2B — Thursday, February 26, 2015
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
By CAROLYN DARR
Daily Arts Writer
What’s a teen to do on a Friday
night? In Ann Arbor, countless
music venues open their doors and
host fantastic shows of all differ-
ent genres, but almost every loca-
tion has an age limit. Fortunately,
for those under 18 who want to get
involved in the Ann Arbor music
scene, there is the B-Side, the only
music venue run by and for teens.
The B-Side is the music arm of
the Neutral Zone — Ann Arbor’s
nonprofit teen center entering its
15th year. The Neutral Zone start-
ed hosting concerts for youths of all
ages in 1999 when teens proposed
hosting fundraising concerts on
Friday nights. The Neutral Zone
made a makeshift stage to host
the acts in their location on Main
Street, but when it decided to move
in 2006, the new facility on East
Washington was established with a
separate in-house concert hall spe-
cifically for B-Side acts.
The Neutral Zone itself is Ann
Arbor’s space for teens to grow
through community leadership
and artistic expression. Programs
are offered in music, literary arts,
visual arts and leadership, allow-
ing teens a wide variety of options
to choose from. The Zone also pro-
vides educational opportunities
for teens such as assistance with
college admissions and tutoring by
volunteering University students.
The Neutral Zone is open
from 2:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday
through Thursday and 2:30 p.m.
to 6 p.m. on Friday to make space
for B-Side shows. These hours
allow teens to come and go to and
within the space as they please,
choosing which programs they
would like to participate in. There
is a program fee for teens who
choose to participate in the arts-
based programs, but scholarships
are available and no teen is ever
turned away. As long as students
are of high school age, they are
free to partake in the welcoming
community of the Neutral Zone.
The physical space of the B-Side
feels like an underground club with
paintings on every wall. When fac-
ing the stage, the eye is immedi-
ately drawn to the left-side wall,
which depicts a mural honoring
Disco D, a producer and composer
from Ann Arbor who passed away
in 2007. Neutral Zone students and
alumni do all the artwork, which
varies greatly in style and scheme.
Jamall Bufford, the Neutral
Zone music coordinator, has been
with the B-Side since its incep-
tion, both as a performer and now
as staff.
Bufford, a rapper in his own
right, had been pursuing his music
career touring in Europe and Aus-
tralia, but returned to his native
Ann Arbor four years ago searching
for his next move. A friend pointed
him toward his old performance
space at the Neutral Zone, sug-
gesting he help out with the emcee
workshop. Then, two years ago, he
became the music coordinator of
all the teen music programs, which
include beatmaking, DJing, live
sound engineering, recording stu-
dio, record-label operation, emcee-
ing and, of course, the B-Side.
“My job is to just essentially
coordinate the teen’s visions and
help them see it through,” Bufford
said. “This is a youth-driven space
so whatever their vision is we try
to help them make it happen. They
dictate how the program is run. For
the B-Side they book the shows,
they actually work the shows, they
take the door money, they work the
concession stands and they stage-
manage. They also help handle the
money at the end of the show and
they pay the Neutral Zone for staff-
ing and pay the bands. It’s giving
them first-hand experience on how
to manage a concert venue.”
B-Side meetings, where the real
work gets done, are casual and free-
form. More like a group of good
friends hanging out and talking
about music than a planning com-
mittee, teens are free to come and
go as they please. No one person is
in charge and everyone is free to
input their opinion on the project
at hand. Bufford is only there to
maintain order and guide the con-
versation, while the teens produce
the bulk of the planning ideas.
Halfway through a meeting I
sat in, a Zone volunteer giving a
prospective member a tour of the
space came in. The B-Side teens
were welcoming and enthusias-
tic, praising their coordinator and
explaining their respective work-
groups. Upon hearing the prospec-
tive teen play drums, three of the
B-Siders immediately offered him
a spot in their band.
Each of the B-Side concerts,
which are usually held every
Friday, cost around $5 and are
booked and promoted by the teens
that participate in the B-Side
workshop. The seven-to-ten teens
find bands to host, promote the
show with flyers and online, and
staff the concert.
