The B-Side Fall 2018 Zine

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EXECUTIVE STAFF
Editors-in-Chief
Sofia Duarte Myra Farooqi
Managing Editor
Vivian Chen
Copy Editor
Leka Gopal
Photography Lead
Fiona Duerr Rebekah Gonzales
Design/Web Lead
Jackie Nam
Marketing Lead
Connor Tapley
Communications Leads
Annique Mitchell Rosie Davidowitz
GENERAL STAFF
Editorial
Devyn White
Matt Sater Brendan Redmond Veronica Irwin Natalie Silver Michael Elsanadi Walker Spence Dylan Medlock Adrienne Lee Anthony Vega
Celia Davalos Hannah Hartt Benjamin Micallef Gabriel Giammarco Shayan Shirkhodai Jacob Green Jonah Thedor Harmony Lee
Photo
Desiree Diaz Sam Jameson Kayla Kettmann Annie Nguyen Noah Bogner Circe Ament Franzelle Lu
Design
Connor O’Shea
Jake Olshan
Quynh Uong
Jessica Tin
Miles O’Brien-Schridde Emma Jaeger
Marketing
Yaseen Azzouni Mariah Ao Kenny Zhang Mateo Savala Brian Grossman Salma Madi Daniel Tehranfar Ismail Salim Alex Hazell Makaila Heifner Aileen Gui
Sahil Chawla Cli ord Shen
Communications
Alex Schudy Gaby Fooks
cover design/photo by Jackie Nam
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AN ODE TO SELENA 1 Celia Davalos
INTERVIEW WITH TIJANA T 3 Ismail Salim
BAND NAMES QUIZ 7 Rebekah Gonzales
EVOLUTION OF PROTEST SONGS 8 Hannah Hartt
BEGGARS BANQUET: FIFTY YEARS OF SYMPATHY 11 Gabriel Giammarco
WHAT’S IN OUR BAG... 13 Fiona Duerr
BEDROOM POP 15 Walker Spence
EILEEN SHO JI 16 Jackie Nam
DIVIN’ INTO DISCO IN 2018 20 Devyn White
EX-BOYFRIENDS AS BANDS 21 Leka Gopal
INTERVIEW WITH ELIJAH EGBERT 23 Veronica Irwin
RESORTING TO MUSIC: A COLLECTION OF VERY SHORT STORIES 27 Michael Elsanadi
THE TRAJECTORY OF YOUR LOVE LIFE: A PLAYLIST 29 Vivian Chen
924 GILMAN PHOTO COLLAGE 30 Sam Jameson
LETTER FROM THE EDITORS 31 Myra Farooqi & Sofia Duarte
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AN ODE TO
written by celia davalos designed by quynh uong
SELENA
SELENA
On the morning of October 17 2017, my mundane morning Known mononymously as Selena, the Mexican-American
e-mail inbox-scan routine was hit with a heartwarming and nostalgic surprise in the form of a Google Doodle. The familiar primary colored Google logo was now in a lavender cursive-font, paired with an etch of a raven-haired, red-lip-
singer was born April 1971 in Lake Jackson, Texas. This would become tied to her identity as the Queen of Tejano (Texan) Music, a type of Mexican music that incorporates elements of country. She was also recognized nationally as the “Mexican Madonna,” alluding to her sexy costumes, energetic dancing, and stage presence.
Seven years a er her debut release, Selena was fatally shot by her fan club president at just 23 years old.
“Before her premature death, Selena became a universal icon in her perseverance to achieve her goals despite negativity surrounding her gender and ethnic identities.”
She started recording music professionally at age 11 when she began her career in a band called Selena y Los Dinos, with
her older siblings Suzette on drums and A.B. on bass. This strong family ethos was major for her largely Latinx and Mexican audience for the duration of her career, and today as her siblings assist in publicly carrying out her legacy for fans, by conducting a airs such as curating the Selena Museum
located in Corpus Christi, Texas. Though a native English speaker who learned Spanish phonetically, she sang in that language for the majority of her career.
Her career then evolved into the greater genre of Tejano music, which at the time was largely dominated by male
voices. However, a er winning the a er Tejano Music Award
for Female Vocalist of the Year in 1987, which she won nine consecutive times, her work became more popular and began reaching a global audience. Her first solo album Selena, as recognized by Google on it’s 28th anniversary this October, marked the beginning of her five album-spanning career.
Her album Selena Live! was released in 1993 and won the Best Mexi- can/American Album category at the 36th annual Grammy Awards.
sticked
woman and a link to a short animation dedicated to Selena Quintanilla-Pérez to acknowledge the
28th anniversary of the singer’s first solo studio album.
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Selena also sought success outside of her music career and created an empire that lead her to debuting a chain of boutiques in Texas, a fragrance, and the desire to start a cosmetics line. Her fi h album, Dreaming of You (1995), was posthumously released as a hybrid of both Spanish and English songs, and the first of its kind to debut atop the United States Billboard 200.
Following her death, then-Texas governor George W. Bush declared her birthday, April 16, “Selena Day” in the state. People magazine ran a one-time issue in Spanish in order to announce her death, and due to its popularity, the Spanish version People en Español was created.
In 1997, the biographical drama film Selena was released starring Jennifer Lopez. Besides providing a global introduc- tion to now-famous JLo, this film also gave us the iconic car bumper scene and tag line,
“Anything for Selenas.”
This film is where I personally encountered Selena’s music for the first time, as she passed away before I was born. Watching Selena is one of my first vivid memories, watching on the couch with my mom when it hit cable TV. My mom tells me that it was the first film that I obsessed over that wasn’t my tried and true favorite (101 Dalmatians, if you were wondering) and I managed to be engaged entirely through the lively reenactments of her concerts.
The end of the film is slow and fast all at the same time -- as a choppy montage of real-life footage depicts her passing. Shi ing from voice-over news reports of her death over footage of her being escorted in an ambulance, to slow motion footage of her family crying in the hospital and closing with fans holding a candle vigil, it all went over my head (now that I understand it, this scene chokes me up everytime I see it). A er the film was over, I promptly asked my mom if we could go watch Selena perform, to which she replied “Mija, Selena isn’t here anymore, she died.” To ease devastation, she and I wrote a letter to her parent's P.O. Box in Texas telling them how much I loved her. My obsession then led to my mom taking me to watch a synoptic live-action version of the Selena film, and even her gi ing me two collector's edition Selena Barbies -- the only toys that I managed to keep pristine up until a bratty friend of my brother destroyed them (but I promise I’m over it...).
The reigniting of Selena as a pop culture icon began three years ago, when fans started an online petition to have M.A.C. cosmetics launch a Selena makeup line.
M.A.C. shortly
therea er
announced that
they were collabo-
rating with her
sister to start a
M.A.C. x Selena Quintanilla line that,
due to high demand, became a permanent collection (my best friend and mom both gi ed me a lipstick from the line last Christmas). In August of 2016, she was immortal- ized by Madame
Tussauds with her own
wax figure.Selena also has
an o icial merch line at Hot
Topic, the store that is home
to o icial mass produced
merch for a variety of musicians
and music groups. My mom surprised me
with three t-shirts from the Selena line, and told
me that she forced herself to brave Hot Topic in order to purchase them. This past Halloween, Kim Kardashian, Demi Lovato, and America Ferrera all commemorated the star by dressing up as the singer in her iconic purple jumpsuit. Additionally, this past November 3rd, Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti declared the date “Selena Day” in the county. The following day, the unveiling of her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame took place right in front of the Capitol Records building on Vine St. Actress Eva Longoria stood in as a presenter of the star alongside her family members and widow, and shared that “growing up, there was not a reflec- tion of me anywhere...it was like someone like me didn't exist in American mainstream" and that the "star isn't just for Selena, but for all Latinas." Similar sentiments can be heard from Texas-born Selena Gomez, who asserts that she is her namesake.
