Pulse
Oregon Daily Emerald
Thursday, August 11, 2005
■ In my opinion
RYAN NYBURG
BUDGET RACK
New music
can live up
to nostalgic
expectations
As I’ve stated before, people often have this mis
perception about me that I don’t like popular stuff.
There is a common view of music critics that they
find the most obscure and atrocious sounding mu
sic and wax poetic about its virtues ad nausea until
no one can stand to be around us. While I do listen
to some pretty grating stuff, I balance it out with a
respect for songcraft and melody. While it’s not al
ways pop music (in the sense that most of it isn’t
all that popular), it goddamned well should be.
One of my current favorites is the Shins and their
two albums, “Oh, Inverted World” and “Chutes
Too Narrow.” These guys create brilliant pop rock
and the only reason they aren’t considered a con
tender for the next Beatles is that that the Beatles
have been so mythologized and so fanatically over
rated that no one will ever be able to compete with
the image. The Shins write such wonderful
melodies that I find myself singing along to songs I
don’t even know the words to, but no one outside
of college radio DJs (and Zach Braff in his film
soundtracks, God bless him) will ever play them.
Now of course I’m going to get a bunch of peo
ple bitching at me for dissing on the Beatles. Let me
clear it up and say that I love them, more so every
year, and think they are one of the greatest bands
to ever record. But let’s not fly off the handle and
just leave it at that. Nothing pisses me off more as a
music critic than the easy reading of musical history
that lavishes praise on everything that came out of
the 1960s and laments the following four decades.
Bob Dylan farts into a mic and it’s a classic, but no
one has ever heard of the Decemberists. Can’t my
musical era be as great as a previous one, or do I
have to wait for the last of the boomers to die off
before we can have a serious discussion about this?
Nostalgia is a disease in culture. Things were
always better than they are now, apparently,
though that makes no logical sense. I take a dif
ferent view. I believe that things, when you look
at the larger picture, tend to stay about the same.
There was some great music then, and there was
a lot of shit. People just tend to forget the shit.
One tactic of some older critics to promote the
nostalgic view is to claim that all of the good mu
sicians today took all of their best ideas from the
great artists of the past. “The White Stripes just
redo garage rock and Delta blues,” or “Interpol is
just a reworked Joy Division. ” So on and so forth,
as if being influenced by the music of the past
were either a crime or a new development. Name
a group from the 1960s or early 1970s that wasn’t
influenced by blues, R&B, jazz, folk or classical
music. Popular music is all about recycling and it
always has been. Musicians take what they’re fa
miliar with and rework it to fit their own personal
vision. The best of them create new variations
that go on to influence the next generation.
So let’s just say that the Shins can be as good as
the Beatles, the Mars Volta Ls as good as King Crim
son, Queens of the Stone Age have moments that
rival Black Sabbath, Wilco makes music compara
ble to Pink Floyd and Fountains of Wayne could be
as good as the Kinks at their best, if that was the
route they wanted to take. Let them have their mo
ment in the sun and don’t go telling me they don’t
add up when compared to some fantasy of the past
that our culture has created for itself. I prefer to deal
with realities, thank you very much.
ryannyburg@dailyemerald. com
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A collage made by local artist Kimberly Gladen titled “Bush's Peace of Republican Freedom" is on display at The New Zone art gallery in
downtown Eugene. _
Streets <9/Splendor
The First Friday Artwalk is a free monthly tour of art
galleries and other attractions in downtown Eugene
BY NICHOLAS WILBUR
NEWS REPORTER
On the first Friday of each month,
Lane Arts Council provides a free
walking tour of art galleries and at
tractions in downtown Eugene. The
August First Friday ArtWalk, hosted
by cultural services director at the
Hult Center for the Performing Arts
Robb Hankins, began at 5:30 p.m. in
Jacobs Gallery in the lower level of
the Hult Center.
About 125 people took advantage
of the free service, crowding into lo
cal galleries to hear local artists and
craft makers talk about their cre
ations, all the while enjoying compli
mentary food and drinks.
Robb Hankins, who hosted his
second tour in the last two years,
said he is amazed that sometimes as
many as 300 people follow him
around town on the ArtWalk.
“I think people really get excited to
hear artists talk about their work,”
he said in response to the often over
whelming crowds.
Artists Miriam Kley and David Rea
ger presented “Illusion & Rhythm,” at
Jacobs Gallery, a display of two very
different styles made with the same
clay-like materials.
Kley said she was inspired to con
struct her works by the view from
her kitchen window. Her first piece
is a drawing of a kitchen sink, sur
rounding counter and window. The
window is molded with clay, making
the landscape outside, Kley’s garden,
have a more “realistic feel,” she said.
“I wanted the outside to look more
real than the inside, so I just drew
the inside and molded the outside
landscape,” Kley said. “There’s al
ways a sort of play between drawing,
which is the illusion, and
molding,which is rhythm.”
