A Love Letter to The Beths Luke Lanterman October 15, 2023 Columns and Opinions, Concerts, Festivals, and Live Reviews, indie, Photos One day during the Outside Lands music festival in August of 2022, my dad and I were walking around with little of a plan. The artists we were interested in seeing were all playing later in the day, so we found...
“Jazz!! is!! back!!:” The release of Laufey’s “Bewitched” and thoughts on the future of the genre Gianna Caudillo October 10, 2023 Album Review, Classical, Columns and Opinions, Cultural Commentary, indie-pop, Jazz, Music Consumption, Opinion, Reviews In early 2021, a friend of mine sent me a link to a TikTok accompanied by an innocuous message somewhere along the lines of, “Thought you’d like this.” Intrigued, I clicked, and a curly-haired girl in a p...
HANNAH SHARES APERTURE WITH THE BAY Nico Chodor September 25, 2023 Album Review, Columns and Opinions, Concerts, Festivals, and Live Reviews, indie-pop, Photos, Reviews, San Francisco Support from Miloe & Lance Redeker primed what became Hannah Jadagu’s stage through and through. She breezed into the city Wednesday night, immediately following her show at the Echo 24 hours prior, to pl...
Lil Baby’s Big Night Sunny Sangha September 11, 2023 Columns and Opinions, Concerts, Festivals, and Live Reviews, Reviews Lil Baby embarks on his first stadium tour, delivering an electrifying show at the Oakland Arena. He proves he is a powerful force in music and provides a challenge to the previous notions of men in rap being b...
Listen to My Spotify Playlist: How Streaming Affects Music Consumption and Culture Ellie Nguyen August 9, 2023 Columns and Opinions, Cultural Commentary, Music Consumption, Opinion, Political 3 Comments The winter season has become synonymous with Spotify Wrapped season, wreaking havoc upon us trembling listeners, fearful of what our Wrapped will unearth. Maybe you listened to Your Best American Girl by Mitski...
50 Shades of Grey: Pragmatism and Queertopia in Music Culture Ellie Nguyen August 9, 2023 Columns and Opinions, LGBTQ+, Music History, Opinion, Political At last year’s Outside Lands, Moses Sumney gave a cathartic performance. Clad in latex and a leather skirt, his voice pierced the San Francisco fog, entrancing the audience in his siren song. And it was throu...
The Time I “Lied” on My College Application About Being a Songwriter Adrian Ceja May 19, 2023 Columns and Opinions 17 year-old me was many things: eldest sibling by chance, Taylor Swift enthusiast by choice, a teenager by definition, and liar by the means of my own mind, which I still do not fully understand to this day. I ...
Love and Rapture: A Cinderella Fairytale of A Night With the SF Ballet Dorothy Eck and Nico Chodor April 12, 2023 Columns and Opinions, Concerts, Festivals, and Live Reviews, Opinion, Reviews, San Francisco The San Francisco Ballet’s production of Cinderella takes a modern twist on the classic fairytale, where in place of magic, mice, and wands that go bippity-bobbity-boop, there are Four Fates, colorful spirits...
A song of existence: Mohammed Assaf’s “Dammi Falastini” and rebellion against colonization Anon April 3, 2023 Columns and Opinions, International, Opinion, Political 1 Comment Mohammed Assaf, photo by Ibrahim Alalami A simple song can be integral to a culture, becoming almost second nature to those who value it. Mohammed Assaf’s “Dammi Falastini” is as natural and essential...
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...