I can’t help but wonder where Selena would be today a er her remarkable cross-cultural strides in the music industry despite her short career. She remains an icon because her emergence positively changed the way the United States accepted Spanish-speaking artists and her strength as a young woman determined to establish herself within a male dominated music scene. Although others who are familiar with her music and grew up listening to her like I did may have a similar encounter with this icon, her narrative is universal. Selena stands as a representation of how humility and authenticity can lead oneself to achieving their dreams.
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Below are pairs of tickets, with each pair containing bands and their descriptions. One band will be factual and the other fictional. Do your best to guess the correct one! Anwers at the bottom of the page.
row E sec P
The B-Side Presents
seat 09
Savior of the “digital trap
game,” Bitcoin Jesus is an enig-
matic cloud rapper whose inter-
ests involve all sorts of drugs,
digital currencies, and reli-
gious references.
$20
row R sec O
The B-Side Presents
seat 25
Formed in 2010, Key Lime Cry is
a trio out of Homestead, Florida
who combine Jimmy Buffet-eqsue
instrumentation with emotional
pains of suburban life.
$20
Key Lime Cry
Bitcoin Jesus
01546
01342
01256
row T sec F
The B-Side Presents
seat 23
An influential country rock band
formed in 1968. They have had 59
different band members & cur-
rently perform under the name
Burrito Deluxe.
$20
The Flying Burrito Brothers
02897
row P sec C
The B-Side Presents
seat 05
After cutting ties with former
band, The Fairies, Twink re-
leased 6 psychedelic rock albums
after 1969. He has changed his
name to Mohammed Abdullah after
converting to Islam.
$20
Twink
06342
row P sec A
The B-Side Presents
seat 01
An all-female British band formed in 1989 who produced three hard hitting and provocative albums. Also known for extraordinary and malapropos costumes.
$20
God Save the Queef
row K sec C
The B-Side Presents
seat
Formed in 1997, GOATWHORE has
thrashed their way to the top of
the Blackened death metal subge-
GOATWHORE
12 nre. Some of their interests in- clude satanism, witchcraft, and
$20
the Occult.
01782
01256
row T sec F
The B-Side Presents
seat 23
An exceptionally sexual R&B
group created in 1995. They are
known for steamy performances
that pack clubs. Or at least the
remarkably strange ones
$20
The Scent of Fuck
01982
row E sec E
The B-Side Presents
seat 20
A DIY band formed in 2015. They
make emo/indie punk music that’s
sad but good for parties. They
are best described as “3 boyz
makin noiz.”
$20
Michael Cera Palin
Correct bands: flying burrito brothers, twink, goatwhore, michael cera palin


In an interview with Melody Maker magazine, Jimi Hendrix once said, “Anyone can go round shaking babies by the hand and kissing the mothers, and saying that it was groovy. But you see, you can’t do this in music... When there are vast changes in the way the world goes, it’s usually something like art and music that changes it.”
Music is an undeniable force of social change; it becomes some- thing to sing together, to scream together, an agent of cultural fusion. This playlist intends to be a survey of the protest music of the last 80 years, featuring the voices of jazz, soul, folk, punk, rock, and hip hop, and covering a range of protest movements.
Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit” (1939):
“Strange Fruit” remains a distinct piece in Billie Holiday’s legacy, but its origin is not widely known. The lyrics began as a poem written by a Jewish man from the Bronx, Abel Meeropol, a er seeing a photo of a lynching in the South. This dark and poignant song came not from a personal experience, but from someone on the outside.While only three stanzas, the poem finds its home in a soulful jazz song, the rhythm of the written word flowing smoothly over minimal yet resonant piano. In slow mourning, Holiday sings:
“Southern Trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the roots Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze Strange fruit hanging from poplar trees”
The South’s dark legacy haunts Holi
day’s lyrics, revealing itself in a tension between the “pastoral scene of the gallant South” and “the sudden smell of burning flesh,” between the creation and destruction of life. The final stanza continues the analogy of this strange fruit:
“Here is fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
POETIC PROTEST
written by hannah hartt design by emma jaeger
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop Here is a strange and bitter crop”
While deeply mournful, these words suggest that a movement can grow out of this legacy. Our history is a bitter crop, but it is also a living entity capable of brief metamorphosis or slow and deliberate evolution. Meeropol’s word choice thus frames death within a metaphor of life, a fitting microcosm of the birth of protest.
Bob Dylan, “Masters of War” (1963):
In the Cold War era, protest music proliferated. Bob Dylan con- tributed countless tracks to this movement and became a voice of the disgruntled youth growing up in a culture of war. “Masters of War” attacks a government ever dri ing from the will of the people. Dylan was only 22 when he released The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), but he was bold in his attack on the older generation running his country. Born in 1941, Dylan lived within bookends of death and a growing military industrial complex. He declares his protest with conviction, challenging his assumed naiveté:
“But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you Even Jesus would never Forgive what you do”
Rather than making him ignorant, his youth serves as a di erent kind of authority -- a prophetic insight from future generations:
“You’ve thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world.”
Sam Cooke, “A Change is Gonna Come” (1964):
Along with “Masters of War,” The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan con-
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tained perhaps one of Dylan’s better known protest songs: “Blowin’ in the Wind.” When Sam Cooke heard this song, he was struck that such polit-
ical discontentment could 1) come from a white boy from Minnesota and 2) become so popular. Inspired by the folk song, the soul singer wrote “A Change is Gonna Come.” Cooke recorded the song early in
1964, but it would not be released until a er his death in December of that same year.
Beginning with a dramatic, orchestral opening, Cooke’s song contains a sort of musical ascension, as if embodying voices rising
together in resistance. “Blowin’ in the Wind”, on the other hand, maintains a consistent tone. The point of view in “A Change is
Gonna Come” is also first person, unlike “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and delivers a compelling and personal vision of resistance:
“Then I go to my brother
And I say brother help me please
But he winds up knockin’ me Back down on my knees”
The Dead Kennedys, “I Fought the Law” (1987):
The Dead Kennedys were unapologetically political, an ideal sample of American hardcore punk and the San Francisco music scene. “I Fought the Law” takes the Clash song by the same name but changes the lyrics from “I fought the law and the law won” to “I fought
the law and I won.” The song takes on the perspec- tive of Dan White, the San Francisco supervisor who
murdered gay rights activist and politician, Harvey Milk, as well as George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco.
White committed the murders in 1978 and would go on to serve only 5 years in prison. White’s lawyer argued that
he should receive a reduced sentence because he had been under a “diminished capacity.” The lawyer blamed White’s men-
tal state on his addiction to sugar in what became known as the “Twinkie Defense:”
“The law don’t mean shit If you got the right friends
That’s how this county’s run Twinkies are the best friend I ever
had”
The Cranberries, “Zombie” (1994):
The Cranberries, an Irish band formed in Limerick in 1989, also exist somewhere on the punk spectrum. Unlike The Dead
Kennedys, however, the crisp and dreamy voice of Dolores O’Riordan gives the band more of an ethereal proto-indie vibe. O’Riordan wrote “Zombie” a er hearing of a recent Irish Republican Army bombing that killed a 12-year-old and 3-year-old. O’Riordan’s voice seems to crack throughout the
song, building up an emotional tension I haven’t found in many other punk songs. O’Riordan delivers her lyrics in a way I can’t describe other than stinging and vaporous -- earthly, yet
cutting. She calls out in despair:
“Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And the violence caused such silence Who are we mistaking?”
The song is haunting, anxiety provoking, and deeply psycho- logically stirring.
