AMP Magazine

40
AMP 1 June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine AMP PLUS SPRING 2014 ISSUE Explore ways of listening Experience live music Rediscover classic hits WITH NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL, BEYONCE, AND MORE EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE Discovering Meanings with Brooke Lyon BEYOND THE BEATS ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Joomanji Take Advantage of MUSIC FESTIVALS Fleetwood Mac REDISCOVERED FEATURING CHILDISH GAMBINO

description

Explore. Discover. Experience.

Transcript of AMP Magazine

Page 1: AMP Magazine

AMP

1June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

AMP PLUS

SPRING 2014 ISSUE

Explore ways of listening

Experience live music

Rediscover classic hits

WITH NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL, BEYONCE, AND MORE

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

SpotifyPandora

iTunes Radio and others

Which app is best for

you?

Discovering Meanings

with Brooke Lyon

BEYOND THE BEATS

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT:Joomanji

Take Advantage of

MUSIC FESTIVALS

Fleetwood Mac REDISCOVERED

FEATURINGCHILDISH GAMBINO

Page 2: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

2 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

Explore the largest community of artists, bands, podcasters, and creators of music & audio

Hear the World’s Sounds

Page 3: AMP Magazine

AMP

3June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

Greetings, and welcome to the very first issue of AMP Magazine!

After months of planning, we could not be more excited to have made it to this point. We hope that AMP will provide you with an experience unique to any other music magazine, and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to expand your musical horizons and to give you the tools needed discover new music.

When we set out to create a magazine that would promote musical discovery, one thing we agreed on right away was to steer clear from other music magazines that have become increasingly focused on the politics of popular culture. While music is a big part of popular culture, they are not one-in-the-same, so here we strive to distinguish between Justin Bieber’s newest album and his inevitable arrest.

In the absence of riveting tales of Justin Bieber’s latest conquest, we will take the time to discuss discovery of a wide range of musical genres. While some magazines target people with very specific musical interests, we hope to attract all types of music lovers. Our genre-inclusive approach will give you insight into rap, EDM, alternative rock, and any other genre you could imagine.

We are committed to providing you with informative and well-researched articles that are also visually pleasing and aesthetically stimulating. In this issue you will find four full-length feature articles, all of which focus on discovering new music. While two of the articles target tech-savvy listeners, the others target more traditional listeners.

In addition, we have included four smaller articles that focus on discovering music within today’s music cultures. In the last decade, music festivals with distinct cultures and traditions have become increasingly prevalent and, consequently, provide unique opportunities to discover new and unfamiliar music.

Ultimately, we believe that music and its discovery are personal endeavors. While we encourage our readers to create their own meaningful music narratives, we must often rely on our personal experience to do so. We hope that you enjoy our anecdotes and multifaceted approach to guiding you through the world of music.

We worked hard to provide you with a collection of inspired, informative, and sometimes instructive articles written by enthusiastic listeners and musicians, and we are excited to share our work. Please visit the acknowledgements page to learn more about our editors, and feel free to contact us with any questions, thoughts, or concerns.

We appreciate your support.

Thank you,

Allyson Werner, Aaron Anderson, Brooke Lyon, and Aaron Barranco; Editors

Instagram: @instagrAMPFacebook: facebook.com/ampmagTwitter: @twAMP

AMPEXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

Letter From The Editors

Page 4: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

4 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

AMP001FEATURES

“The ALPHA & OMEGA to your search for music.”

11 Stream Your Music If the one thing you’re missing in life is an extremely detailed account of music-streaming applications, this is the article for you. By Aaron Anderson

23 Discovering New Artists Inside the San Diego music scene, check out the benefits of local concerts. By Allyson Werner

26 Rediscover the Timeless If your parents don’t love you and never played you their favorite tunes, we’ll teach you how to find the oldies yourself. By Brooke Lyon

30 Ways We Listen It’s not always about what you’re listening to: this article tells the valient tale of one brave man who diversified his beat-bumping strategy. By Aaron Barranco

6 Undiscovered Artist: Joomanji A sneak peek into music we hope you’ll be excited to introduce to everyone you know.

18 Fufill Your Festival Fantasies It ain’t easy bein’ Coacheesy. We’ve got some tips for you to make sure you get the most out of the $500 you dropped on that festival.

34 Beyond The Tracks Artists are constantly finding innovative ways to spice up the music experience. Check out what else is happening beyond the recording of your favorite songs.

36 What Does It Mean? Uncertainty is the spice of life. But if you don’t like the sound of that, you can check this article out for some answers.

Need to listen to something RIGHT NOW? Here are some artists you can find hidden within our pages. & MORE

Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green 27

Page 5: AMP Magazine

AMP

5June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

When I’m hungry,I say I’m“disorientated.”

Page 6: AMP Magazine

June 11, 2014

UNDISCOVEREDa

TI

R

ST

Page 7: AMP Magazine

AMP

7AMP Magazine

THERE IS A WEALTH OF MUSICAL KNOWLEDGE AT YOUR FINGERTIPS. MUSIC APPLICATIONS AND OTHER PLATFORMS HAVE PAVED THE ROAD FOR YOU TO HAPPILY DRIVE THROUGH CARPAL TUNNEL AND EMERGE WITH MORE MUSIC THAN YOU COULD EVER APPRECIATE. BUT WHILE WE UNDERSTAND THAT IT’S EASY TO FIND MOST BANDS WITH A SIMPLE GOOGLE SEARCH, WE ALSO UNDERSTAND THAT SOMETIMES WE DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SEARCH. AMP WILL HIGHLIGHT AN UNDISCOVERED ARTIST EVERY ISSUE TO GIVE YOU THAT STARTING PUSH. WE HOPE THAT YOU’LL LIKE THEM, BUT YOU MIGHT NOT. IT’S OKAY—THE POINT IS TO TRY SOMETHING NEW. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU MIGHT LIKE UNTIL YOU TRY IT.

