Story of an artist: The life of cult singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston Annie Wynner December 6, 2024 indie, indie scene, Indie-Rock, Music History, Rock "The best thing you can say about me is that I have been and I always will be in the twilight zone, and I'm serious. I live a different life. I'm lonely, but it's not just being lonely. It's the things that I s...
Punk’s Unlikely Grandfather: Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, and the legacy of Arthur Rimbaud’s Poetry Micah Petyt November 25, 2024 Columns and Opinions, Music History, Opinion, Punk, Rock An absolute must-read for any French high school student–myself included–Arthur Rimbaud remains one of the most famous French poets, and one of the greatest poets of the Romantic period. When I first studie...
Seattle reeks Katie Hulse September 17, 2024 Columns and Opinions, Cultural Commentary, Music Consumption, Music History There’s a corner of the Pacific Northwest that stands to be an incubator for everlong brazen creativity. Washington has and continues to be a place that both attracts and cultivates minds that bend constricti...
The 27 Club: glorified graves Elena Levin September 17, 2024 Cultural Commentary, Music History *Content Warning: This piece contains subject matters such as depression, suicide, and substance abuse. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll seem like the recipe for the “perfect” life, but for some, it’s a...
RACE SELLS RECORDS: An observational study of jazz album art in the mid-1950s Gianna Caudillo September 4, 2024 Music History, Black Culture, Jazz, Musicology, Print Edition The jazz section in a used record store. Haphazardly sorted bins. Thin cardboard smooth against your fingers as you shuffle the albums like playing cards. Smell of dust, faint crackling in the background. Brigh...
Why I hate pop punk Annie Wynner September 4, 2024 Opinion, british post-punk, music, Music History, Print Edition, prog-rock, Punk I have always hated pop punk. A hatred rooted in watching friends undergo their Fall Out Boy eras in middle school and my traumatic viewing of Blink-182’s performance at Coachella in April of 2023; an hour ...
The world is… Hatsune Miku’s? What to know about Vocaloid Gwen Tam April 21, 2024 Music History, International, Opinion, Pop 1 Comment If you’ve ever lurked in the digital swamp that was the Internet during the 2000s to early 2010s, chances are, you have encountered, in some form, Vocaloids and Vocaloid music. The ever-present, blue-pigtaile...
93 ‘til Infinity: Bay Area hip hop and punk rock revolutions in 1993 Katie Hulse March 6, 2024 Berkeley, Local, Music History, Oakland, Punk, Rap, Rock, San Francisco, Uncategorized I was in my friend's car stumbling along the landscape when “93 ‘til Infinity" by Souls of Mischief trinkled out of the speakers and changed the way that I think about hip hop. Thirty years after its initia...
Uncovering the origins of Lovers Rock Sofia Biagio February 15, 2024 Black Culture, Cultural Commentary, Music History One day on my routine walk to class, “Lovers Rock” by TV Girl came on through shuffle. Call it overstated or cliché, but for some reason, this song always pulls on my heart strings. The sweet swells of vio...
LADYSLIPPER MUSIC: Records & Tapes By Southern Women Gianna Caudillo January 29, 2024 Music History, Contemporary Folk, Country, folk, women's music, Women's Music Movement Note: This article has been digitized from its original print form in the Fall 2023 issue of B-Side. Original print layout can be viewed at bottom. A Brief History of the Women’s Music Movement The year...
“There’s Something About the Women!:” Warmth pervades Irene Young’s book release at the Freight & Salvage Gianna Caudillo November 27, 2023 Reviews, Berkeley, Concerts, Festivals, and Live Reviews, Contemporary Folk, Jazz, Local, Music History, Women's Music Movement When looking back at my frantically scratched notes in a pocket-sized address book I had brought to the 7pm celebration of Irene Young at the Freight & Salvage on November 19, one sentiment stands out in pa...
The Mystique of Elliott Smith’s Demise Katie Hulse October 23, 2023 Columns and Opinions, Cultural Commentary, folk, indie, indie scene, Music History, Opinion Elliott Smith is one of the most intrinsically devastating and crucial indie-folk musicians to date, known for his lyrics of absolute despair. The only thing more twisted and heartbreaking than his music is the...
Words about words: songs inspired by books and novels Katie Hulse October 17, 2023 Columns and Opinions, Cultural Commentary, Music Consumption, Music History Words hold immense power, and they often inspire and influence each other over time with the multitudes of organizations and contexts they combine to form. All writings, from lyrics, to poetry, novels...
From Gay Head to Goldenrod: the first decade of the Women’s Music Movement in song Gianna Caudillo September 5, 2023 Album Review, Berkeley, folk, music, Music History, Oakland, Reviews, Rock, women's music, Women's Music Movement Commercial rock and roll has always been a boys’ club. From the success of songs that glamorized abuse and the gross fetishization of women, such as the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” or the Beatles’ ...
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...