9
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“In your head in your head they are crying
In your head
In your head
Zombie, zombie, zombie”
Kendrick Lamar, “Mortal Man” (2015):
“Mortal Man” appears on Kendrick Lamar’s third album, To Pimp a Butterfly (2015). The album on the whole is political, with its most popular song, “Alright,” since becoming an anthem of modern social justice movements. The album was released in the wake
of the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. While “Alright” is a potent example of protest music, I wanted to highlight “Mortal Man,” the 12 minute track closing the album. The final 7 minutes of the song is a spoken outro recorded over the faint sounds of jazz, combing a rare 1994 interview with the late Tupac Shakur with Kendrick’s contemporary commentary. In these 7 minutes, we get a stream of consciousness meditation on black life in America and on the concept of a rapper as a prophet. Kendrick ends the song with a metaphor his friend had written “describ- ing my world” in terms of the caterpillar breaking free from the “cocoon which institutionalizes him:”
butterfly and caterpillar are completely di erent
They are one and the same”
A Tribe Called Quest, “The Killing Season” (2016):
A er an 18 year break from music, A Tribe Called Quest released We’ve got it from Here... thank you 4 your service (2016). The album is boldly political, but with a touch of some beloved Tribe humor. “We the People” opens the album and contains one of my favorite Tribe lyrics: “When we get hungry we eat the same fucking food / The ramen noodle.” The song later goes into the following chorus:
“All you Black folks, you must go All you Mexicans, you must go
And all you poor folks, you must go Muslims and gays
Boy, we hate your ways
So all you bad folks, you must go”
While this song captures the current political climate in the United States, “Killing Season” particularly stood out to me, striking deeply at a legacy of racism and war in the United States. The song repeats “They sold ya, sold ya, sold ya” a couple of times throughout the song, at times sounding more like “soldier, soldier, soldier” or perhaps “they sold ya, sold ya, soldier.” The ambiguity of this line builds upon the metaphor of war loosely maintained throughout the song. In one sense, the war could be one fought for social justice: “It’s war and we fighting for inches and millimeters / Try to stall the progress by killing o all the leaders.” The war could also refer to militarization of police in the United States. The song alludes to a 2015 incident in McKinney, Texas when police received a complaint of a noisy pool party
and one o icer ended up pinning a 15 year old black girl to the ground.
“Killing Season” ultimately demonstrates a common component of modern protest music -- an acknowledgement of a heritage of resistance. The final stanza of the song nods to “Strange Fruit” with the following lyrics:
“It must be killing season, on the menu strange fruit
Whose juices fill the progress of this here very nation
Whose states has grown bit ter, through justice expira
tion
These fruitful trees are root
ed in bloody soil and torment”
We find in protest music a collective identity of resistance. Whether or not
you consider yourself to be politically active, I encourage you to consider the role of music and art in mobi-
lizing change. Below is the entire playlist, featuring several more voices of protest, all of whom
should be heard.
Poetic Protest: the
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“Finally free, the butterfly sheds light on situations
That the caterpillar never considered,
ending the eternal
struggle
Al- though
the
playlist


11
“Sympathy” began to take shape as Jagger clued in the other Stones on his morbidly seductive idea. It was Keith Richards who would be the one to lead the charge of the song’s musical direction, picking up the tempo from Mick’s original progression – a haunting, Dylanesque folk song – to the tireless samba groove that’s come to mark its coaxing might. Jagger was very much down for the change: “It has a very hypnotic groove, a samba, which has a tremendous hypnotic power, rather like good dance music. It doesn't speed up or down, it keeps this constant groove. Plus, the actual samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive – because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it.” They knew exactly what they were doing with “Sympathy.” It was unlike anything they’d ever tried before, in message, length, feel, and mainstream appeal. The track was recorded in two takes; the first one disappointingly lackluster, the second one perfectly sinister.
The epic begins with the pitter-patter of handrums under Mick’s jungle cries of “yeeooow” that
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I’m partial to this song – at my first real concert, the Rolling Stones played it in my backyard. I was 7 years old and it was at Dodger Stadium, close enough to our house that we could walk and close enough that my dad could sit on our balcony and listen to the homerun cheers of “Brown Sugar” on the wind. We took my best friend Ezra, the other half of our first-grade grunge band “Silver Lightening” (currently seeking a record deal) as the two of us argued like schoolchildren – and bandmates – whether “Satisfaction” or “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” was the more awesome song. The Stones finally came on, two and a half hours late, and played an expectedly awesome set (both of us validated when they opened with “Jack Flash” and closed with “Satisfaction”), parts of which we ended up dozing through in our elementary school exhaustion. Still, it was their encore that absolute- ly floored me as a little kid getting a taste of rock and roll in the flesh: from the dark, empty stage was an explosion of fire and flames as Mick Jagger emerged in a red satin coat to ignite the opening howls to “Sympathy for the Devil,” their scathing samba masterpiece recalling human history through the crazed eyes of Satan himself. “Sympa- thy,” the first track o of Beggars Banquet (1968), turns 50 this year and is worthy of remembrance not just for its significance as a musical feat, but as the token example of the marriage between the rebellious evils of the devil and rock and roll. Never had Satan been so glorious.
Borne of the tumult that convulsed the social politics of the late ‘60s, “Sympathy” took the side of the enemy. At the time, the Rolling Stones were branded as the anti-Beatles, though even the Fab Four, in spite of their status as the ultimate pop icons, were still in recovery from the damages wrought by John Lennon’s o -hand comment that they had become “more popular than Jesus.” As the pop music paradigm grew dirtier, more defiant, and more culturally pervasive, the Rolling Stones ran with their “bad-boy” calling card to epitomize everything that became their rock and roll culture – scrappy, provocative, sanctimonious, and stylish.
“Sympathy” is an exercise in method acting, and Mick Jagger’s character is deliciously enticing. The inspiration for his lyrics came from Marianne
written by gabriel giammarco designed by miles o’brien-schridde
Faithfull, Mick’s then-girlfriend, who gave him a classic work of Russian literature, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. The novel follows Satan as a mysterious traveler, chic and suave as can be through the streets of Moscow, wielding power with a god-like ease. Legend has it that Jagger devoured the book in one night (though it’s a pretty thick read...) which immediately juiced him to get writing.
50 YEARS OF SYMPATHY


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announce Lucifer’s hair-raising presence. It’s Satan’s identity – a walking paradox – that makes the lyrics so compelling: “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste.” Boasting such extraordinary rank and class, the Devil brags of history’s many triumphs – the death of Christ, the bloodshed of the Russian Revolution, Blitzkrieg warfare, and the murder of Indian troubadours by thieving Afghani drug rings – of which he “watched with glee.” The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy two days a er the Stones took the song to the studio forced a change in the line “I shouted out who killed Kennedy” to “I shouted out who killed the Kennedys / When a er all, it was you and me.” Mick sings the part with fantastic flare, deliriously summoning Satan with his wicked sneer. He taunts with swagger, relishing in his character’s elusiveness: “Tell me baby, what’s my name / Tell me honey, can ya guess my name?” Snarling like a maniac, he answers Keith’s screeching guitar over a whooping chorus of background voices and boogie-woogie piano. On top of a seriously thumpy bass line, Keith Richards stamps the song with a guitar solo that bleeds from the biting depths of the Satan’s lair. I’ve been playing that lead, note for note for almost ten years now and I’ll never play it with that kind of scorching attitude. It’s just hot as hell. I doubt that even Keith can play it like that anymore. It could have only been done by a man possessed.
To release an album kicking o its first track with lines like the ones in “Sympathy” was a flagrant fuck you to cushy pop sensibilities. Though certainly privileged by fortune and fame, boldness of this degree is becoming harder to find in the age of political correctness. The release of Beggars Banquet, following up their suspiciously-titled album Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967), led
to all kinds of controversy casting the Rolling Stones as twisted, satanist fanatics. While “Sympathy for the Devil” did show an occult interest in the Devil’s hand in rock and roll, Mick Jagger intended the song more as a tale of brutal human atrocity with Lucifer as its symbolic incarnation rather than of genuine mystical fascination.
Keith Richards, perhaps the greatest contrarian in rock and roll, was a bit more honest about his old friend: “‘Sympathy’ is quite an upli ing song. It's just a matter of looking the Devil in the face. He's there all the time. I've had very close contact with Lucifer – I've met him several times. Evil – people tend to bury it and hope it sorts itself out and doesn't rear its ugly head... When that song was written, it was a time of turmoil. And confusion is not the ally of peace and love. You want to think the world is perfect. Everybody gets sucked into that. And as America has found out to its dismay, you can't hide. You might as well accept the fact that evil is there and deal with it any way you can. ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ is a song that says, Don't forget him. If you confront him, then he's out of a job."