UNDISCOVERED

Page 8: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

8 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

In 2011, members Jonah Christian and Amir Oosman founded Joomanji at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Having bonded over hip-hop influences at a party in college, Christian and Oosman decided to have a jam session together. Christian was fascinated by Oosman’s skills on the drums, and a week later was introduced to

Rob Finucane, a keyboardist and friend of Oosman. Coming from an extensive background on the keys himself, Christian was equally infatuated with Finucane’s abilities, describing him in a recent interview as, “this pre-pubescent white-dude tickling the

ivories sounding like Robert Glasper.” After organically growing their own sound through weekly two- to three-hour jam sessions, Joomanji distributed a mixtape to local venues and landed a bi-monthly residency at the most popular hip-hop/R&B spot in Santa Cruz. Joomanji worked less as a band and more as a collective, varying their act from show to show. A collective is a cooperative enterprise, an organization jointly run by its members and mutually working to reach a common goal. With

Christian, Oosman, and Finucane holding down the core, an amorphous pool of musicians was able to flow in and out for shows and recordings. “Our Manj album pretty much sums up the ever-flowing nature of extremely talented collaborators that we have been blessed to work with,” said Christian. Joomanji does not like to categorize themselves into any one genre; their most recent album, Manj, combines hip-hop and neo-soul with jazzy influences, creating a synthesis of genres. The album features many of their artist-residents including the silky vocals of Saara Maria on tracks like “Somethin Out of Nothin’” and “Chasin Rhymes;” the lyrical deftness of Austin Antione appearing on “Bustin Loose” and “Around the World;” the gentle tones of Lindsay Olsen on “Spread Too Thin” and others. The album also boasts an appearance from renowned underground hip-hop artist Devin the Dude on the second-to-last track, “Toasted.” According to Christian, Joomanji has a new project in the works and will potentially embark upon an instrumental album; regardless, Christian wants to let the world know, “We’re cooking up some soul for you.” You can check out their tunes on SoundCloud, Bandcamp, iTunes, and Spotify.

Instagram: joomanjimusicSoundCloud: soundcloud.com/joomanjiBandcamp: joomanji.bandcamp.com

BY AARON BARRANCO

“WE’RE COOKING UP SOME SOUL FOR YOU”

Page 9: AMP Magazine

AMP

9June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

You had to be there.

Page 10: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

10 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

Page 11: AMP Magazine

AMP

11June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

STREAM YOUR MUSIC

BY AARON ANDERSON

From the Walkman to HitClips to Napster to the iPod, listening to music at home and on the go has become much easier as

technology continues to improve our lives. Thanks to smart phones, laptops, and tablets we can now not only listen to but also stream endless hours of music with just the tap of a finger. Streaming music has the ability to completely revamp the way we discover music—in my life it already has.

As millennials—let’s face it—our eyes are constantly glued to our iP-hones and Androids. It’s strange to think that there was once a world in which there were no headphones plugged in to devices in our pockets. I can’t walk down a crowded street without seeing someone with headphones in; as I rock out to my Nostalgic Nineties playlist on Spotify, I often wonder what song is beating through their headphones. On-the-go listening is something that’s

easy to quickly get hooked on. Whether you’re relaxing, working, partying, or exercising, it’s nice to have something to listen to for some added motivation. But purchasing music for download can get pricey, and that’s where the magic of music-streaming services comes to save the day. With no single dominating streaming service, we have a variety of services and applications to choose from. But sifting through the

Page 12: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

12 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

numerous services can be tedious, and choosing the one that best fits your needs is an increasingly difficult task. So how do you find which one is the best, if any? And which one is right for you? Thankfully for you, I am a music-app guru with 22 different music-streaming applications on just my phone. I’m excited to share with you the pros and cons of the top on-demand music services so that you, the listener, can explore, discover, and experience songs in a way that works best for you. So before you hand over any hard-earned cash, here’s a roundup of the top six music services on the market. There are some big names that you’re probably already aware of, but there are also some newer services that recently launched, and some of the existing ones have changed. Each service offers numerous features, so I won’t be able to cover every detail.

However, I have summarized what I believe most listeners are looking for when weighing options: catalog size, streaming quality, supported platforms, and pricing. These are all technical aspects of each service and can be easily compared using the handy graph on page 16 to help you choose the one that best fits your needs. Beyond these technical aspects, a large draw to music applications is the user-friendliness of the interface as well as the ability to easily find what you are looking for in a hassle-free manner. The technical comparison of music services should be viewed simultaneously with the user-friendly design for discovering music. I provide both aspects; so make sure to thoroughly examine all your options before spending your milk money on a service that doesn’t work for you.

With all the music-service competition out there, the services will battle online music

streaming by making adjustments and improvements to keep up with each other. This is perfect for you and me because it will keep prices down and drive innovation. The music streaming industry will have much more to offer over the next few years, so keep an eye out on what new features the top services produce. Chances are, discovering music is soon going to be easier than ever.

SO

MANY

CHOICES!

Give us your feedback! We’ll be featuring a handful of responses in our next issue, so let us know what service gets you rock-and-rolling.

Instagram: @instagrAMPFacebook: facebook.com/ampmagTwitter: @twAMP

Page 13: AMP Magazine

AMP

13June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

Music streaming services allow users to access a huge library of songs for a very small price. Many artists and record labels have filed lawsuits and have issued complaints against music streaming services for their lack of compensation. The industry average payment to an artist for each song played is $.00217, or 1/10 of a penny. To make $0.99, an artist’s song has to be streamed 456 times. So next time you’re streaming a song or album that you really enjoy, con-sider supporting your favorite artists (almost all artists have a PayPal donation feature on their website). Nevertheless, I should also point out that most major streaming sites, such as Pandora and Spotify, are losing money every quarter…

Streaming music can easily use up your battery life and eat up all your data faster than you think. Offline listening on our mobile devices is crucial for mobile listening – unless you were grandfathered in to the unlimited data plan (if so, stop bragging). Spotify is currently the only app I’ve come across that allows you to download songs, albums, and playlists

to your phone over Wi-Fi so you can listen to it on-the-go without draining your battery or using up your 2Gb data plan.

We’ve all been there: a new song comes on the radio and we frantically try to figure out who it is and what the title is, only for the song to end and for us to never hear the song again

until we randomly come across it months later. Digital curation not only displays what song is currently playing but also gives the listener a chance to go back through the previously played songs and listen to them over and over. Digital curation is a simple but useful feature that many streaming services lack.

SoundHound gives you every gateway of music search, making it a must-have for on-the-go song discovering. It is the leading innovator in sound recognition and search technologies with its unmatched portfolio of technologies including audio identification, speech recognition, natural language understanding, and singing and humming search. SoundHound discovers songs using the microphone on your phone. If you hear a song playing, you simply tap the big orange button for super-fast music recognition. It also claims that you can use the app to find a song stuck in your head by singing or humming into your phone. Sound too good to be true?

Well, it is. I’ve tried multiple times to get this feature to work with no success. Not sure if SoundHound is over-hyping its

abilities or if I’m tone-deaf. Either way, SoundHound is still the best app for getting in sync with music playing around you.

SPOTLIGHTN e v e r M i s s a B e a t A g a i n w i t h S o u n d H o u n d

Why SoundHound is a must-download app

MORE TO CONSIDER

BUT...