From Jacobs Gallery the crowd
walked across the street to White Lo
tus Gallery on Seventh Avenue and
Willamette Street where owner Dick
Easley presented “Multiple
Palettes/Varied Vision,” a display of
30 jewelers from around the country
whose work all focused on color.
“These artists are highly regarded
in jewelry and in the crafts world,”
Easley said.
Marcia Mcdonald, a local artist
who helped organize the show, invit
ed her fellow jewelry makers from all
over the United States.
“Because color is important to the
work I do, I decided, ‘Let’s do a show
about color!’ Things are so much
more alive with color, as opposed to
just silver and gold,” she said.
The next stop was Tibet’s Fine De
sign on Broadway, which opened less
than six months ago and displays and
sells authentic Tibetan rugs.
Tsetath Namgyal, the son of the
owner, explained the process of cre
ating the rugs all the way from the
sheep-shearing in Tibet.
“The rugs are all made in Nepal,
but all of the wool is from Tibet. We
use almost all natural oil dyes and all
the rugs are hand cut and 100 percent
handmade,” Namgyal said. “These
rugs would last you a lifetime.”
Namgyal assured the crowd that
children are not exploited in the pro
duction of these rugs.
“There is no child labor, you must
be 18 ears of age or older,” Namgyal
told the crowd, “and by selling these
rugs, we help Napalese and Tibetans
with their livelihood.”
The store offers traditional and con
temporary styles of rugs in an assort
ment of colors and shades, shapes,
sizes and various thread counts.
The next stop was Ninth Avenue
and Oak Street, where The New
Zone gallery presented its New
Member Show. New Zone provides
support for local artists, something
they have been recognized for by the
City of Eugene and the Lane Region
al Arts Council since 1983.
One Eugene artist, Kimberly
Gladen had a collage of newspaper
clippings, pictures and plastic army
soldiers on a piece she titled “Bush’s
Peace of Republican Freedom,”
which is selling for $95.
Gladen said she was inspired to
create the political piece because it
depicts what is happening around
her in the world right now.
“It’s some of what I’m seeing, the
trends and patterns on how we’re
being programmed in this world,”
Gladen said.
The last stop of the First Friday
ArtWalk was DIVA, Downtown Ini
tiative for the Visual Arts, at the cor
ner of Olive Street and Broadway.
This seven-gallery facility holds art
classes and events, showcases visu
al art displays and shows films.
“The DIVA offers a wide array of
classes and we’re currently having a
membership drive because we want
to support local artists and (the) com
munity. We have 250 and our goal is
600,” DIVA director Mary Runuh.
Hult Center intern and University
student Elizabeth Shawan said the
First Friday ArtWalk turnout was
pretty good, although a little less
than the July tour.
“It’s encouraging because I see a di
verse crowd in terms of age,” she said.
“So you can meet a lot of people in
your community, not just the artists.”
nwilbur@ daily emerald, com
EUGENE ART GALLERIES
The Jacobs Gallery
One Eugene Center
Located in the lower level of the Hult Center for the
Performing Arts.
Summer hours:
Tuesday - Friday, noon -5 p.m.
Saturday, 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.
The Jacobs Gallery is also open during all Hult
Center performances.
682.5087
24-hour Event information: 682.5746
White Lotus Gallery
767 Willamette St.
345-3276
www.wlotus.com
E-mail lin@wlotus.com
Tibet’s Fine Design
80 E. Broadway
9842387
New Zone
975 Oak Alley
3445912
DIVA
110W. Broadway
3443482
s m t w th f s
Thursday
Surfonics
Blue Luna Club
10 p.m., Free
Surf music
Friday
JC Rico
and Zulu Dragon
Luna
8:30 p.m., $6
Chicago-style
rockin' blues
Saturday
Loquat, Invisible
Luc key's
9p.m.,$2-$5
Indie rock
Sunday
Drums for Peace
Federal Building
2-4 p.m., Free
Open drum circle
TOP 5 MOVIES
t: "The Dukes of
Hazzard"
2: "Wedding Crashers"
3: "Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory"
4: "Sky High"
5: "Must Love Dogs"
NEWYORKTIMES
BEST-SELLERS
1: James Patterson,
Andrew Gross,
"The Lifeguard"
2:TerryMcMillian,
"The Interruption of
Everything"
3: Elizabeth Kostova,
"The Historian"
4: John Irving,
"Until I Find You"
5: Dan Brown,
"The Da Vinci Code"
BILLBOARDTOP 5
1: Various Artists,
"Now 19"
2: Young Jeezy,
"Let's Get It: Thug
Motivation 101"
3: Mariah Carey, "The
Emancipation of Mimi"
4: Dane Cook,
"Retaliation"
5: Jason Mraz,
"Mr. A-Z"