“(The teens) choose what they
want to do here at the Neutral
Zone, nothing is mandatory, it’s
not like school. It’s just their own
intrinsic want to be here, to be a
part of something cool, something
fun,” Bufford said. “They kind of
gravitate toward what they like.
We try to plan shows almost every
week if we can, which is pretty
involved especially if you’re a high
school teen. So the fact that they
come here every week and try to
put together a nice show is amaz-
ing to me because they don’t have
to do it.”
Ben Schaaf, a current sopho-
more at Rudolf Steiner High School
in Ann Arbor, became a Zone
member after playing a show at the
B-Side.
“I had played a fundraiser for
a child who went to Steiner who
needed a bone marrow transplant,”
Schaaf said. “My band played the
fundraiser there in eighth grade
and I got inspired to come join the
B-Side through some friends I met
there who had been in it for some
time.”
The bands that play the B-Side
can be chosen through a variety of
ways. They can submit their music
for review, come pitch a show at a
B-Side meeting, or are selected by
the teen fans themselves.
The B-Side hosts special shows
every first Friday of the month,
showcasing new talent including
not just music, but also poetry and
art. The first 25 people in the door
on those nights get in free. The
most recent First Friday featured
Ann Arbor bands the Euphorics,
Caves and Creal. Caves pianist
Summer Krinsky, a University
alum, said the band was booked
through their friend and fellow
locals the Euphorics, many of
whom had members involved in
the B-Side throughout their high
school years.
“Since the B-Side is community-
funded, it has an amazing setup and
happens to be one of the best spaces
we have ever played in Ann Arbor,”
Krinsky said. “The B-Side definite-
ly has one of the best sounding rigs
and rooms and a great crew work-
ing there. It is absolutely an under-
appreciated venue and I hope that
college bands play there more fre-
quently with high school bands to
bridge the two music scenes that
are both very much thriving in Ann
Arbor.”
Krinsky did mention, however,
that it is often hard to encour-
age college student attendance of
B-Side shows because, as a teen
venue, there is no alcohol allowed
on the premises and shows must
end by 11 p.m. However, this did
not seem to impact the crowd on
the night of Feb. 9, as the large
room dedicated to B-Side shows
was packed with teens of all ages
chatting and dancing to the music.
One large-scale event that some
of the B-Side teens assist in plan-
ning every year is a festival called
Live on Washington, held out-
side in the summer. Washington
Street in front of the Neutral Zone
is blocked off and a large stage is
erected. There is also a smaller
stage for acoustic acts that runs
in the Comerica parking lot next
door. During the day are teen acts
of all different genres leading up
to a larger headliner. The last two
years featured Shigeto and Mayer
Hawthorne in addition to a variety
of fantastic teen acts.
Ali Shahin, a senior at Skyline
High School in Ann Arbor, partici-
pates in both the B-Side and Live
on Washington.
“I started here at the B-Side
around Fall 2013,” Shahin said.
“My friends were in a really pop-
ular music group here, Creal,
and they were performing a free
show here. The first time I came I
thought it was super awesome that
teens were doing all this so I stuck
around.”
Two years later, Shahin is now
a teen facilitator and is currently
organizing
SOAR,
Speak
Out
Against Rape, which will be held in
the B-Side venue in March.
“What I love about the B-Side
is the youth-driven approach to
both finding talent, putting talent
on stage, making sure everything
goes smoothly, making sure we’re
professional; and its all driven by
young people who are passionate
about music,” Shahin said.
The B-Side provides a space in
Ann Arbor for teens to be them-
selves and spend time on their
own terms. Coordinator Bufford
believes the musical aspect of the
program provides an easy gateway
to the rest of the activities offered
by the Neutral Zone.
“Music has a way of touching a
lot of people, and so if we can use
music to get people in the door
here, maybe they might discover
they like something else,” Buf-
ford said. “This is a place they
can express themselves and then
find other people who have simi-
lar interests so that they don’t feel
alone. Whether they feel like what
they do is weird, or their parents
might not support them rapping or
them being in a punk metal band,
or they may not support the type of
art they draw, but then they come
here and they say, ‘Hey you do the
same thing, well that’s cool.’ So
they feel like they have that kind of
support system and they feel com-
fortable here and it’s a safe space.”