The Downfall What Music Streaming Services Aren’t Telling You

Offline Listening

Digital Curation

Page 14: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

14 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

Spotify’s biggest strength is simple: it lets you instantly play just about any song without having to purchase or download it. Yet its most defining feature is letting you create playlists and share them with friends. The Facebook integration has helped connect Spotify users with their

friends. The sleek design and simple user interface of both the desktop version and iOS version give it a modern and current feel. Spotify is also available on any web browser, giving users an even easier way of accessing their songs from anywhere. What sets Spotify apart from other music services is the user’s ability to save entire albums or playlists directly to a mobile phone or computer so they can be accessed offline. However, if you haven’t saved the songs over Wi-Fi, the high quality of Spotify songs can easily lead to a drained battery. So if there is a certain playlist you like to play over and over, switch on the “Available for Offline” over Wi-Fi and you’ll be able to rock out to your favorite tunes without draining your battery.

The core function of Apple’s iTunes Radio is to discover music, making it one of the top

music services out there. It has a sleek design and is very user friendly. Released in 2013, it is now standard on all iOS7 devices within the iPod app. Although you can’t search for a particular song to play, iTunes Radio offers endless stations from its entire music library that plays songs similar to any given song or artist. Its biggest competitor is Pandora, which is coincidentally identical in terms of features. Like Pandora, iTunes Radio understands your musical preference over time and tailors itself to your needs.

The easy iOS integration makes iTunes Radio a simple way to discover music.

Pandora Internet Radio is an automated music recommendation service that uses a complex mathematical algorithm to categorize songs. Pandora’s Music Genome Project is perhaps the most innovative feature for discovering artists and songs similar to your current taste. The service plays musical selections of a certain genre based on the user’s artist or song selection. The listener then provides Pandora feedback on the played songs by tapping the thumbs up or thumbs down. Pandora uses this feedback to select future songs that take into account the user’s preference, similar to iTunes Radio. Although Apple has a much deeper customer base, Pandora has been around longer in the streaming market and has a significant number of devoted listeners.

• Music Genome Project• High connectivity to social

media• Free desktop and mobile app

• Intuitive interface• Excellent song

recommendation

Pandora’s suggest-song algorithm is great for discovering new music.

Expand your music library and share your playlists with friends.

Pandora

PROS:• No offline listening

capabilities• Limited track skipping. • Moderate amount of ads

• No rewind or repeat functions

• Only available in the United States

CONS:

iTunes Radio

PROS:• No offline listening capabilities • Limited track skipping• Inability to create custom

playlists

• Lots of ads• Limited connectivity to social

media• Slow load time

CONS:• Free for all iOS devices• Music Library of 27 million

songs

• Available in nearly 200 countries

• In-app purchasing of songs

Spotify

PROS:• Battery drain• Full version costs $9.99 a month • Ads in free version

• Has been accused of failing to fairly compensate artistsCONS:

• No ads or limit of skips in paid version

• All music in your hands

• Fast load time• Available in 27 countries• Multiple plans.

Page 15: AMP Magazine

AMP

15June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

The Hype Machine is a music database blog that aggregates the most recently posted songs from over 1,500 music blogs and posts them on their website’s main page (hypem.com). This desktop

and mobile phone service is perfect for the musical hipster. It fuses listening and popular opinions of songs as each song is accompanied by a list of blogs that have written about it. The whole service is just like a friend recommending a song, but on a much larger scale. However, nothing on Hype Machine is “popular;” you won’t find the Top 10 radio hits. But if you want to find undiscovered music and indie remixes, Hype Machine is the app to use. As iterated on their website: “Every day, thousands of people around the world write about music they love — and it all ends up here.”

• Free• Aggregates hundreds of

music blogs• Undiscovered music

• Remixed versions of mainstream songs

Hype Machine

PROS:• No access to individual songs

or radio service• Confusing UI• No mainstream songs

• App available on the web and on most mobile platformsCONS:

Ok, so its name is a mouth-full, but the list of features it has to offer is just as long. Google Play Music All Access is another $10 per month service that allows users to

stream more than 20 million tracks and create a station for an awesome radio-style listening experience with unlimited skips. Google Play Music not only beats Pandora to the unlimited skipping game, but it’s also a beat ahead of Spotify in a few ways: rather than being restricted to the available streaming catalog, users can access all of the music they’ve uploaded locally via the native iOS or Android music apps, within their 20,000 track limit. This means that your whole iTunes library and your collection of *cough* illegally *cough* downloaded songs can be accessed on your Google Play Music app. A downside to Google Play Music is the lack of social media integration. Unless you’re part of the .01% who uses Google+, it’s hard to share songs, artists, and playlists with your friends.

The Beats Music app was recently released in January 2014 and has been gaining surprising traction among mobile users. It is similar to other music services such as Spotify and Pandora, but Beats has managed to add a clever feature that understands what we want to listen to.

When first signing into the app, you’re met with a lengthy but quirky process of choosing genres and artists that you like and dislike. The coolest feature to discovering music within your previously determined liked genres is ‘The Sentence,’ a colorful mad-lib approach to music recommendations. You fill in the sentence with the choice of place, mood, who you’re with, and what specific genre you’re looking for. Although it looks weird, ‘The Sentence’ produces a playlist that answers the all-too-familiar question, “What do I want to listen to now?” The Sentence is perfect for discovering music without doing any searching. It begins playing songs based on how you feel. Although I’ve encountered many technical issues—the downloaded files are too large, the streaming occasionally freezes—there is no doubt that the kinks in the 5-month-old app will be worked out in the near future. Also, with Apple’s purchasing of Beats, Apple’s experience in the field could help solve these problems.

Beats Music

PROS: • Lots of bugs• Connectivity issues

• No free versionCONS:• The Sentence• Fun and interactive UI• Large catalog

• Tracks listening habits to adapt to your preferences

Google Play Music

PROS:• Little social-media integration• No free ad-supported version• No connection to home-theater

set-tops like Apple TV/Xbox

• Radio channels quickly run out of musicCONS:

• Simple and solid UI• Available across platforms and

devices

• Blend of on-demand tracks with your pre-existing library

• Ad-free radio-style listening

Better late than never – Google one-ups everyone…again.

The Whole Foods of obscure indie-blog popularity tunes.

The cool, new way to explore more music.

Page 16: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

16 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

DECIDE FOR YOURSELFMusic Service Catalog Quality Platforms Price

Pandora 1m 192 KbpsAndroid, iOS, PlayStation,

Web, TVsFree w/ ads or

$5/mo

Spotify 20m 320 KbpsAndroid,

Blackberry, iOS, Web

$10/mo

Hype Machine Unlimited

Depends on Source

iOS,Blackberry,

WebFree

Beats Music 20m 320 Kbps

Android, iOS, Windows,

Web$10/mo

Google Play Music 20m 320 Kbps Android, iOS,

WebFree w/ ads or

$5/mo

iTunes Music 26m 256 Kbps

Apple TV,iOS, OSX, Windows

Free w/ ads or $25/yr

According to a 2014 survey by Edison Research, Pandora takes the No. 1 spot for audio streaming services with a 31% share of Americans over 12 years old who listened to music services in the past month. Will you follow the crowd?