Happy birthday to their Devil, the idol of unspeak- able horror, insuppressible spirit, and a man of wealth and taste.
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The concert photographer stands between total madness and grand displays of uncer- tainty. O en given only three chances to find a balance among a cluster of security guards, drunken teenagers, and enormous speakers, the concert photographer must come equipped with the bare essentials. However, these essentials might vary. Here’s a peek inside the bags of our very own photographers at The B-Side.
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( a collaborative photo essay )
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bedroom pop has got to stop
It was a quiet Saturday night. I sat on my friend’s couch, aimlessly browsing through the Spotify app on his television and hoping something would catch my eye. Eventually, something did— a Spotify playlist entitled “Bedroom Pop.” I frowned as I tried to parse the title. Is this pop music made for bedrooms? Do bedrooms even listen to music? My curiosity was piqued. I pressed play and the room filled with the sound of o _brand_mac_demarco.mp3. I pressed skip, only to be greeted with chamber_of_dejection.mp3. I got about five seconds into wilted_lettuce_days.mp3 before I had to pause and reflect on what I’d just stumbled upon.
It would be an exaggeration to suggest that every song on the BedMac DeMarcroom playlist deserves a 20 year old asshole writing a snarky title for it. The idea itself isn’t inherently bad— pop songs written and recorded in the artist’s bedroom. However, even outside of Spotify curated playlists, the sheer volume of songs in this genre that emulate DeMarco’s style is a little alarming. These tunes borrow a lot, from the reverb-drenched guitars with a hint of chorus, to the straight-ahead drum beats and almost-ironic retro synths, to the rhymes that would be lazy if they weren’t so fun. My first thought, therefore, is that the core elements of DeMarco’s style are all present. I feel like I must be missing something because I can’t see why I’d drink the cloying boy pablo flavoured supermarket cola over classic Coke with a little cigarette ash in it.
If you’re still with me, you’ve probably had this thought before. If you’re not, then I urge you to push up your horn-rimmed glasses, adjust your overalls and soldier on because I promise the second half gets better.
A er I’d had my first thought, I realized that I really wasn’t upset by the formulaic nature of these tunes. Most music, at its core, follows some kind of formula, and some of my favorite albums are just variations on the same four chords for thirty-five minutes. I also wasn’t really upset that it was unoriginal— in fact, I’m not even sure if it’s fair to say it’s unoriginal. Each of these artists tells a story through the context of their own experience and, while they might all have the same lens of pastel and pretense, picking out the small di erences and intricacies that separate these artists is crucial to appreciating their music. The more I thought about it, the more I realized more and more that what
15 was actually upsetting me was more akin to jealousy.
written by walker spence designed by quynh uong
I still don’t know exactly where the jealousy comes from. On some level, maybe I want to be in a bedroom pop band. Maybe I wish I could pull o yellow sweaters and baggy blue jeans. Or maybe I’m just jealous because these bands look like they’re having a better time than me. These songs are undeniably fun, and when I re-approached the genre with a bit more of an open mind, I found a few songs that I’ve absolutely fallen in love with. Gus Dapperton has managed to walk the fine line between catchy and obvious with his single “Prune, You Talk Funny.” In contrast with the song, the music video leans towards maximalism with elaborate set designs, over-saturated colors and even a brief anima- tion. As Dapperton rides shotgun in a car full of people with his exact haircut, I find myself wondering if perhaps this scene was meant as an extended metaphor for the genre itself.
Furthermore, there is a subtle undercurrent of hip-hop influence in many of these projects, an influence that is especially prevalent in the music of Rex Orange County, fronted by 19-year-old Alex O’Connor. O’Connor collaborated with Tyler, the Creator and his a iliates on Tyler’s newest LP Flower Boy (2017), but even outside of O’Connor’s collaborations with established hip-hop artists he pays a lot of respect to hip-hop through his lyrics. Vocally, O’Connor slips in a lot of triplets and rhythmic variations which are highlighted by the upbeat, almost-programmed sounding drums. Indeed, none of the instrumentals o his sophomore album Apricot Princess (2017) would sound out of place on a Chance or Tyler single, which is admirable considering how hard the music industry fought to stigmatize hip-hop just five or ten years ago.
With that being said, it’s di icult for me to see any staying power in the vast majority of these bedroom pop artists. There’s too many songs that sound alike, and too few reasons to listen to any particular artist over another. I don’t mean to say that this is a wholly uninteresting movement— the undeniable catchiness and lo-fi approach to recording is sure to lead to some interesting projects. It is important to keep in mind that in many ways this genre is still evolving, and many of the critiques of bedroom pop may just be growing pains as the genre enters a musical puberty. If we hold out a little for the hormones to normalize and the acne to fade, hopefully we see bedroom pop mature and find its own voice. I’d like to see it do that.
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BREAKING THE *GLASS CEILING WITH
*glass ceiling (noun): an intangible barrier within a hierarchy that prevents women or minorities from obtaining upper-level positions
In 2012, I met Eileen Sho Ji at Stanford University while attending a summer photography camp . Although we were both in the early stages of our awkward teenage years, anyone could see that she was a force to be reckoned with. She had a clear sense of her identity and the dreams she was determined to realize. It was evident in the way she walked, talked, and even the way she dressed. A er that fateful summer, I followed her musical journey via Instagram and SoundCloud. From her first EP release, “Orient” (2015), to her admittance into UC Berkeley (ironical- ly, a looped version of her “I’M MOODY // MIX BY EILEEZUS” got me through my own college applications a year earlier) her list of accomplishments is nothing short of inspirational. The Hayward native sat down with The B-Side to talk about her experience as a half-Taiwanese, half-white American woman fearlessly working to break the music industry’s glass ceiling.
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Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Eileen. Could you tell us a little bit about your background and your relationship with your cultural identity?
For most of my life, I’ve grown up feeling disconnected from my Taiwanese heritage — being half white, being raised in America, not being able to fluently speak Mandarin — but I’m starting to realize that it had always been all around me and inside of me, I just wasn’t paying attention.
I spent K-12 living and going to public school in Hayward, CA where I was always one of the few Asian/White let alone Taiwanese people at my school (I honestly don’t know if anyone else was Taiwanese, full or partial, except for me) so I was never really around my culture. The bay is so diverse so I just always felt like my ethnicity didn’t matter, that I didn’t need to acknowledge it, I’m just a person.
I used to be able to fluently speak Mandarin when I was a toddler but started losing more and more of the language as my mom started getting busier with work and I started going to school. I had no one to speak with in Mandarin and lacked a strong reinforcement to being Taiwanese as my mom was my one tie to my heritage. It was always through her that I felt connect- ed to my Taiwanese side and felt as though I was anything other than American. I was fortunate to be able to visit Taiwan and stay with my grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins once every 2 or 3 years. But not speaking the language has always made me feel distant from my identity as Taiwanese even when I was in Taiwan.
There’s always been the clashing of ideals between my parents because they’re from two completely di erent backgrounds and since I spent a lot more time with my dad than my mom when I was growing up, I put a lot of the Taiwanese ideals my mom instilled in me on the back burner and would side with what my dad wanted
for me, o en because it seemed more liberating and “American.” My mom wasn't a stereotypical “tiger mom” though, I mean she met my dad on an airplane, dated him for a summer and then le her whole life in Taiwan at 27 to live like a hippie with him in America! Sure, she forced me into piano lessons, which I’m super grateful for now, Chinese Saturday school, which I regret not trying harder in, and SAT prep. But she’s an artist above everything, both my parents are. My mom describes her painting style as East meets West. My dad is a political and creative writer. They both put their art above everything, right a er providing for my older brother and I, so I feel like this has influenced me to not look at my culture as much as I just look at myself as a worker and an artist.
How would you characterize your music?
I’m still figuring out my sound. I guess currently some key words to describe it are jazzy, cinematic, vibey, and introspective. A lot of my music is me singing to myself. Whether it’s me simping over someone, motivating myself, or trying to process feelings and experiences, I try to be as real about my feelings as I can be and just hope that if anyone hearing it is going through something similar, they feel less alone or at least understand a new perspective if they can’t relate.