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
Jamall Bufford is music coordinator for the Neutral Zone.
VENUE
From Page 1B
Meester all grown up
By GIBSON JOHNS
Daily Arts Writer
“Is Chace Crawford a good
kisser?!”
Leighton Meester, of “Gos-
sip Girl” fame, was at The Magic
Bag in Ferndale, Mich. to per-
form songs from her debut album,
Heartstrings. She wasn’t there
to be incessantly hounded with
questions about her days play-
ing Blair Waldorf on a television
show that ended three years ago.
The question, which interrupted
her demurely telling the audience
about her tour, prompted Meester
to stop mid-sentence, pause and
then signal for her band to begin
the next song.
And so the tone for the night
was set by a handful of drunk post-
grads in the pit.
To be fair, the “Gossip Girl”
references are to be expected
at a Leighton Meester concert.
Moments like this, unsurpris-
ingly, happened multiple times on
Monday night. Blair Waldorf is
“Gossip Girl” ’s most recognizable
and beloved character — which is
a statement that held true during
the show’s heyday and still holds
true today, as the Queen B of the
Upper East Side’s legacy is upheld
by her pervasiveness in meme cul-
ture and on Tumblr. But the audi-
ence’s incessant yelling about that
era of her career quickly turned
disrespectful, and it made the
dynamic between Meester and the
audience quite uncomfortable.
Regardless, throughout her 12
song set, Meester’s vocals were
clean, breezy and sometimes
twangy. They proved that her foray
into music represents more than
just another bored actress with
easy access to the industry mind-
lessly trying her hand at music. She
has real talent, real perspective
and real intentions. Her influenc-
es — Stevie Nicks, Joni Mitchell,
Carly Simon — weren’t surpris-
ing, as it was clear that they’re the
types of women she was striving to
emulate both in tone and aesthetic.
Her and her band’s performance
style was at once casual and seri-
ous, almost recalling a jam band
performing for themselves in one
of their parents’ garages. With a
flannel shirt tied around her waist,
Meester frequently took sips of
coffee from a travel mug and often
had her eyes closed when she was
singing, seemingly forgetting for
a moment that there was an audi-
ence of almost 300 watching her.
She was in the zone.
The all-male five-piece band
that backed her meshed well, and
their presence proved comforting
to Meester. (She may or may not
have proclaimed that her “bass-
ist is bae.”) Most notably, her
album’s producer, Jeff Trott, who
was also behind some of Sheryl
Crow’s earliest hits, was there
and impressively jumped between
instruments.
What may have held Meester
back the most from truly connect-
ing, though, was simply the fact
that the material from her debut
left a bit to be desired. Other than
a few standout tracks — “Heart-
strings,” “L.A.,” “Good for One
Thing,” — they proved to be a bit
one-note in a live setting, which
made for especially forgettable
moments when compared to the
handful of strong, engaging covers
she sprinkled throughout her set
(Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman
Enough (To Take My Man),” The
Cardigans’ “Lovefool” and Fleet-
wood Mac’s “Dreams” as the
show’s rousing encore).
Considering the popularity and
mainstream appeal of “Gossip
Girl” and the oft-forgotten “Coun-
try Strong,” Leighton Meester’s
other career choices have been a
bit all over the place and generally
unsatisfying. She was in the campy
thriller “The Roommate,” the odd
dramedy “The Oranges,” Adam
Sandler’s “That’s My Boy,” Selena
Gomezcs childish but fun “Monte
Carlo” and a few other barely-seen
films. Musically, her biggest hit
has been her collaboration with
Cobra Starship, “Good Girls Go
Bad.” She has released a few folksy
covers here and there, and she had
an underrated song with Robin
Thicke.
Point being, for all of the obvi-
ous talent that she has, Leighton
Meester has shown little to no
direction throughout her career.
And I’m not sure where the Heart-
strings album and tour truly fit in.
Perhaps it has been about not get-
ting the material right — a tour on
which the covers she performs
outshine the songs from the album
it’s promoting, films that appear
promising in trailers but end up
disappointing. But, judging by her
reaction to the crowd’s reaction, it’s
also about her feeling stuck in the
giant shadow that Blair Waldorf
cast down on her from the steps of
the Met.
