ISSUE ONE | 2016 THE B-SIDE MAGAZINE 1 Staff THE B-SIDE STAFF We are The B-Side, U.C. Berkeley’s student-run and produced music magazine, offering music coverage, thought, and appreciation in the Bay Area and beyond. A huge thanks to everyone who had a hand in our inaugural first issue. Keep rocking with us. Executive Board Writers Editor-in-Chief Eda Yu Adil Siddiqee Managing Editor Meaghan Allen Jacob Elsanadi Managing Publisher Myra Farooqi Vivian Chen Communications Sofia Duarte Matt Sater Arnav Chaturvedi Kenny Zhang Photo Lead Fiona Duerr Huber Rodriguez Design Leads Conner Smith Aziz Yehia Farida Radwan Brendan Redmond Social Media Debbie Zheng Natalie Silver Web Kurush Dubash Jordan Aronson Nathaniel Wartzman George Green Brian Grossman General Staff Marketing Gaby Fooks Photo Kavitha George Elsie Fischer Michelle Cho Connor Tapley Ally Mason Desiree Diaz Communications Rosie Davidowitz Sam Jameson Mateo Savala Editors Logan Hansen Rebekah Gonzalez Jack Thompson Emilie Dylewski Design Lillian Tran Leka Gopal Shirin Sadjadpour Joanna Jiang Joseph Choe Web Ruvan Jayaweera Front and back cover photos taken by Fiona Duerr THE B-SIDE 2 Frankie Cosmos would prefer staying in bed Matt Sater via the Bayonet Records imprint. group singalongs. “I wish I could project, has far progressed past Staff writer The shift from homemade song remember the first time [the au- its humble home-recorded be- Greta Kline wishes she’d sketches to fully fleshed out dience sang with me],” she said, ginnings. It’s very much a touring written “Good Intentions Paving studio arrangements hasn’t fazed “but it still feels totally shocking band now, as evidenced by mul- Company” by Joanna Newsom. Kline in the slightest. “[It] Would and cool when that happens.” tiple references on Next Thing to Greta Kline says that Eminem’s be cool if it was possible to In Frankie Cosmos songs, tours, vans and rest stops (where “Stan” is the greatest song of all record music and make it sound it’s often the small details that Kline said her go-to snack to pick time. Greta Kline is Frankie Cos- really nice in a studio and have hit home and make the songs up is the very sensible choice of mos, and Greta Kline is a better it be full band, but also be really instantly memorable. “On the “Bugles and water”). This sense songwriter than you are. comfortable and naked in my bed Lips”, a song originally released of perpetual motion is reinforced If you haven’t heard of Kline at the same time,” she wrote in in 2013, opens with the lyric “I by the album art: an illustration of or Frankie Cosmos, her ap- an e-mail, shortly after returning watch David Blaine / and find a highway sign next to a nonde- peal can best be explained by from an ex- myself believ- script field, as viewed through a Frankie Cosmos fans. I asked tensive Eu- “Haven’t you heard / If you can’t ing / in many passenger-side window. a few friends of mine for their ropean tour. pinpoint the schmuck in the room, things.” Discussing the high points favorite Frankie Cosmos song “Someday.” it’s you” The wit and of touring, Kline said that “One The lay- depth of this of the most memorable venues lyrics, and each immediately had - Schmuck in the Room multiple songs in mind. There ered nature one-liner is we have played at was Meow were no overlaps between any of of Frankie Cosmos’s releases is a typical of Kline’s songwriting, and Wolf,” referencing the Santa Fe their answers, and none of their uniquely rewarding experience for this line in particular even caught venue/art installation. The venue’s answers matched my favorite of her fans. Longtime listeners — or the attention of magician David unique design approximates the her lyrics: “Haven’t you heard / If new ones who’ve done their re- Blaine himself, who quietly tweet- Lost Boys village from Hook, if you can’t pinpoint the schmuck search — can recognize many el- ed the event link to Frankie Cos- the Lost Boys had access to an in the room, it’s you”, from 2014’s ements of older Frankie Cosmos mos’s show (although he didn’t ungodly amount of in glow-in-the- “Schmuck in the Room”. The songs revisited and re-recorded make an appearance). Kline dark paint and bought a great PA range of responses is partially due for the new studio albums. Kline doesn’t know how Blaine heard system. to the sheer amount of material confirmed that her music is still about her lyrics about him, but At first, this neon fantasyland — Greta Kline has released over evolving even while on tour: “I’ve refers me to the people behind of a venue seems an odd fit for 40 albums since 2011 — but spent up to a few years tweaking “David Blaine’s The Steakhouse”, Greta Kline’s understated