FACTSS TAT S O N T H E M U S I C S T R E A M I N G I N D U S T R Y

The growth in streams is clearly taking the steam out of digital sales. Indeed, at the end of last year digital track sales gained 5.1% to 1.3 billion and digital album sales swelled 14.1% to 118 million. In just six months, digital track sales have swung to a loss and digital album sales growth has been slashed by more than half.

Page 17: AMP Magazine

AMPAMP

Spotify for

SYNC AppLink

Spotify, available for iPhone devices, now lets you lis-

ten to all your favorite music while you drive. Tune up

your commute with one of Spotify’s customizable radio

stations or curate the perfect road trip playlist from

more than 20 million songs.

Page 18: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

18 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

Doing Music

Festivals The

Right Way Quick and dirty tips for sucessfully exploring artists at your favorite music festival

By Allyson Werner

Page 19: AMP Magazine

AMP

19June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

Page 20: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

20 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

The last few years, music festivals seem to be all the rage. Millennials flock to weekend long events that feature all of their favorite bands. Music festivals typically reflect a musical hierarchy; the most popular bands are placed at the top of the lineup and play at

the end of the evening, and the lesser-known artists, listed in small letters at the bottom of the lineup, play at the beginning of the day. With lineups as extensive as Coachella’s, it is nearly impossible to be familiar with every band you are going to see, as was hilariously demonstrated by Jimmy Kimmel’s Lie Witness News. In this short

video, which has reached nearly 15 million views on YouTube, Jimmy sends a camera man to Coachella and asks people what they thought of a bunch of bands that were entirely made up. “These bands are so obscure that they do not exist,” Kimmel joked, before several Coachella-goers pretended they were familiar with a bunch of non-existent bands. You don’t want to be one of these people, so in order to help you avoid embarrassment and discover awesome new music, here are 8 tips to help you take full advantage of your music festival experience and discover new music along the way.

Coachella-goer sporting this year’s Coachella t-shirt.

EDC DJ plays for thousands.

Page 21: AMP Magazine

AMP

21June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

8 Ways to fufilfIllYour Music

Festival Fantasies

Do your research; look up as many bands as you can be-

fore you go!

Make a playlist (o

r five or s

ix)

based on genre.

Afte

r you

’ve

deci

ded

whi

ch

artis

ts a

re y

our f

avor

ites,

m

ake

a sc

hedu

le, a

nd st

ick

to

it!

Bring w

ater and sn

acks; don’t

let hunger b

ring you down!

Bring sunscreen.

Moderate your alcohol consumption!

Get some sleep; it’s going to

be a long day.

Get there early; this year’s openers m

ight be next year’s headliners.

Page 22: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

22 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

Page 23: AMP Magazine

AMP

23June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

On several occasions, I have found myself stuck watching a band that I was not familiar with. I usually stand awkwardly towards the back and watch as avid fans belt out the unfamiliar song lyrics.

It seems apparent that people generally reserve live-concert experiences for their favorite bands/artists, but just for a second, let’s imagine a world without the Internet, without iPhone apps, without radio, without audio recordings at all. If this were the case, unfamiliar live music would not be something to avoid, it would be a means of discovery. Rather than downloading a new artist’s entire repertoire in a matter of minutes, music lovers would gather at a local venue to hear the latest hits. So instead of thinking of an unfamiliar concert as an off-putting obligation, I urge you to think of these situations as opportunities to discover new and interesting music – music unfamiliar to even the most avid listeners. I am fortunate enough to have grown up in a city with a wide array of music venues. Venues, like The Casbah, feature music ranging from alternative to punk, and other venues, like the Ché Café Collective on UCSD’s campus, feature folk singers that regularly advocate for their favorite causes. For this reason, I decided to document my very own concert-going experience. I was in San Diego for the weekend and, consequently, had plenty of venues to choose from. For me, the choice was easy. Lestat’s is a 24/7 coffee shop frequented by students from San Diego State University and the nearby community colleges. During my time at San Diego Mesa College, I was at Lestat’s three to four nights a

week, studying, hanging out with friends, and participating in their weekly open-mic nights. As the well-known coffee shop became increasingly popular, the owners opened an adjacent music venue – Lestat’s West – that regularly hosts musicians, comedians, and other performers. Notable performers include Jason Mraz and Tyler Hilton, both of whom make regular surprise appearances. Overall, the venue attracts only the best performers, and the audience is rarely disappointed. After the long drive from Santa Barbara to San Diego, I walked into Lestat’s tired and, let’s be honest, a tad irritable.

I ordered a large Mexican Mocha (with an extra shot, of course), paid the $9 ticket price, and took a seat. I knew nothing about Billy Shaddox, the evening’s performer, but based solely on the concert flyer, I anticipated acoustic arrangements with a country flair. The caffeine hadn’t quite kicked in yet, so I tiredly weighed my pros and cons. At best, I would discover an immensely talented singer-songwriter who just didn’t have the great fortune and timing to make it big. At worst, I would waste an hour or so listening to excruciatingly painful tunes filled with lyrical clichés and repetitious chord

progressions. I sucked down my coffee and hoped for the best. I was not disappointed. Shaddox sported jeans, a button-down shirt, and a beige cowboy hat. He stood front and center holding an acoustic guitar and had a vintage harmonica strapped around his neck. The country singer-songwriter filled the eclectically decorated room with his rich, soulful voice, intrigued the audience with

DISCOVERING NEWARTISTS THROUGH LIVE MUSIC

BY ALLYSON WERNER

Page 24: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

24 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

his complex and intricate guitar solos, and brightened up the basic chord progressions that plague every pop song with unique and complex picking patterns. Shaddox clearly took inspiration from several of my favorite artists. Picking patterns emulated those of John Mayer’s “Why Georgia” and “My Stupid Mouth,” and his deep voice reminded me of Keith Urban’s. Shaddox began his set with two upbeat and bluesy tunes, but it wasn’t until the third song that I was hooked. The country singer eloquently portrayed his wallflower life-style in “Mellow Me.” The audience, which had previously given Shaddox only half of its attention, became silent until the song was over. The set

only improved from there, and Shaddox engaged the audience with witty banter, joking that his health had taken a rapid turn for the better when he decided to quit his ‘9-to-5’ and become a musician. “Eleven months of employment can really jack you up, and a few months of music can do wonders,” he joked. After his set, Shaddox encouraged the audience to follow him on Facebook and left the stage. I gathered my things and left the venue feeling satisfied. Once at home, I followed Shaddox’s Facebook page and added “Mellow Me” to my study playlist. All

in all, it was a successful evening, and I encourage you to take these words to heart. In the vast world of music, there are hidden gems that have yet to assert themselves, so the next time you are at a loss for what to do, check out your local venues and go see an unfamiliar artist. The result just might surprise you.