What is your songwriting process like?
It’s super varied and unpredictable. My life is always so busy, so a lot of my music is written while in transit. I’ll have ideas popping into my head while walking to class, on Bart, on my way to work, etc. Or I can be anywhere doing anything with anyone or be all alone doing absolutely nothing and melodies/lyrics will just pop into my head. I have over a thousand voice memos of ideas and demos that I want to make into songs. With limited time, it’s so overwhelming to decide what to develop at the moment and what to come back to or even throw away. Once I figure out
“I’m starting to realize that it had always been all around me and inside of me,
I just wasn’t paying attention”
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玻璃天花板
玻璃天花板
玻璃天花板
玻璃天花板
(GLASS CEILING)


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what I really want to work on, whether it’s writing to a fire beat someone sends me, or producing my own song from a melody I came up with, I’ll do a mixture of locking myself in my room, playing a track on repeat, and writing to it or just leaving it alone and letting lyrics come to me til I have enough words and instrumental ideas to make a
song. Then I’ll either record the song on my little USB mic and send my vocals o to get mixed by an audio engineer, or I’ll go to a studio to record and track my vocals with someone. It’s always di erent.
How has your cultural identity inspired your lyrics?
Same way it’s a ected
everything else. It’s who I
am, it’s shaped all of my life
experiences, so it influences
everything I say and do and
am. Both of my parents are
from completely di erent
cultural backgrounds so
there’s that conflict,
deciding which side to take
with di erent ideals. In a
literal sense it’s a ected my lyrics as I sometimes sing or say words in Mandarin in my songs. I’ve started to get back into learning Mandarin, reading more into Chinese literature and history at Cal so I’m currently trying to explore how my mixed race has a ected me and further explore my identity. I’ve o en felt as though I have NO race or an incomplete cultural background due to being two things. But I’m realizing
that I’m not half this and half that, I’m 100% both even though it can sometimes feel like I’m detached from either culture due to being mixed.
I changed my stage-name to Eileen Sho Ji about a year ago as a statement to myself to start embracing my mixed identity. Eileen is my grandmother’s name on my white father’s side (German and Irish descent) and Sho Ji is my grandmother’s name on my Taiwanese mother’s side, it’s also my middle name. I wanted to have my stage name be my actual name but also a tribute to two worlds/ two histories/ two strong women that led to my existence.
Do you ever feel a need to address your cultural identity, specifically in your music or social media presence?
Personally, I don’t necessarily feel the need to address it in my music or social media. More than anything I feel the need to just openly embrace and celebrate my race whether that’s posting pictures of myself in traditional clothing from either side or singing in di erent languages in my songs. I’m working on paying less attention to the ways my culture has been exploited and minimized and instead I’m fully focusing on creating with what I have, from a space to nurture and grow my identity to further empower myself and others to do the same, regardless of their race/back- ground.
Can you talk a little bit about your first E.P.,“Ori- ent,” and the meaning behind its title?
I made “Orient” at a time in my life where I felt very lost and alone. Toward the middle of my sophomore year in high school felt like I couldn’t connect with people at my school and started isolating myself. I was also recovering from a 3 year long battle with Anorexia and was just super depressed. I had just started getting into making beats and developing the lyrics I would come up with as a way to cope with feeling depressed and lonely. Knowing I’d be able to work on music when I got home was the only thing getting me


up in the morning and getting me through the day. That spring, I spent a week in Taiwan with my mom and her family. It was my first time being there as a young adult and I was processing all of these things I was going through in an environment that was unfamiliar to me
happy. It’s a major plus to hear from anyone that they enjoy my music and can relate to it because one of my biggest goals in everything I do is to connect with people, but as an artist, I don’t think it’s a good idea to base your definition of success o of peoples’ reaction
to what you create, because everyone likes and relates to di erent things.
What does the glass ceiling mean to you as a musician, as a student, a woman,
and all the intersectional identities you identify with?
There’s the stereotype of Asians being the model minority: reserved, passive, nerdy, etc. Living in the Bay, I felt like these stereotypes weren’t thrown in my face all the time but in middle school and high school, I definitely remember feeling like I had to try harder to exhibit “coolness,” the fact that I had a personality, that I was more than just a robot with interests aside from school. It would feel like people just assumed I was one-dimensional and boring. I stopped caring about what people thought of me when I started fully focusing on music and that’s where my head’s been at ever since.
It’s easy to feel like you can’t succeed as an artist just ‘cause you don’t see many successful Asian artists in the American music industry. Like people think of Asians making music and all they can think of is K-pop and Yo-Yo Ma which really pigeon-holes us. Or when an Asian person makes something that gets popular, it’s minimized as them assimilating to American culture. Then there’s the matter of being an Asian-American woman. Being a female artist in this country is such a struggle in general because there’s so much emphasis placed on your appearance when it comes to how successful you can be in gaining an audience. Your music doesn’t only have to sound really good, you have to look a certain way and showcase your appearance for people to even listen to you.
With my music, I try to break through the glass ceilings by not letting what people expect me to make (or not make) based on my appearance as an Asian-American woman have any a ect on what I create.
Do you have any advice for fellow artists attempt- ing to break the glass ceiling?
Don’t shape your sound, your style, your art, anything you create to adhere to what’s popular or what people appear to like, especially if it means turning your back against your roots. Embrace every aspect of your cultural identity, everything that makes you who you are, and just do you!
written by jackie nam photographed by jackie nam and bekah gonzalez designed by jackie nam
“I’m working on paying less attention
to the ways my culture has been exploited and minimized and instead I’m fully focusing on creating with what I have, from a space to nurture and grow my identity
but was also my
second home.
Battling
depression,
swooning and
simping over this
guy I thought I
was in love with,
taking in the beautiful sceneries throughout Taiwan, contrasting life there with life in the bay, feeling closer with my mother and my Taiwanese family — all of it had a huge influence on me. I came back to America in such a di erent headspace that led me to drop “Orient,” my first cohesive project a year later.
“Orient” captures a transformative time my life where I started to find my direction, where I became oriented. It has a double meaning as the point at which I found purpose through creating music, but “Orient” is also as a literary term for the countries of Asia — it’s a time where I began to really feel and embrace myself being Taiwanese.
Your track record is insane: at just 19 years old, you’re a student at UC Berkeley, you’ve produced 20+ songs/mixes with multiple features, and you’re have several jobs outside of school. How do you do it all?
I don’t! Since starting at Cal last August, I’ve honestly barely been able to work on music. And when I do have time, I’ll be feeling so drained and uninspired a er working so hard in class and at work that it’s really di icult for me to create. It’s driving me crazy. I was considering taking a semester o just to focus on music but my parents weren’t too stoked about the idea. Instead I’m just preparing to become a music major next semester. Right now I just live for the academic breaks and little spurts of inspiration that randomly hit me because I hate forcing myself to create, I just don’t flow like that. Since I became passionate about making music, every day has been a battle to find a balance and manage my time to be able to work on music, even if just for a few minutes. A lot of days I fail to create a space, time-wise and mentally, to work on music and I’ll feel stuck since it’s my main form of expression. But I know music’s not going anywhere and every day I’m internalizing new knowledge and experiences to incorporate into my art, even if I’m not actively creating something at the moment. Thinking like that keeps me grounded and helps me stay motivated in everything I do.
How do you define success as a musician?
I feel like a successful musician if I can listen to my own music on repeat and relate to it, or at least be able to listen to it and feel like I really captured however I was feeling or felt like I needed to say in as honest of a way as possible. As long as I’m feeling my own music, I’m
to further empower myself and others.”
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DIVIN’ INTO
written by: devyn white
It was New Year’s Eve on the Roo op of the Ace Hotel. There were crowds of people at the bar, chilling on chairs and couches, and quite a few others dancing. Unfamiliar with DJ-ing and house music at this time, I was excited to see what was to come of the music at a free event on NYE. As I sat down and chatted with my group of friends, my ear was drawn to the music. Within twenty min- utes, I dragged my friends to the dance floor, sacrificing our warm seats by the fire. It was a mix of disco and present-day house music provided by DJs Project Pablo and Jen Ferrer. Having grown up on the rhythms of funk and disco, my interest piqued, and I proceeded to dance for two and a half hours straight.
