Chicano Batman: They are vengeance, they are the night Jocelyn Vivaldo March 28, 2023 Columns and Opinions, Political The cover of Chicano Batman's 2010 debut, featuring its iconic logo Chicano Batman is a newer-generation, soulful Latino band from East Los Angeles, California. East LA is a culturally rich urban area for ...
Live music sings the blues during COVID-19 Anna Armstrong March 27, 2023 Columns and Opinions, Interview, News Note: This article was published in the Spring 2021 print edition of The Berkeley B-Side. Just over a year ago, the world went dark — the live music scene was silenced by the surging COVID-19 pandemic. Mus...
A Personal Reflection on the 2023 Oscars Best Score Category Ashley Mauldin March 21, 2023 Columns and Opinions, Film, Music Composition, Oscars While the Best Song category at the Oscars this year had an absolute triumph, with song “Nattu Nattu” winning from the movie RRR, the Best Score category seemed to fall flat in comparison to the star-studde...
Hey, hey we’re the Punk-ees: the unlikely influences of punk Gianna Caudillo March 16, 2023 Columns and Opinions, Music History, Opinion, Punk, Rock The public’s lasting perception of 60s pop-rock band the Monkees sounds a little like this: a Neil Diamond impersonator screaming out to a group of picnicking families, “How many of you remember a Saturday ...
Voters’ Harlem Shake: Egypt’s honorary national anthem by Hussain Al-Jassmi Nadia Laswi March 7, 2023 Columns and Opinions, International, Political 1 Comment National anthems aside, politics tends to focus on speeches more than it does music. While music can be highly political, the occasional attempts to involve music in politics and political campaigns typically f...
Friends and Fauxes: Four Bands in One Night at Cornerstone Nico Chodor February 26, 2023 Berkeley, Columns and Opinions, Concerts, Festivals, and Live Reviews, Reviews, San Francisco Touring with The High Curbs along their west coast stint, King Shelter breathed OC air into the Cornerstone at Berkeley Tuesday night. “Berkeley, you’re an interesting place," declared lead singer Taylor He...
“The Other Woman” has always been Black: Lana Del Rey’s viral cover of Jessie Mae Robinson’s masterpiece Gianna Caudillo February 24, 2023 Black Culture, Columns and Opinions “2023 is the year of female rage,” says the caption on a TikTok showing a conventionally attractive white woman, eyeliner done like Priscilla Presley’s, dress straight out of Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)...
Listener’s delight: the sensory feast of rap music Anna Linn February 20, 2023 Black Culture, Columns and Opinions, Opinion, Rap When asked how rap music makes you feel, a few things probably come to mind. You might remember your heart rate rising or your mind speeding up against the rapid beat. Whether it’s at a concert among the wild...
Racist Grrrl: the politics of race and anger in punk feminist movements Emmanuelle Mphuthi December 28, 2022 Black Culture, Columns and Opinions, Music History, Opinion, Political, Punk, Rock 3 Comments Gunk zine issue 4 by Bikceem Ramdasha Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that originated in the 1990s in the Pacific Northweast of the United States, although some argue the genre truly sta...
Another reason they shouldn’t have given me a license: Screaming in the suburbs when there’s nowhere to go but the highway Cole Haddock December 21, 2022 Blog, Creative Writing I got to drive a car a few weeks ago. I was so rusty, I smacked the side window on an unmoving wall. It made me realize how many months it’d been, and suddenly all I wanted to do was drive. Of all the things ...
Masonic Boom: Peach Pit Rocks So Hard That Neil Hurts His Neck Nico Chodor December 6, 2022 Berkeley, Columns and Opinions, Concerts, Festivals, and Live Reviews, indie, indie scene, music, Reviews, San Francisco Before Thursday night at the Masonic in SF, the closest I had ever come to seeing Peach Pit live was the Tropicalia Festival in 2019. Their self-titled claim to fame “Peach Pit” garnered extreme views on Yo...
Do You Hear the People Sing: Labor and Liberation Through Music Ellie Nguyen December 4, 2022 Blog, Columns and Opinions, Music History, Political On the first day of the UAW strike, nestled at the corner of Bancroft St. and College Avenue, post-docs, GSIs, and academic researchers organized and gathered, parading signs with the words “UAW ON STRIKE” ...
A jester’s surprise: The Garden hits The Regency Ballroom Maya Banuelos December 3, 2022 Columns and Opinions, Concerts, Festivals, and Live Reviews In one of their final stops on the Horseshit on Route 66 tour The Garden gave their first of two nights at San Francisco’s Regency Ballroom on November 29th. Despite a notably lackluster energy from the band ...
Music is a people Kedhar Bartlett November 23, 2022 Blog, Columns and Opinions, indie scene, LGBTQ+, music, Opinion If you’re reading this magazine, you probably know how it feels to not fit in. To have – at least at some point in your childhood – felt like the odd one out. At the risk of sounding like a middle school ...
L.S. DUNES leave San Francisco begging for more at Bimbo’s 365 Club Emmanuelle Mphuthi November 20, 2022 Blog, Concerts, Festivals, and Live Reviews, music, Rock, San Francisco This Wednesday, the 13th of November, a friend and I navigated the tumultuous Bay Area public transport system to attend an L.S. Dunes concert in San Francisco. We’d purchased the tickets a few months earlier...