“Eleven months of employment can really jack you up, and a few months of music can do

wonders.”

Instagram: @BillyShaddoxFacebook: facebook.com/BillyShaddoxTwitter: @BillyShaddox

“Golden Fate,” Shaddox’s newest record, is his second full-length album.

Coming to The App Store “Sometime in 2015”

Page 25: AMP Magazine

25June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

Coming to The App Store “Sometime in 2015”

Let’s Talk Some Hop

HOP TALK

Page 26: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

26 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

RE

DISCOV

ER

the

timeless

by brooke lyon

I remember when my dad introduced me to John, Paul, Ringo, and George. For some reason, he waited much longer than I would recommend for the healthy development of any child, but when the time came, the unveiling was grand. He showed me everything – we played each of his cherished vinyls on the dusty record player in our formal living room, he taught me the chords to “Let it Be,” and we

stayed up all night discussing the ‘Paul is Dead’ conspiracy. Although The Beatles were by no means ‘new,’ the thrill of falling in love with them was just as exciting to me as being at The Cavern in Liverpool for one of their first shows would have been: there is a certain magic in rediscovery. With new music being released everyday, it seems impossible to keep up with all of the great artists, albums, and tracks of one lifetime, let alone to venture into the music history of generations past. While the capability to travel back in time to relive these discoveries may seem overwhelming, it is a rewarding endeavor, and you can start it anywhere your curiosity leads you. You can ask your parents about the albums that got them through their high school years or visit a local record store and do some digging until you find an intriguing band name, or retro album art that inspires you. Using the technological resources available today to discover musical gems of the past can make your search even more effective: pick a year you like, Google its Grammy award winners, and download the Album of the Year, or create a Pandora station for the Song of the Year. Even searching through your own

Time.Philosohy

struggles to comprehend its

inevitability. Science fiction

imagines its conquering through

technology. Music simply transcends it.

Page 27: AMP Magazine

AMP

27June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

music collection can unveil forgotten treasures from your past. Rediscover your old favorite song, or learn more about an artist you love. I recently stumbled upon a rediscovery of my own. In the heyday of my Fleetwood Mac phase, I was completely obsessed with their 1977 album Rumours. Particularly interested in the life of Stevie Nicks, I found myself listening to “Rhiannon” almost ritualistically. While at the time I may have said Fleetwood Mac was my favorite band, my appreciation for their music hadn’t inspired the curiosity to explore their history: I was perfectly content singing “Gold Dust Woman” repeatedly, and I didn’t need anything more. Then, from the fateful and unpredictable realm of my Facebook newsfeed, I found “Need Your Love So Bad,” Fleetwood Mac’s 1968 blues single. I had never experienced Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, and although it is completely different from the band I knew and loved, I immediately connected with it. This discovery provided me with an entirely new music experience and eased me into a genre I hadn’t explored before. Brave ventures into genres of the past can result in great discoveries, and like any adventure, the fortune of music favors the bold. Deeper into music history and further

The Beatles at The Cavern in Liverpool,December 1961.

Two bands or one? The bottom photo features the Peter Green Fleet-

wood Mac of 1968. Above, the band over a decade later, including

Stevie Nicks.

Page 28: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

28 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

from my comfort zone, I’ve found meaningful songs that resonate far beyond their era – roughly 130 years beyond it, in some cases. One of my top-five most-played songs is Brahms’ “Symphony No. 3 in F Major.” While classical music can be great for studying, or relaxing, I find myself playing this symphony much more deliberately than others. For some unknown reason, I’ve connected with the motifs of this symphony, and I often catch them elegantly passing through my mind like an instrumental mantra. Just like any of my other favorite songs, I’ve relied on “Symphony No. 3” to comfort and guide me through some of my particularly contemplative or emotional moments. Although I often rely on the lyrics of contemporary music for meaning, the symphonies of the Romantic era are heavy with emotion – the feelings that escape language, and can only be shared through the experience of music.

Brahms, The Beatles, and Fleetwood Mac are all a part of my musical narrative: the story of my life told by the songs

I’ve played. They come from different musical eras, but also represent vastly different personal eras. Music has a way of imprinting itself onto a person’s life, intertwining choruses and melodies with memorable events, often defining the naturally occurring phases of life. “Sugar We’re Going Down” will always remind me of my angsty teenage years, and I can’t imagine my freshman year of college without hearing the techno beats of “Papa Americano.” But, like the epochs of life, these songs fade away, dropping from our recently played playlists into the abyss of our music archives. Diving back into this expansive pool of forgotten favorites is another way to rediscover music of the past, more specifically – and often, more meaningfully – your own past. As a child, my one and only aspiration was to be Matilda, the titular character from the 1996 movie adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book. In an early montage, four-year old Matilda proves her shocking independence by preparing herself a pancake breakfast to the song “Send Me On My Way” by

Rusted Root. Because everything in my life at this time was defined by Matilda, down to the dresses I wore and the red ribbon in my hair, it only made sense that I’d request that my parents play “Send Me On My Way” over and over again, belting what I truly believed to be the lyrics, “Oh Matilda, you’re the one.” It was the song of my childhood. At some point in the dorms my first year of college, a friend of mine played the song I hadn’t heard for years. A child-like joy filled me as I recognized the familiar opening notes. Weeks later, the song had risen to the top of my most-played playlist – all of the positive associations of growing up came back with the song, and I couldn’t stop listening. Then, I had the startling realization that the words to the song probably weren’t “Oh Matilda, you’re the one.” Curious as to whether or not the real lyrics could possibly be better than what I had imagined as a child, I looked up the song and found an article claiming that some of the words were intentionally nonsensical. In an interview, lead singer

Michael Glabicki explained, “I was in the process of coming up with lyrics, and it just sounded so good and felt so right that it had a meaning of its own that you couldn’t make better by making it a word. So I left it.” My interpretation of the song took the same form; it didn’t mean much to me as child (believe it or not, I hadn’t yet developed my analytical instinct), but revisiting it now carries a youthful wonder that couldn’t be made better by making sense of the words. Music from your past can evoke powerful memories and emotions. Music offers a detailed history of humanity – like all works of art, the emotions that drive both its creation and its success are inherently human and, therefore, inherently timeless. There is always ‘new’ old music to discover, and although the possibilities for discovery may be endless, the satisfaction of the result will be the same again and again: to acknowledge that what you feel has been felt in the past and will be felt into eternity – to feel the recognition of all souls through music.