Moving to the beat. Drowning in the rhythms.
2018 started with a night of disco — one I will never forget. Within the first month of the new year, I heard multiple people talking about the comeback of disco. However, I soon came to notice that it wasn’t coming back in the main realm of music. It was coming back in another way, at least in the United States.
Disco-influenced house has consistently revealed itself in di erent parts of the world at varying times. I came to realize that house is purely our generation’s iteration of disco. As my interest grew, I began to go to more DJ sets whether it be disco, deep house, or acid house; I realized that they all evoked the same feeling
in people — a sense of freedom and non-judgement. This scene allowed me to release myself from everyday societal constructions like gender, race and sexual orientation — the binaries that con- tinuously make our egos prominent in daily life. It became a place where I could just be.
Living, breathing, loving, learning. A community.
So, I delved in.
Disco began as a counterculture movement away from the rock and dance music that dominated the 1970s and 1980s. It was actually the key genre that set the stage for the later development of (ware)house music and electronic dance music, or EDM. Frankie Knuckles, known as the Godfather of House Music, presented soul and disco mixes in warehouse shows in Chicago, Illinois in the early 1980s. Along with Knuckles was Larry Levan, an equally important DJ. Both parties began their entrance into house music through LGBTQ+ dance parties and the drag community. Admission to these events initially required an exclusive invitation, as an e ort to bring together diverse, underrepresented groups.
However, in past years, it seems that EDM has taken over popular dance music, leaving house music to underground scenes where music lovers lie. Below are some of my favorite DJs who are preserv- ing the influence of disco.
designed by: connor o’shea
Listen to the beat... Are you ready for the beat?
Todd Terje is a Norwegian DJ and producer. In 2004, he began mixing in the Scandinavian scene with a particular interest
in dub, disco, synth pop, house, and techno. His most popular disco-influenced songs include “Inspector Norse” and “Delorean Dynamite.” The spacey intro and solid o beat with electronic flares makes the 2014 release, “Inspector Norse,” an easy classic for house and pure disco lovers alike. With 18 million listens on Spotify, it’s definitely not one that has been overlooked. “Delorean Dynamite” also has these same spacey vibes with a complex bass beat. With that same o beat in the background, Terje creates a dynamic dance song for all. Terje’s song makes you want to be on a neon-lit dance floor, dancing around in circles.
Another Norwegian DJ and producer, Lindstrøm, started his own label in 2002 a er being a part of the underground dance scene. He has released multiple remixes throughout the past decade. My favorites include “Boney M Down” and “Didn’t Know Better.” “Boney M Down” has a very low-key atmosphere to it; it’s something you would listen to at a ‘70s-themed kickback. Despite it not being a “get up and dance” kind of tune, it still portrays disco influences through the emotion it provokes in the listener. “Didn’t Know Better” is for an entirely di erent kind of party. It features
a feminine vocal with a funky backbeat, a perfect song to boogie down to with the homies.
A newer DJ to the scene is Peggy Gou, a 27-year-old South Korean artist. She professes her love for mixing all kinds of di erent genres including funk, soul, house, and disco. Her disco influences can especially be seen in her single, “It Makes You Forget (Itgehane)” o of her new EP, Once (2018). With a rapid beat to lay down the foundation of the song complemented by a light, higher pitched marimba, Itgehane immediately introduces a disco-dance feel. On this EP, she also uses her so vocals in Korean as an addition, whis- pering “It-ge-hane.”
Thanks to Terje, Lindstrøm, Gou, and many others not mentioned here, disco is not losing its space in the music world. Even though disco may hide in the crevices of alleyways and warehouses, its legacy is here to stay. The history of disco and the atmosphere it continues to create allows for the expansion of the soul — okay, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Nonetheless, it
has definitely has had that impact on myself and those around me, allowing us to let go and forget our present selves in society. All you really gotta do is find the beat, move to the groove, and dive into the disco.
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Vampire Weekend
Brockhampton
Fall Out Boy
a comprehensive list of all (yes, all) your
ex-boyfriends
{I don’t know the exact date of when cu ing season ends, or when (what’s the} opposite of that? Breakup season?) starts, but there’s a brief period of time
where you can look back fondly (or less than fondly) on all your ex-boyfriends
and think to yourself, “I can’t believe how fucking stupid I was.” Though, maybe now you can ruin not only the memory of him but also of your favorite
band whose name will forever on be associated with him. Sorry!
You were both 16. You were the most insecure
person in the world, and he was the most confident. Everyone told you how annoying he was but you just thought they didn’t understand his intellect and wit.
He wore round tortoise shell glasses that he didn’t even need. You never saw him in a color that wasn’t beige or khaki. He convinced you that Salinger was the greatest artist in history, and that Jack Kerouac created modern literatureasweknowittoday.Hewasincrediblyjealousthat you got into a better college than him and sulked for two whole months until you broke up with him.
So fucking pretentious. You The Smiths thought you were safe by
dating a boy in touch with his ~emotions~, but it turns out
this was So. Much. Worse. He’s constantly complaining about
his life but will never listen to your problems. He’s mastered
the art of discreetly insulting the way you look, but in a way
so that you can’t call him on it. He cheated on you several
times but twisted it so it some- how became your fault for not
“supporting him enough.”
Edward Sharpe
He was around during your weird Brandy-Melville-Huntington-Beach- Urban-Outfitters phase you completely regret happening. He was sweet though, and actually the most interesting person once he stopped pretend- ing that “his heart belonged in Joshua Tree.” You wish you had met him when you had both grown out of that age, maybe he was really the one.
He asked you to the 8th grade dance a er his friend said you
had a crush on him (which wasn’t entirely true, but you
went with it). His name was probably Sam or Kyle or some- thing forgettable; it didn’t matter. A er you shared your first kiss on
the makeshi dance floor of the cafeteria, you thought he would be the one. He ended up transferring high schools and totally lost contact with you,
save for the friend request you got from him last year, where you found out he was living in
He’s literally always around, like, always. Everything happened so fast, too fast for you to even remem- ber how you met. He said I love you a er the third date, and keeps talking about “your future” together. He’s super close to his friends, to the point you wonder if this is all some weird social experiment he’s conducting with you. He always shows you o on social media but
never answers your calls. You’re pretty sure he liked the idea of being of in a relation- ship more than he actually liked you.
Jersey City trying to get his t-shirt business o the ground. No matter what,
you’ll always remember him and how much he meant to
you – uh, Chad, Jake, whatever his name was.
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Drake
The Chainsmokers
Migos Frank Ocean
FIDLAR
as bands you love
Uhhhhh you got drunk and hooked up with some blond dude. You woke up the next morning to, like, 50 texts from him. You don’t remember his name but feel too bad to ask. He takes you to Starbucks for co ee and asks you what your favorite TV show is (his
is Modern Family). He says he’s majoring in finance but you don’t believe he knows how to add. He’s the social chair of his frat, he goes to the gym just an average amount so it doesn’t seem like he’s trying too hard, and the caption for his Facebook album of his family trip to Vail, Colorado, was “back at it with the fam.”
He’s always asking you to spot him for everything – dinners (which are just White Castle takeout), movies (which are just RedBox DVDs from the gas station a block over), even your own birthday gi (which was just a copy of Currents by Tame Impala – you hate Tame Impala). He says he’s too busy being a creative to get a job; he’s 26. Still, he’s the most charming guy you ever dated, and you can’t seem to keep going back to him. And he has his romantic moments sometimes, like when he saved
you from that mosh pit at that pop punk band you forgot the name of.
