corporate sponsorship

Honestly? I didn't think my first night at MusicfestNW would involve staying out until after one in the morning, allowing my ears to be totally fucking battered, but lo, it did, and it was a little bit awesome. I did stay at Holocene all night, true, but I knew Calendar Editor Chuck Adams was out and about — I'm sure he'll check in later about Battles and M. Ward — and, well, see, it's more fun to have someone to talk shit with at shows, and the only other person I knew who'd be out last night was at Holocene. So at Holocene I stayed (after a brief and unsatisfying trip to the super-speshul VIP tent outside the Wonder Ballroom, where the cocktails, though they don't deserve the name, were all made with Vitamin Water. I ditched mine — nasty! — and grabbed two tiny bottles of the stuff for later. I'm a sucker).

The Holocene lineup looked like this:

8 pm: Silver Summit
9 pm: Oxford Collapse
10 pm: Bodies of Water
11 pm: Starfucker
Midnight: Deerhunter

Silver Summit kind of went in one ear and out the other. Pretty enough, but not enough to grab my attention; I bought an old-fashioned (they make really good ones at Holocene) and snagged a little table, and spent most of their set making doodles in my MFNW schedule.

I just saw Oxford Collapse at Holocene a few months ago (with my new favorite band, Frightened Rabbit), and while I tend to avoid writing much about them (the aforementioned Only Person I Knew at being in the band and all), this show, I've gotta say, was a notch or two up from the last. And that one was good, too; this one was just better, and not only because singer Mike Pace kept cracking the crowd up by commenting on the various perks of the festival's corporate sponsorship (something about how drinking from mini-keg shaped cans of Heineken makes you look like a giant). I'm sorry to say I don't have the band's new album yet, so I can't tell you what the name of that new song I really liked was, but so long as they play "Please Visit Your National Parks" and that one other song I don't know the name of, I'm happy.

As for Bodies of Water, the less said, the better. I'm not proud of my bitchy judgmental side, but frankly, the chances of me liking a band in which one of the members is wearing a full-body leotard are pretty small. They weren't terrible; they just weren't my thing. Plus, it was more fun to stand in the hallway, catching up with my friend and watching various people (from a guy with a book-related website to two busty blondes) come to talk to him about how much they liked Oxford Collapse's set. There was a fair amount of kicking each other every time a member of Sleater-Kinney walked by, also. (Two outta three, if you're curious.)

Eugene shout-out moment: Former Horsehead bartender Kris Clouse turned up. Hi, Kris!

Starfucker was cool, but seemed to go by awfully quickly. I felt like I never quite got a sense of what they were doing. In retrospect, this could have had something to do with my being chatty instead of paying attention. Sorry, fellas; I liked your band, I just need to go back and actually listen.

Deerhunter, on the other hand, provided one of those moments when you see a band and are half overwhelmed and half entranced, half thinking about how you want to listen to them again at a lower volume so you can think straight and half incapable of thought. In short, it was fucking loud. I'm listening to them via MySpace right now and it's not even beginning to approximate the sensation of leaning my head against the wall and feeling my brain rattle.

Photo by Jeff Walls. I should point out that he had a crazy flash; it was super-dark in there!

They're also quite funny, these folks, and watching various members of other bands stand to the side of the stage, engrossed, was an added level of entertainment. (Also entertaining: Holocene's hyperactive, totally funny soundwoman, whose energy levels I seriously envy.) There was a whole thing with the bassist being a shapeshifter, the possibiltiy of puking, a Q&A session somewhat inspired by/in rebuke to a Q&A Crispin Glover had about a movie he made ... yeah, it was complicated. And awesome. And loud. And shoegazery — a My Bloody Valentine comparison was made, but I think it involved extra decibels — and assaultive and kind of intense. I kept being reminded of seeing Mogwai; if you're not up for what you're in for, you aren't going to like it.

I liked it. I also liked stealing a seat in Holocene's weird little side-of-stage nook and finally getting off my feet for the first time in hours, and enjoying corporate-sponsor-provided beer while trying to have the kind of conversations you have when the band is so loud, you hurt your friends' ears trying to yell loudly enough that they can hear you.

I have high hopes for tonight: Britt Daniel! Jaguar Love! TV on the Radio! Fuck yeah! But first: shoe shopping and, er, failing to resist the urge to go buy Deerhunter and Oxford Collapse records. Yep.

So last week I posted about the Oregon Bach Festival's new sponsor.

In this week's donors-control-the-university news, Inside HigherEd has an article about the J-Schnitz.

That is, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, which reopened a couple of years ago after many years of closing and remodeling. What's the trouble?

The UO changed the J-Schnitz's govering structure. The museum director now reports to the office of advancement (read, fundraising) instead of to the provost.

Provost=academic.

Advancement=raising money, aka sucking up to potential and current donors.

From the article, “Regardless of which vice president the museum director reports to, it’s ultimately the president’s responsibility for overseeing the operations of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art,” Phil Weiler, an Oregon spokesman, said Friday.

Well, that's just a specious argument. It's the president's responsibility, ultimately, for every aspect of the UO. As if the J-Schnitz somehow wins special attention (it might because it needs some rethinking, but that's another story) from Dave Frohnmayer over, say, the academic department where people might actually know about art or arts administration.

So that argument is dismissed for irrelevance, Phil Weiler.

The bigger question is, what should be the mission of an art museum on a university campus?

I called Andrew Schulz, the art history prof who brought the issue before the University Senate, to talk to him, but he wasn't there (I'll update the blog when I do talk to him). Also, I worry for the art history profs at Oregon. This debate might not end up being good for them; the university, I think, holds so little respect for academics and so much for sports and big donors. Argh.

So I reached back into the depths of my past (at the University of Iowa, where I got a master's in art history), and called Chris McOmber, one of my former grad student mentors and now the art history prof at Cornell College (a brilliant woman and the most kick-ass teacher I've ever seen).

Here's what Chris said about the point of museum on university campuses:

You’re supposed to have people there who are providing students with opportunities to increase their experience of the world through visual text, and I don’t know how the office of advancement would succeed in that. They don’t have the background or training.

Also, I would think a university would be interested in academic credentials. Not that I think it’s the most important thing out there, but [the university is] the one location where we expect some value to be placed on experience and educational background.

Closer to home, here's what Douglas Beauchamp, the Lane Arts Council Executive Director, had to say:
The museum clearly should not be with development. It deserves to be recognized as an intellectual and artistic creative asset. To me, it’s just so clear. I share and support the position that the faculty senate took, unanimously.

They [the UO administration] should be embarrassed, and they should change it immediately and recognize that they made a mistake. That would be honorable. I hope and expect that they’ll do that.

I asked him about what Weiler said. "No, that's just shuffling. In recent years, we've had so much shuffling in the leadership of this country," Beauchamp said. "They have a chance not to shuffle. They have a chance to apologize and do the right thing. Everyone makes mistakes; now you know the right thing to do, don't make excuses."

Tomorrow, I hope to get an update from the J-Schnitz folks, UO admin and a bunch of other people. Arts folks and academic folks seem united against the move so far, but there's much more reporting to do. Gotta go teach now though.

Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the only comment on the Inside HigherEd page so far says, Time to cross Oregon off the good-school list and mark it down as one more educational joke.

If it wants to regain standing the procedure is simple: make the Development Office report to the Museum Director, and not the other way round.