“Like any adventure, the fortune of music favors the bold.”

Page 29: AMP Magazine

AMP

29June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

It’s time.

iWatch

Page 30: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

30 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

WAYS WE

LISTEN TO MUSIC

by aaron barranco

windows as well as a blunt. As a warm haze began to permeate the interior, rising like steam off a lake, my mind shot back to a song I heard just the day before: “Sleepyhead” by Passion Pit. I immediately silenced the unfounded laughter and talk of the cosmos, and plugged my iPod

into the car stereo. The electronic sounds and uplifting beat drowned the car in high-volume ecstasy; each of us entered our own stoner-world of thoughts, vibes, and emotions. “Sleepyhead” was unlike any type of music we had ever heard. A mix of foreign frequencies unabashedly greeted us from every direction, and the song ended in the same silence it had started—stupefying the stupefied. We still talk about that night. Stoned or not, the mediums through which we listen to music heavily influence our experience with it, and our expe-rience with music shapes our feelings, thoughts, and emotions

It was senior year of high school, toward the end when you start to ‘not give a fuck’—at least any more than you did before. As usual, there was nothing to do on a Saturday night in white suburbia besides smoke a little pot. Two of my buddies and I were able to get our rascal hands on some shitty marijuana from the local super-senior whose life plan was to sell and smoke weed. We not-

so-strategically stationed ourselves next to a local park, rolling up the

WE ALL DO IT DIFFERENTLY, EVERYDAY. BUT THERE’S ALWAYS A NEW WAY TO EXPERIENCE.

Page 31: AMP Magazine

AMP

31June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

toward it. Music can be appreciated in a variety of contexts, each one bringing a certain emotional and intellectual value to the listener. If we can open ourselves up to new ways of listening to music and experiencing different mediums, we can potentially open up a whole new world of songs, artists, and genres we had never imagined listening to before. This article will recommend a few new ways to listen to music, so that you might stumble upon a newfound love.

LIVE MUSIC:THE FEELS

As night fell and the fog began to seep its way into Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, thousands of people gathered to the same space in an eager yet orderly fashion. It was Outside Lands 2013, one of the largest music festivals in California. I was part of that crowd, and we were gathering to see a piece of history: Sir Paul McCartney of The Beatles. When he

came out on stage, an eruption of noise louder than any I have ever heard was followed immediately by a humbling calm as the legend began to speak. For the next three hours, I watched one of the most incredible performances I have ever seen amidst a crowd of thousands who shared my awe. I felt connected to the music, and I felt connected to the people around me. Live music is music in its purest form. As opposed to a single recorded track, live music maintains variability: artists playing the instruments are susceptible to making mistakes, but are also granted the freedom to alter the song. Even if the music isn’t being produced straight from an instrument, like you might find at a rave, it is still one hell of an experience, especially when others are hyped up on a drug that is meant to induce happiness set to music that boasts frequencies correlated with happiness. In either case, there is something about finding yourself in a crowd of people who are all there for the same reason—it’s a common consciousness, a collective energy. The feels of every concert are different, but that’s what makes each and every one such an interesting experience. I encourage those who have never attempted to see live music to give it a shot. It doesn’t have to be a music festival, a big concert, or even a local band at a small venue. It can be that street-corner performer who you pass by but never afford the time to truly enjoy.

“A MIX OF FOREIGN FREQUENCIES UNABASHADLY GREETED US FROM

EVERY DIRECTION”

Page 32: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

32 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

THE IN-EAR EXPERIENCE

It was an absurd hour, and my roommates and I had an absurd amount of energy. Around midnight we found ourselves melting in the comfort of our own home. It was just one of those nights when there is nothing to do: it’s warm outside and keeping yourself in the house would just make you go crazy. For whatever reasons, we had the idea to skate our school’s parking structure: five floors of downhill at its finest, not to mention an elevator to bring you right back up to the top. The first couple rounds we all skated together, starting from the roof and flying down to the bottom level, entrenched in pure joy, uncontrollably yelping and laughing.

While we all started with the same amount of energy, feeding off one other, the perpetual journey spiraling down and down again sent each of us into our own world—a personal, spiritual place fueling an introspective amalgamation of thoughts, and then none at all. I had remembered to bring my ear-buds, so I popped them in. At the time I had just discovered “Claire De Lune” by Claude Debussy, and while I had usually associated skating with punk rock—simply due to the copious amounts of skate videos I had watched since I was young—I was feeling the classical. I pressed play and let the delicacy of each ivory stroke cleanse my thoughts. It was a cathartic experience, and the emotion-filled composition allowed me to internalize everything in my surrounding environment. With hand signals we decided to leave, flying out through the bottom floor and continuing onto every sidewalk, pathway, and courtyard, weaving amongst each other like water drops running down a window. Headphones can place you into your own world, but they can also create a connection with the world around you, setting your life in motion to a melody. Today it’s almost impossible to walk down the street without seeing somebody plugged into a pair of white Apple ear-buds. With everybody having some sort of smart phone with some sort of music-listening app, people are constantly moving around to the beat of their own soundtrack. Ear-buds are small, portable, and easily found almost anywhere for a good price and reasonable quality. However, for a bit more money there are extremely nice brands such as Bose and Beats, which you can research more on the Internet.

“A PERSONAL, SPIRITUAL PLACE FUELING AN INTROSPECTIVE

AMALGAMATION OF THOUGHTS, AND THEN NONE AT ALL.”

Page 33: AMP Magazine

AMP

33June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

THROWBACK JAMS

Summer is a time for re-centering yourself, making the time to do the things you love and soaking in everything, including the sun. It was the second summer I had spent taking classes at UCSB, and this time I had a single room to myself. No roommate, just his desk and my bed—and the freedom to do whatever I felt. The most fantastic part about all this was that I could use said desk as my own creative space: candles, incense, small trinkets, a strategically teetered stack of books, and a mug full of my favorite pens. But the last and most crucial of components was yet to be placed—my speakers. My speakers of choice were the Soundsticks II, which I had purchased two years earlier. They had once involuntarily

assumed the position of house speaker-system, undergoing the wrath of four young male adolescents living alone for the first time. But my new room let me place them in their proper environment—a smaller space for personal use. Day in and day out I sat at that desk writing, drawing, and creating to an endless amount of tunes. It made every music listening experience consistently good, with one speaker on either corner of the desk, playing crisp tunes that took me into a world of my own. The desk became my creative center and the need to put in headphones quickly diminished. The experience was a collection of ambient sound waves that penetrated my psyche rather than rubber buds infiltrating my ear. The Soundsticks have long since passed, but it’s a time in my life I’ll certainly revert back to during nostalgic tales of creativity. Having a good speaker system at home can really enhance your day-to-day. Whether you have the perfect desk space to make your own or you just want play music while you’re cleaning, eating, or hanging out—having speakers at your disposal can incorporate tunes into many new aspects of your life. It’s one way I get through a lot of music; there is so much out there and to get through it all means you have to be playing music constantly. I would recommend the ion speaker, which also acts as a portable device. Having a portable device allows you to bring music with you wherever you go for the enjoyment of others as well, but that’s a story for another time.