You two only dated for a month before he broke up with you because, in his words, “He can’t be tied down”; but he still texts you that he misses you every time he’s drunk: every time. He hit on every girl he saw when
you were together, and every time you brought it up he’d say you were just being overdramatic. He steals all his style from guys on Instagram but claims it’s 100% original. Never had a job but some- how was always loaded.
written by leka gopal designed by jessica tin
He was in your DMs for like a year before you finally caved and just went out with him. He’s always talking about you in the group chat with his friends, and won’t ever leave you alone with his phone. He has a really odd and inappropriate obsession with his Honda Civic. He still uses Instagram filters on his photos.
You don’t have anything in common. You don’t know why you’re dating him.
Ghosts you for months but shows back up in your life like nothing happened, every time. When he’s around, though, he’s always super attentive, and focuses all his attention on you. You still don’t seem to know anything about him though, he’s super secretive about really odd things, like where he lives, or how old he was when he said his first words. He always asks
you to call him but let’s it go to voicemail every single time. You broke up with him a er you realized he was using your life as the basis of some weird art piece. A er this one, you decide that maybe you don’t want to date creative types anymore.
{In the end, you decide that maybe you should take a break and start } listening to podcasts now and like, better yourself in some way. Maybe
being single and focusing all of your energy into something useful is
what you really need. Or maybe you just need to date someone better.
S18 BSide Zine.indd 25 4/23/18 1:21 PM


23
an interview with
an interview with
experimental indie-rocker
experimental indie-rocker
Elijah Egbert
Elijah Egbert
written by veronica irwin
written by veronica irwin
photographed by bianca lu
photographed by bianca lu
designed by miles o’brien-schridde
designed by miles o’brien-schridde
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A PRELIMINARY OUTPOURING:
A PRELIMINARY OUTPOURING:


As a student musician trying to conquer a new music scene as a junior transfer, one might expect Elijah Egbert to be loud, talkative, and perhaps a little too eager to get you to listen to his music. But this UC Berkeley student-mu- sician is none of that.
Rather than focusing on “selling” himself, Egbert’s creative process is a calm, solitary activity — a time to process the happenings of the outside world from the comfort of his own room. Enjoying his first semester as a non-commuter, Elijah is a housemate of mine who chooses to make his music as a one-man project. The result varies from introspective and carefully-articulated folk to heavily edit- ed experimental alternative rock,
loosely held together by an expressive and bright vocal delivery.
A philosophy-turned-rhetoric major, Egbert’s thoughtful musical approach appears to represent an overarching character trait.
His inquisitive tendencies shone through as we explored our mutually-inhabited abode, communal living space, and eccentric veg- an-vegetarian haven that is the Lothlorien Cooperative. The setting felt meant-to-be, especially when he stopped in front of Lothlo- rien’s Lord of the Rings mural to tell us about how he would play the LOT audiotapes on repeat through his boombox as a child. Even in charming moments like these, Eli’s way of speaking is deliberate: he holds eye contact, chooses his words carefully, and treads lightly in a way that, despite our mutual awkward- ness, makes the exchanges feel easy. In a moment of quiet on a Friday a ernoon, we talked about the Sacramento music scene, his creative process, and what real love is.
So, you grew up in Sacramento.
I grew up in West Sacramento, actually, which is just across the river. It’s a di erent city, but basically the same thing. I’ve always lived in Sacramento. I really like it there be- cause the river is there, and it gets really hot
and you can go swimming in the rivers.
What are the people like?
I don’t know! It is a government town. In
the downtown there’s a lot of state o ices and that sort of thing. There’s a tiny bit of it that feels like San Francisco or something, in the middle. Just like the downtown, it’s bland o ice buildings and people in suits scuttling around. The city itself isn’t that big, but there’s a lot of suburbs and a lot of suburban culture like malls. That’s definitely where like I spent a lot of my time: in a sort of like amorphous, sprawling, semi-urban environment.
Is there much of an arts scene?
Yeah! There’s a lot. There’s no real venues, but there’s some all ages venues. Or there were in the past, and that’s how I started playing music. When I started playing music there was like a pizza place that was in downtown and it was called “Luigi’s Fun Garden.” It was just an empty room with
a stage in it, but there were a lot of shows there and it was one of the all ages venues around. Then there was the Naked Lounge which was a co ee shop that was the same deal where it had a little room with a stage in it. That one stayed open longer but it just closed down as well too.
So none of these spaces that you used to go to are le ?
No, none of the same ones have lasted. But there are other ones now. Right now the only real venue in Sacramento that’s all ages and cool and DIY is the Red Museum, which is like this warehouse space that’s like run by a bunch of artists. But you know how there was that fire at like that DIY place in Oakland? Since then the city has been really uptight and trying to shut down the Red Museum.
You mean in Sacramento a er the Oak- land thing?
Yeah. I’m not sure on the details so much, but I know there’s been a lot of problems with getting permits and getting it all up to code. What has ended up happening now is they only do one show there every month, or one show every couple months, because they can’t be a “venue-venue,” like a proper licensed venue — it has to be an art studio that occasionally puts on an event. As far as regulations go, it’s hard to make a space that’s a ordable. Like not even one that’s profitable, but just one that’s able to break even is really hard.
How do you think that a ects the arts scene, or other folks like yourself making music in Sacramento?
I mean there are places to play if you look. But that’s never really been my focus: play- ing shows, and trying to play bigger shows and trying to play more shows. I’m not sure that I want it to be.
What is your focus then?
More about writing, definitely.
“I’ve never had the tem-
perament of selling any- thing. I don’t have anything against people pushing their art, or trying to make a living o their art--I think that’s really great. I just wouldn’t know how to approach it.”
That makes me think, just with like the rhetoric major — do you think there’s any connection between your music and your academic pursuits? Would you say that says something about you as a person?
Maybe (laughs). I don’t know exactly what the connection is, but I like similar things about both. Both of them are solitary cre- ative exercises. I mean, music isn’t always solitary, and neither is the academic stu , but I just really like taking the time to pay attention to something really carefully, and that’s what music is for me, too: a prolonged time of engagement with a single thing. Like with a recording, recording a song, or an album, and just working on it and working on it and really trying to pay attention to what it needs.
Yeah, I mean your work definitely must require working on it for a prolonged pe- riod of time — you just put out an album! When you’re recording, is it just you or do you work with other people? What’s the creative process like?
Well, I’ve done a lot of di erent things. As far as the music I release under my own name, that’s all recorded by me. I have a few songs where I send people files and they record over it, collaboratively. I’ve worked with
my friend Jiro Lagac (Pictures of Grey), and we’ve done a lot of work together on the side as well, and I’ve collaborated with him on
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some of my music. And then also there’s some horns, or I had somebody play bass clarinet over some of my recent music.
Focusing on Eight Songs from the Tower (2017), the song “Preliminary Outpour- ing” seemed particularly emotional. Do you want to tell us what that song was about?
I guess that song’s about punitive love, or love that is fiery, or love that cuts through things. That’s what the album is kind of circling around — this image of the Tower
of Babel, and the Tower reaching upwards and being struck down from above. That first song in particular stemmed from that feeling of love that cuts through artifice, or performance, or just pretending, or routine, or bad habits. It’s about violent love, or something like that. I think real love is that: really interacting with another person in that way is cutting through things.
The following EP, Center of the Spiral (2017), features a lot of audio editing. Is there anything that inspired you to edit music the way you do?
I’m not sure. It’s not directly imitating anything, but I do really like to work with textures in music, and the way I learned how to make music was through recording it and listening back to it and writing in the re- cording process. A lot of my music depends upon the medium of recording and what I’m trying to work through subconsciously with the recordings themselves. Instead of just writing things, creating a performance, and then capturing it, I’m trying to work with the recording itself, writing for the recording, and writing in the recording.
Did you teach yourself how to play and edit music? Did anybody guide you?
I play cello, and I still do but not as regular- ly as I used to. So that’s shaped my basic musical sensibilities. But I taught myself the other instruments that I play, like guitar, and I taught myself how to record with Garage- Band.
What do you use when you play live? Do you mix anything live? How does that work?