sound. also an effect of how personal and changing these songs. I’m a cheekily named DIY venue in But there’s something about her music feels to everyone who still making changes to the ways Brooklyn. “You’ll have to ask the the earnestness of Meow Wolf’s listens to it. we play certain songs from Next DBTS crew about their name — presentation, its childlike wonder, This year’s excellent Next Thing live.” but I can tell you that Cameron that does seem to mesh perfectly Thing was the second full-length With her steady increase in from DBTS is who got me into with aching sincerity that per- Frankie Cosmos album record- popularity and her continued watching a bunch of David Blaine vades all things Frankie Cosmos. ed in a studio, following 2014’s aptitude for writing heart-stop- videos.” “It’s a really amazing installation,” Zentropy, and the first released ping lyrics, her tour stops have Frankie Cosmos, whether de- she remarked. “You get lost in it, become more and more like fined as a band or as Kline’s solo and it’s beautiful.” 3 THE B-SIDE For whom the festival rolls Huber Rodriguez to the whims of their primary have become familiar elements of is no longer a foreign entity to be Staff writer demographic: rich, white kids the full time job that is attending viewed and interacted with only between the ages of fifteen and a 3-day music festival. Local craft through videos, tweets, articles, I stood in a crowd of about thirty-five. If Pitchfork, the preem- brews will fly off the tap for nine and shares. Instead, he’s a 20,000, waiting for the man inent tastemaker in purportedly dollars a pop. Recycled, organic real-life person — one who incites who might very well go down independent music despite being and heavily branded twenty-four year old Alaskan as the best rapper of all time. recently bought by publication packaging will be strewn fishermen to squeal like children. Earlier that day, I had previously giant Conde Nast, says Father throughout the And with his physical presence been harangued into seeing John Misty, Vince Staples, and grounds. comes the commoditization of his The Chainsmokers, and their Sol- ange Voter music and his message. Where brand of pandering, pedestrian registration in the 1960s experiencing protest EDM-pop had been too much to Knowles booths music was an infectious and bear sober, so I left to stake out are making will be spontaneous consequence of a spot for Kendrick Lamar. As poignant living through the the times that the crowd rapidly surrounded the political were a changin’, it can now be Samsung Stage, I found myself packaged and sold for 300 bucks in one of many classic festival a pop, with the added bonus of conundrums: unable to reach my watching emotional high school- friends near the front and unwill- ers lose their shit to Twenty-One ing to compromise my position Pilots while stoned out of your to watch with another group near fucking mind. the back. My company for the And who can afford that show thus became a pair of vaca- 300 dollar price tag? Proba- tioning Alaskan fishermen tripping bly not Compton teenagers on acid given to them by ‘some struggling to resist gang guy near the merch tent’. culture, but guys like me, that Kendrick’s latest studio album, are afforded not only the luxury To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), was of going to the show, but also a landmark political manifesto state- of criticizing everyone else that on blackness in America. But as ments does too. That doesn’t mean I’m he walked into his well-earned within going to stop attending festivals, headlining set that night at Austin the and hopefully I’ll still enjoy them. City Limits the fans going ballistic context of But it’s important to recognize and singing along to classics like excellent that the price of seeing every “Swimming Pools” and “Alright” music (which wannabe Mumford and Sons were predominately white and indeed manned; or Tame Impala that your friend Asian. The recipients of Kend- they are), iPads starred on Spotify is immersing rick’s live message that day, as you can with yourself in a world where every- he rapped about taking pride in bet white, one looks like you, reads what blackness, were hardly black — informed, and Square you read, likes what you like, an irony that extends further still liberal mil- Cash will and hates Trump. Festivals are when taking into account that the lennials will be reap Visa far from inclusive, and the more author of this piece is a 23-year- soon be whole- swipes from they cater to my (and Berkeley’s) old privileged, white grad student heartedly singing along within dozens of demographic, the more insulated from New Jersey.