Te Gentleman’s Lodge: a dreamlike space where conversations are had in suits, smoke is thickened to opacity, drinks are ever-flowing, and musical jams are of no shortage. Some of my fondest memories derive from The Lodge and the lively bunch that drove its delicate, yet steady buzz. What resembled the interior of a log cabin was actually the living room of overpriced beachfront property rented by one too many college students barely scraping by. It was the kind of place where magical things would happen, and every weekend consistently brought new experiences and conversations—especially when the lodge adopted a 1980’s record player.

Prior to then there were sufficient jams and always a good time, but the record player really turned things up and was always a surefire way to initiate a dance party. As drinks were made and shots were downed, an eclectic variety of records passed through the player. We lacked the means of setting up a playlist with handpicked single songs but instead gained an appreciation for the collective works of artists, the joy of buying a new record, and the stoke of laying a new vinyl down on the table and letting it spin. Nowadays they make lots of record players that are sold at Urban Outfitters and all kinds of hip places. The player has made an ultimate comeback; you don’t have to be a hipster to enjoy the crisp clear sound that needle scraping on vinyl will bring. All you need is a good speaker and the rest is easy—dance parties will ensue.

“THE STOKE OF LAYING A NEW VINYL DOWN ON THE TABLE AND LETTING IT SPIN.”

SOUNDTRACK TO YOUR LIFE

D’AngeloBrown Sugar

Mac DemarcoSalad Days

Talking HeadsThe Best of Talking Heads

Animal CollectiveMerriweather Post Pavillion

HEARD & SEEN:

RECORDS OF

THE LODGE

Page 34: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

34 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

beyond the tracks

Childish Gambino

Donald Glover, known for his role as a nerdy college student in the hit TV series, “Community,” has emerged in the music industry under the name Childish Gambino. Gambino surprised his followers with a hip-hop/rap album titled Camp in 2011, and two years later, released his sophomore album because the internet. Gambino has gone beyond the beats with his new album by creating a novel synthesis of sound and text through his accompanying online screenplay at becausetheinter.net, making him an entrepreneur in the production of entertainment media. Fusing his two strengths of screenwriting and music-making, Gambino has created a meta-album that tells a story through sound waves and the written word. The online screenplay tells the story of ‘The Boy,’ the central character who I assume to represent Gambino as a young child. The writing and stylistics of the screenplay are completely unconventional. It includes millennial text-slang responses such as “Whaaaat,” “duuuh,” and “F***;” he uses phrases in the narrator’s voice that show, rather than tell, the reader how to feel (e.g. “he gives a smh,” “she was lol-ing,” and “she had a ‘yep’ look”). Gambino also references innuendos that only the younger generation would

understand, such as “WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY” and “She hits the vape.” This style of narration helps the young reader get a genuine understanding of the emotions through the common prose of millennials beyond the musical beats. Childish Gambino has gone beyond the studio and onto the web to create an unconventional but intriguing screenplay to accompany the experience of listening to his album.

Because The Internet ScreenplayActor by day

Rapper by nightElvis Presley spent two years in the army after being drafted in 1958. He was a Sergeant when he

got out.

Nicki Minaj studied drama at the Manhattan performing-arts high school LaGuardia and she admits that acting helps her develop her ‘alter-ego’ style; “I do lots of weird voices and I kind of act out my raps,” Minaj told Slate magazine. “Acting allowed me to be playful and crazy, and it helps me tell

stories.”

AND BEYOND

Page 35: AMP Magazine

AMP

35June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

Beyoncé

Music videos have been around for a while, but in the last few years music artists have stepped up their game in videography. Beyoncé’s latest album, Beyoncé, truly went beyond the beats as every single song came with a music video. Her 14-track ‘visual album’ is a mammoth multimedia project of exquisite quality and dizzying ambition. Beyoncé’s elaborate production of these videos is stunning, given they were recorded while she was touring the globe. Only 27 hours after its surprise launch, the visual album became the year’s top-selling female debut of 2013. On her Facebook page, Beyoncé explains her successful experiment saying, “I see music. It’s more than just what I hear (...) When I’m connected to something, I immediately see a visual or a series of images that are tied to a feeling or an emotion—a memory

from my childhood, thoughts about life, my dreams or my fantasies. And they’re all connected to the music.”

Baddest Chick Turned

Mulimedia Queen

Beyonce’s Visual Album

Several of the band members of A Day to Remember are also

entrepreneurs. Jeremy McKinnon and Josh Woodard founded their own record label, Running Man,

and Neil Westfall started an urban clothing company, Elevated

Engineering.

Mark Stoermer, bassist of The Killers, worked as a medical courier before becoming a

member of the band.

AND BEYOND

Page 36: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

36 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

What DoesMeanit

DISCOVERING THE PERSONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF LYRICS

BY BROOKE LYON

“Hold me closer, Tony Danza,” we all sang with confidence, “count the head lice on the highway.” Lyric changes are always good for a laugh among my friends. The really good ones, like that genius rendition of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,” stick, and it’s almost as if the original lyrics had never been written. But even if you pride

yourself on knowing the ‘correct’ lyrics to a song, you internalize them uniquely – music, like poetry or any other artistic expression, evokes a personal and reflective response from its audience. Every listener reacts differently to music, because every listener approaches lyrics with their own diverse life experiences. This is why we connect to songs that we can relate back to ourselves and why we rely on our favorite songs during emotional times. While music can be extremely social – think moshpits, your Spotify feed, and that one guy who brings the guitar to the party – there is still a very personal and private bond between the listener and the song. In this way, every song exists in as many forms as it has listeners. My version of your favorite song is probably entirely different than yours

Page 37: AMP Magazine

AMP

37June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

in terms of its conceptual significance and all of the associations it holds. While this may seem obvious, for the most part, this experience happens subconsciously. Most people aren’t sitting down contemplating their emotional responses to every song they hear, or asking their friends to reflect on what a popular song means to them. Because this is such an internal phenomenon, there is a lot to discover by asking the simple question, What Does It Mean? As I sat down to write this article, I thought a lot about my favorite lyrics and how my understanding of those lyrics could be different from the obvious implications they hold. The first lyric that came to mind was from Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In an Aeroplane Over the Sea.” I’ve always loved the line, “But for now we are young, let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see.” I think I like it because the idea of keeping a log of every

beautiful thing I’ve ever seen or ever will see is inspiring in its sheer impossibility: it brings back memories of all the stunning places I’ve traveled to, any act of kindness I’ve ever witnessed, and all of the beautiful people in my life. When I actually thought about it, it was obvious why this song makes me so happy. By reflecting on what songs mean to us and asking what lyrics inspire others, we can discover a subliminal layer of music and enhance our listening experience.

from our readersanecdotes about what their favorite lyrics mean to them

“Forget the hor-ror here. Leave it all down here. It’s future rust and it’s future dust.”