That’s always been problematic, because I write a lot of music in the recording process but then have to rethink it and consider how it’s going to play out in a live setting. In the past I was just like, “Well, there’s just some music and recordings that I don’t really know how to translate into a live setting, and there’s just a lot of stu that I will never play live.” But at a certain point I was feeling
the need to play out more. It felt isolating to be working on these super complex recordings all the time, yet still not really being able to bring them to people in an approachable way. You can send people your Bandcamp or something but that’s not the ideal way to engage with somebody’s music.
So on the Eight Songs album, I wanted to write an album I could play all the way through. And, I wanted to record it in a
way that I hadn’t been recording — I didn’t want to edit it. I wrote that and recorded
it to tape with a four track, like just one of those taskcam desk units that I borrowed from a friend, all in one day. I recorded all of them in one sitting, just to get it all out, and I didn’t edit at all. I just did some minimal mixing. And I wrote the songs in the week before. Bits and pieces have been around, but it was developed intensively over the course of a week or so.
Are there any artists that you are in- spired by when you’re thinking about all of this?
I really like Phil Elverum and all of the music that he’s made in di erent projects with The Microphones and now with Mount Eerie. Also Joanna Newsom — I’m a big, big fan. Honestly, I’ve been watching a lot of old movies recently and that’s been making me think about things in a di erent way.
How so? What movies?
A lot of old Samurai movies and then Ingmar Bergman movies. And then old vampire movies as well — I’m really, really into that.
What can we look forward to in the fu- ture from you?
It feels like I’m unclear as to what I’m doing. I’m trying to learn a lot of other people’s songs, just to get me thinking about it in
a di erent way. I’ve been listening to the Smithsonian’s folk music archives. What’s fun to do is to listen to those songs and try to transcribe the lyrics, but there’s some that you can’t understand and you can use that gray area to shape it into your own narrative a little bit.
The other thing that I want to work on is trying to get my hands on a video camera, just because I’ve been really into movies recently and I think it would be really fun
to work on some audio-visual projects. In a lot of my recorded music, I like to work with editing and textures and the sort of artificial, synthesized experience, and I think it’d be really great to throw a whole visual aspect into that. I think that I have visual associ- ations with the music that I make, but I’m sure that doesn’t come across to other peo- ple. My friends in Sacramento run this thing called the “Library of Musiclandria,” which
I just kind of want to share with the world. It’s a free musical instrument lending library and it’s getting pretty serious. They have a real location now and it’s totally free and it’s really great. Associated with that part of the library is a label called Four Headed Records that releases audio-visual material on VHS tapes. I’ve been wanting to release some- thing on that for a while and we’ve talked about it. So, this whole audio-visual thing
is something to look forward to and that’s going to be coming out in the next year.
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JOYs
written by michael elsanadi design by emma jaeger
obscurities
November 14 2006, I was 10 years old, and my broth- er was learning how to play the saxophone. We had
a dog named Teddy -- a flu y, brown, self-entitled, stubborn, and almost humanly thoughtful, miniature poodle. Whenever Teddy heard the slightest honk of my brother’s saxophone, he would howl. Li ing his
A COLLECTION OF Mu
November 3 2017, It was around 10 PM, and Kevin and I were chilling in Hans’ room. We were bored. Restless and in search of any form of entertain- ment. I began playing Brockhampton’s “Boogie”on the massive speakers that adorned Hans’s shelves. Testing the sonic capacity of the room and its speakers, I turned up the volume. The song’s heavy bass and infectious saxophone chorus shook the room and everything in it. Watching Hans’ items jump on the shelves, we were in tears and dying of laughter. We loved it.
In awe of our newfound power,
Kevin grabbed the aux cord
and insisted on playing an
all-saxophone cover of the Jackson
5’s mega-hit “I Want You Back,” turning up the volume as high as it would go. The vibrations of the saxophone’s aggres- sively heavy sound pushed paintings o walls and tore books from shelves. Loos- ening with every bump of the upbeat classic, the front casings of the speakers flew o . We paused the music.
tiny an
head into the air, Teddy would belt out instinctual howl that perfectly
matched the tone of my broth-
er’s saxophone. However, like most hobbies taken up by kids at
a young age, my brother deserted the saxophone. That was the last time
we ever heard Teddy howl.
January 25 2018, It was 2 AM, and I was hurrying to get home,
shivering with every blow of the icy Bay Area winds. Per usual,
the lighting on Northside was dim and ominous, but I walked on, focusing
my attention on the distant glow of my warm, inviting home. Following the steady beat of Bedouine’s “One of These Days,” I grabbed my keys and walked down the narrow staircase towards my back kitchen door. As I reached up- wards to unlock it, I heard a scurry. Turning towards the noise, I found a small opossum peeing while perched on top of a ledge. I stared at the peeing opos- sum, and with its tiny red eyes, they stared back at me. We both shrugged and went on our separate ways.
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s


sICAL SHORT STORIES
frustrations
October 18 2017, My friends and I were playing pool, and I decided to put on some music. Already anticipating the question, I hear Hans ask, “hey,
can I get next song?” Quickly a er my song finishes, Hans takes over the aux cord. Beyonce’s voice suddenly fills
the room, crooning, “If I were a boy...” . I Immedi- ately question what I had done in this life or a past life to deserve this. Don’t get me wrong--I love Beyonce, but Hans had gone too far this time.
His continuing obsession with Beyonce’s 2008 hit single had infiltrated our lives, making me question
my sanity, Queen Bey, and maybe even life itself. If, for
example, we were sitting on the couch hanging out, Hans would take out his phone and the lyrics would
begin again “If I were a boy...” If were studying and Hans was taking a break, the slow and steady lyrics would leak
from the speakers of his computer, “if I were a boy...” Although accompanied with an alluring melody, the pop song’s obscure lyrics
and Han’s tenacious love for them has forever ruined the song for me. Nevertheless, we finished our game of pool, and Hans le , but the lyrics of Beyonce’s gender role-reversing hit remained stuck in my head.
February 2 2018. I was walking down Scenic Drive in North Berkeley on my way to work. It was cold. Eight in the morning. Homeshake’s “Every Single Thing” played next on my shu le.
It catches my attention. The steady beat accompanied by a singular and small voice perfectly matched the sentiments running through my head.
Something’s o .
Its muted synth pop beat brings emotions of despair, happiness, and confusion to the forefront, leaving any thoughts regarding the present behind.
The thoughts continue:
I’m always distracted. I’m here now, but what can I do later? What should I do later? Am I doing the best I can?
Why do I always do the wrong thing?
I’m so out of touch. I need to experience life. I need
feelings. Real feelings.
I dive into the feed. Al-Jazeera: More than 400 Killed in Eastern Ghouta.
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u


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Letter from the Editors
Summoning the vulnerability and courage necessary to share works of creative self-expression with the world is a process unbound by genre, age, or background.
As UC Berkeley’s only music publication, we are proud to assist in the cultivation of a campus community united by a universal love of music — ignited by a beat, a story, an artist, or a movement. Since the publication’s founding in 2013, we have committed ourselves to connecting our campus community to the Bay Area music scene and the global scene beyond; we are especially proud to recognize the diverse collective of young local artists passionate about raising the community with their unique sounds. Over the last five years, The B-Side has honed its cra and found its own defining voice: to empower creatives within our campus community.
Reflecting upon our time here, we can’t help but remember The B-Side as it was when we joined the team four years ago — something akin to a book club, where a dozen of us all sat around in a circle and shared music. Since the early days in that dimly lit classroom, the magazine has grown not only in size, but in confidence and responsibility. We are proud to work among leaders, designers, photographers, journalists, and musicians who share their diverse creative gi s in order to continue inspiring a community united by music. Looking back at our journey, it has truly been the greatest privilege to work as Editors-in-Chief alongside our talented sta , working together to continue to produce unique ways of storytelling.
Issue IV of The B-Side is dedicated to everyone who assisted in the produc- tion of this publication. It is dedicated to every musician who has inspired us, to our predecessors who brought us together, and especially, to our brilliantly creative and tireless sta . This issue belongs to each and every one of you.
With love,
Sofia Duarte & Myra Farooqi Editors-in-Chief, 2017-2018
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