The B-Side is U.C. Berkeley’s premier and only student-run music magazine. Through our online and — as of November 2016 — our printed publication, we aim to connect the campus community with the local, national, and global music scene by discovering, curating, sharing, documenting, and embracing the culture of sound. MISSION STATEMENT Established in 2013, B-Side is UC Berkeley’s premiere, student-run music magazine. We aim to serve as a safe space for young creatives to explore music’s diverse histories and radical possibilities through a variety of artistic mediums. Through written pieces, filmography/photography, and multi-media designs, our publication intends to provide an intersectional understanding of music as well as music’s relationship to culture, social activism, and personal growth. We have zero tolerance for hate and bigotry, so we will ensure our members feel safe, heard, and comfortable at all times. B-Side seeks to foster an environment within our organization where we can learn from one another and feel comfortable exploring our creative and intellectual voices. B-Side encourages its members to ask questions and go beyond the surface. We reject ignorance toward the inequality that exists within the music industry and art scene. We acknowledge the fact that marginalized voices are continuously erased from mainstream spaces and narratives. Thus, we aim to use our platform to uplift and highlight underrepresented voices in music. We aim to illuminate artists whose exposure and recognition aren’t as high as their talent. This means as a club we must continuously address our positionality and unlearn our own biases that might shape our relationship with music. As a student publication, we are privileged to find ourselves situated within a community that holds such a rich history of music, art, and culture. We intend to spotlight the people, places, and events that have made the Bay Area music scene one of a kind. B-Side also recognizes that as a student organization at UC Berkeley, we sit on the territory of xučyun (Huichin), the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people. We recognize that every member of the Berkeley community has benefitted, and continues to benefit, from the use and occupation of this land since the institution’s founding in 1868. We at B-Side will continue to center the voices of BIPOC and LGBTQ on our various platforms. As a team and community, we will engage in dynamic conversations and collaborations that nurture our knowledge of what it means to utilize music journalism as a means for both personal expression and social activism. HISTORY The B-Side celebrates its one-year anniversary. est. Fall 2013 (Spring 2014 as “The B-Side”) The B-Side began in a pretty grassroots way. Before I left for college, I told my friends, “I’m gonna start a post-punk club when I get to Cal.”I’ve always loved music; I immersed myself in the scene from a young age and as an avid journalist I wound up writing about and analyzing it. Ultimately, there was no way I’d escape college without joining or creating a music-related club. And creating was the more likely scenario since music journalism is a niche thing. Not everyone’s going to tell you, “Yeah, I totally want to be a low-paid music journalist,” you know? At Cal, I immediately teamed up with existing music champions on campus KALX FM. As an inherent writer, I was inspired to document everything that was happening but Cal didn’t yet have a strict hub for music news. Fortunately, the right people showed up at the right time. Via KALX, I met a musician who had started a music magazine on her campus. She wanted to bring music reporting to universities nationally, with theirs as a flagship chapter. But as we started working together, our visions didn’t quite align. We — the UC Berkeley chapter — wanted different things. We had great ideas and the means to deliver on those ideas, so we decided to move forward with our own vision autonomously. By Spring 2014 we had fleshed this vision out with a new name and website. And though it started with the idea and efforts of a few people, it has slowly grown into a collective under a united vision, working toward the same goal: to share, love, embrace, and be comfortably passionate about the music we love. Audrey Gertz, founding Editor-in-Chief; UC Berkeley class of 2014 with edits by Joanna Jiang, founding Communications + PR Director; UC Berkeley class of 2016 and Eda Yu, Editor-in-Chief 2016-2017; UC Berkeley class of 2017