This song always offers me a comforting sense of perspective. Even when bad things happen, I know that time will keep pressing on, and eventually everything will rust over and turn to dust. Things that seem big are really small. It just means that everything is going to be ok if you can leave the past behind you.

-Haley Scott, NC

From “Spanish Sahara” by Foals

From “Everybody’s Something” by Chance the Rapper

“My hard head stayed in the clouds like a lost kite, but gravity had me up in a submission hold.”

I like the images Chance uses to describe the struggles he’s been through. It describes a feeling I know I’ve had, that I’m sure a lot of other people have had too – hoping or dreaming for something but being brought down by reality. I think a lot of rap is about overcoming the odds in one way or another, which makes it really relatable.

-Ken Cosgrove, NY

From “Sagaba (Remix)”by Blue Scholars

“We hardly know ourselves if we’ve got nothing to ride for. A strug-gle to live to the fullest and die for. And make love and wage war for.

Sometimes we can feel lost or detached from ourselves, but this song always brings me back. These particular lines make me think about what I value and love, and the people in my life that I love. Stay true to yourself and fight for what you love.

-Tyler Schroeder, AZ

“There’s more than one answer to these ques-tions pointing me in a crooked line. The less I seek my source for some defini-tive, the closer I am to fine.”

From “Closer to Fine”by The Indigo Girls

When I hear these lyrics, I’m always reminded that life is full of questions and no one knows all the answers. They help me accept what I can’t necessarily understand. Sometimes, uncertainty can feel good.

-Saul Goodman, NM

From “Animals”by Martin Garrix

“We’re the fuckin’ animals. We’re the fuckin’ animals”

If I had to choose one song to embody the human experience, it

would be this one. The repetition of this line emphasizes the irony of humanity, that although we may try to distance ourselves from our savage past, we cyclically return to our instincts. Whether we’re fighting off dinosaurs in a prehistoric forest or sabotaging colleagues in an office on Wall Street, we will do what we need to in order to survive. That’s why this song pumps me up – I’m the animal; we all are.

-Tobias Funke, CA

From “Ones and Zeros”by Jack Johnson

“When the ice melts, maybe it will turn to wine.”The world has become numb to the hard truth

of climate change. It has occurred so slowly that people continue to add to the problem without being conscious of the consequences of their actions. It’s like they’re hoping that maybe if they ignore the problem it will just go away, or basically, turn to wine. This song always makes me think of that.

-Patrick Fitzpatrick, CA

Instagram: @instagrAMPFacebook: facebook.com/ampmagTwitter: @twAMP

CONNECTWant to be featured in an AMP article?Connect with us!

Page 38: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

38 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014

your guide to the meaning of lyrics, poetry, and prose

Page 39: AMP Magazine

AMP

39June 11, 2014 AMP Magazine

Aaron is a 21-year-old Wisconsinite raised on the sunny beaches of Southern California. He and his grey, white-socked Mainecoon cat, Pepe Diego, spend their time chasing waterfalls and baking goat cheese frittatas for their housemates. He once made it on the Featured section of Instagram with his artistic photo of the Gum Wall in Seattle. He looks forward to early retirement at age 63, where he hopes to spend the rest of his evenings reading non-fiction novels on his Pontoon boat near his wooden cabin in Milwaukee, WI.

Aaron is a 21-year-old non-working professional with an unclear passion for refurbishing wooden chess tables. In his spare time, he repeatedly watches the infamous wheelchair scene from the 1988 American science-fiction blockbuster Mac and Me, while eating his roommates’ food. He hopes to one day find a partner and elope to the northwestern region of Tibet to live a simple, self-sustainable lifestyle during his pursuit of spiritual lucidity. Before his Tibetan adventure, Aaron plans to move in with a pretty cool roommate in San Diego (his mom).

Brooke is a 21 year-old from the booming metropolis of Rancho Cucamonga whose claim to fame is her early prediction of the return of the bucket hat for the 2014 festival season. Although she feels she is too young to know for sure, people closest to her say red is her favorite color. She has also been accused of an unnatural appreciation for displaying flowers in things that aren’t vases, an unhealthy dependence on parmesan cheese, and innumerable friendships with individuals under the age of 8 or over the age of 42. The jury is out on all previous accusations.

AMPKNOWLEDGMENTSAMPKNOWLEDGMENTS

Allyson is a 22-year-old musician from San Diego, CA who has her sights set on becoming Attorney General by 2030. She gets her inspiration from country singer Taylor Swift and the hardcore punk band A Day to Remember. In her spare time, she likes to binge-watch romantic comedies on Netflix while sipping on her venti iced coffee with vanilla sweetener and extra ice. Although she is on her way to becoming the next Ed Shereen with her talented voice and mad guitar skills, Allyson has a real affinity for the cowbell.

in th

is is

sue

Wrote: Doing Music Festivals the Right Way, Using Live Music to Discover New Artists, & Letter from the EditorsEdited: Rediscovering the Timeless & What Does It Mean?

Wrote: Stream Your Music: Listen More, Pay Less, Beyond the Tracks, & AMP ProspectusEdited: Undiscovered Artist: Joomanji & Ways We Listen

Wrote: Rediscovering the Timeless; What Does It Mean? & AMP Style GuideEdited: Doing Music Festivals the Right Way & Using Live Music to Discover New Artists

Wrote: Undiscovered Artist: Joomanji, Ways We Listen, & AMP Acknowl-edgments PageEdited: Stream Your Mu-sic: Listen More, Pay Less & Beyond the Tracks

ALLYSONWERNER

AARONANDERSON

BROOKELYON

AARONBARRANCO

abou

t the

edi

tors

Page 40: AMP Magazine

EXPLORE • DISCOVER • EXPERIENCE

40 AMP Magazine June 11, 2014