the decades, but she currently plays drums and does backing vocals in Falcon Eddy with Amy Maloof, electronic drums in Furniture Three (with Joel Huschle and Christopher Smith), samples/vocals with Yeux Verts (with Eddie Zertuche, Amy Maloof, Christopher Smith, Steve Folta and Greg Semancik) and was a member of the Eleven B’Jesus project conducted by Mark Givens. 

On the importance of Claremont’s music community, Erica says, “I cut my Claremont music teeth on KSPC and Shrimper (see Dennis Callaci and Refrigerator). There were so many fun shows with that free and messy spirit. It took twenty years before I got to play with members of WCKR SPGT.