She’s almost gotten it right again
— and this tour is certainly a step in
the right direction — but Leighton
Meester still hasn’t come close to
matching the peak of her “Gossip
Girl” days. Maybe she doesn’t want
to; maybe she just wants to create
music that she enjoys and doesn’t
care about the public’s — and “Gos-
sip Girl” fans’ — approval.
If that’s the case, then let’s just
hope that she’s having fun doing
so. And judging by her show on
Monday, she’s at least doing that.
EPISODE REVIEW
This season, there hasn’t
been another show that has
broken out like “Empire.”
The series is
a monster in
the
ratings,
growing
each
week since its
premiere
at
the beginning
of
January.
Despite its suc-
cess, the show
is not perfect, and this episode
exemplified both the drama’s
high-points and flaws.
Most of “Empire” ’s successes
stem from one performer: Taraji
P. Henson (“Person of Interest”),
who single-handedly carries
this episode. She shows a wide
range in her performance, from
a more nuanced moment with
her speech to company inves-
tors, to an angry moment when
Elle (Courtney Love, “Sons of
Anarchy”) appears high at the
event. She brings all the differ-
ent sides of Cookie to life in a
way that makes the show worth
watching just for her character
— in a way similar to watch-
ing Viola Davis on “How to Get
Away with Murder.”
However, the episode doesn’t
shy away from some of the more
frustrating aspects of “Empire.”
Lucius Lyon’s (Terrence How-
ard, “Iron Man”) health has
been a consistent issue, as he
decides to remain on a drug
despite its potentially killing
him. Even in the heightened
reality of “Empire,” character
choices like that don’t register
as choices someone in real life
would make.
If the show didn’t have
some of these character issues,
Henson and its wonderful music
(last week’s hour featured a
great performance by Jamal
and Hakeem) would be enough
to carry it. Unfortunately, some
elements
were
frustrating
enough that they hurt the
episode.
-ALEX INTNER
B
Empire
Wednesdays
at 9 p.m.
Fox
FOX
SINGLE REVIEW
Who are you, Jack Garratt?
The brother of the famed James
Blake? Or cousin of Jamie Woon?
Perhaps
one
of the two, as
it seems you
have similarly
descended
from the R&B
electronic
genre,
one
of the finest
sonic creations of millennial
musicians to date.
The mystical and domineer-
ing auditory forces that emerge
from
Garratt’s
most
recent
single, “Chemical,” are over-
whelmingly enjoyable. It’s the
combination of dilating beats, a
chorus of rising alto voices and
the
emotionally
entrenched,
sweeping range of Garratt’s
vocals that drag the listener into
the track. The steady clap, clap,
clap and low bass voices lure the
listener in before crescendoing
into a spastic chorus of electron-
ics that — while possessing the
tenor to frighten a nearby dog —
are delicious little Pop Rocks for
the headphones. The calculated
depth of Garratt’s “Chemical”
ensures that even an obsessive
listening session won’t prevent
the discovery of some fascinat-
ing new rift, dip or sultry lyric.
Garratt, a 23-year-old Brit,
has just begun to watch his
career take flight. His 2014 EP,
Remnants, sparked a seemingly
never-ending European tour
and only positive accolades
from the critics. He’s insert-
ing himself into a niche of the
music industry that Baths cre-
ated years ago, the melding of
emotion to electronics. Har-
nessing the combined powers
of the sound booth, its sound
boards, sampling abilities and
the human heart, the combi-
nation has found success over
the past half decade. Garratt
holds the talent to keep deep-
ening this musical divot, and
he’s already attached three
successful singles to his name:
“Worry,” “Love You’re Given”
and now “Chemical.” All this
leaves the beckoning question:
what’s going to happen when
Jack drops an actual album?
-AMELIA ZAK
ISLAND RECORDS
CONCERT REVIEW
HOTLY WANTING
-XOXO Gossip Floor
A-
Chemical
Jack Garratt
Island Records
A club run by
and for teens.
“It’s giving
them first-hand
experience...”