The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, October 13, 1999, Page 10, Image 10

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    i
Various Artists
“We WiU Follow - A Tribute To
U2”
Cleopatra Records
Grade: C
OK, get this. A bunch of techno,
new wave and industrial bands get
together and do a cover album of -
wait, this is the best part - U2 covers.
No, seriously.
Stop laughing.
All right, sheer comic value
aside, is it any good? Ehhh... it’s so
so. Mostly, this is going to be a col
lector’s piece for diehard U2 fans and
a novelty for anyone else.
But, hell, you get Tiffany on it.
This is the hard part about
reviewing this album. Describing any
one track is like the setup for some
colossal joke for music critics.
Envision this: Information
Society covering “One.”
Giggling profusely yet?
Here’s another one: Tiffany team
ing up with Front Line Assembly to
cover “New Year’s Day.”
Stop it, you’re killing me here.
Even better, though, both songs
are actually pretty good.
Each track on “We Will Follow”
can be divided up into three types:
reasonably good, mediocre and just
plain wretched.
For reasonably good: Heaven 17
shows what “With Or Without You”
would have been like if Simple
Minds had written it; Information
Society fiddles with “One” just
enough to make it sound unusually
different, but not enough to botch the
song; Front Line Assembly tears
“New Year’s Day” and reassembles it
with Tiffany singing in an interesting
fashion; Spahn Ranch provides a
despondent cover of “I Will Follow”;
and Rosetta Stone experiments
around with “October” to give it a
fascinatingly Enigma-like mystical
appeal.
As for mediocre, the album only
has a few: Silverbeam and Ann
Louise cover “Where The Streets
Have No Name” not even a third as
well as the Pet Shop Boys did years
ago; Bang Tango merely bores with
their cover of “Even Better Than The
Real Thing”; and the Polecats’ rocka
billy version of “Desire” just feels
wrong.
Now for the really rotten garbage:
Razed In Black shows what “Pride”
would have been like if KMFDM
tried to cover it in 30 minutes; Dead
or Alive can’t do anything more than
disco-ize “Even Better than the Real
Thing” nor can Intra-Venus with the
already ’70s-ish “Discotheque.” Die
Krupps doesn’t add anything to
“Numb” and takes the fun out of it.
And the Electric Hellfire Club seems
to be at odds if it’s making fun of
“Sunday Bloody Sunday,” itself or
both. Mission UK also can’t pull
together “All I Want Is You.”
The biggest complaint with “We
Will Follow” is just that there’s too
much damn following going on.
Many of the performers stick to the
songs as if they were religious texts,
and the people who were willing to
tamper with the mechanics, the song
structure and everything else came
out on top.
U2 completists will buy “We Will
Follow” regardless. The rest of you
can wait until you see it used before
picking it up - if you’re interested in
hearing U2 covered by new wave and
Goth techno.
Sorry, that still kills me.
-CliffHicks
i r- —■
EARN UP TO $1000
*This Semester*
By Posting Your
Lecture Notes Online
Register on-line:
@www.Studv24-7 .com
(888) 728-7247
FREE CLASS NOTES
STUDY24-7.com
I I
Parking Problems?
Need a Place to Park?
Guaranteed Parking
Park by
Day <
$2,00
• c
Park by
Month
$25
Don t Fight for Parking
Enter at 8th & S Streets, 1 block west of Memorial Stadium
National Garages, Gold’s Galleria, Suite 120 • 474-2274
Something For Everyone
Sheldon searches for director
SHELDON from page 9 '
laboration between the museum, the
university and the community.
“My main concern - what I think
most about - is reaching a conversation
within the larger community on what
direction we want to move in and what
is valued most in the institution,” he
said.
Accessibility of the director is
another concern Siedell said he had
“I’m not worried about getting
someone who is qualified,” he said.
“But a director has to be able to com
municate and create a dichotomy that
everyone can deal with. We need some
one who is ‘top-notch’ - whatever that
• means.”
One challenge that won’t affect the.
search is the recent university wide bud
get reallocations. Moeser said the cuts
won’t affect the gallery or the timeline
for die director search.
“The museum has been essentially
insulated from the budget reallocation,”
he said. “Much of the support comes
from non-state sources and large
endowments.”
Siedell agreed, saying the museum
has never received much money from
the university.
“There are really no funds here to
reallocate,” he said.
Aside Irom the search, Moeser said
he has other goals in mind for the future
of the museum, some he hoped the new
director would be able to fulfill.
One of those goals is the long
planned gallery expansion.
In 1980, the gallery and the Board
of Trustees of the Nebraska Art
Association began discussing the need
of expanding the museum to meet the
changing needs of the campus commu
nity.
In 1981, university administration
and the Board of Regents authorized
funds to develop a plan for expansion. A
program statement and design plans
were updated in 1985 and are being
reviewed and revised with help from the
University of Nebraska Foundation’s
Campaign Nebraska.
Moeser said he’d like to see the new
director eventually work with architects
and designers and see through the
process of construction.
“It Is a big job,” he said. “This is one
of the major collections in the U.S., and
this is a big position.”
Siedell said the expansion is much
needed because the space constraints
die museum faces are getting worse.
“The facilities are very cramped,”
he said. “We are facing a major storage
crisis. That creates a big problem
because it’s hard to acquire new work
when there is no room to store it.
“I have no clue what we are going to
do with any new work we acquire,” he
said.
sieaen saia not only is mere a lack
of space for art but a lack of space for
the staff of the museum as well. The
offices are small and chock-full, and he
said some of the staff members don’t
even have their own space to work in.
Siedell said the building itself is
suffering from some structural prob
lems - most recently, a large panel of
broken glass forced the museum to tem
porarily close one of its two public
entrances.
“(The building) is a very visual
symbol, and these are problems that
need to be taken care of with expertise,”
he said. “Sooner rather than later.”
The expansion project has been on
the table for the past 16 years, and
although some have been skeptical
regarding its completion, Siedell
believes it will soon become a reality.
Terry Fairfield, president and CEO
of the University Foundation, said
Campaign Nebraska - the branch of die
University Foundation that is handling
the expansion - is working to raise die
$9 million it will cost to make the pro
ject a reality.
“The plans to expand the Sheldon
are certainly a priority of Campaign
Nebraska,” Fairfield said. “We have ($9
million) as an objective, and we have /
some support for the project at this ”
time. We hope to be in a position before
the year is out to have some positive
u
The facilities are very cramped. ... That
creates a big problem because its hard to
acquire new work when there is no room to
store it.”
Dan Siedell
curator of the Sheldon
information to share.”
Fairfield said the project has been
on the table for a long time, but as the
need for space at the gallery grows, so
do the efforts to make the project hap
pen.
“It’s been a long time, and clearly it
is something we want to accomplish,”
he said.
The Sheldon’s permanent collec
tion has expanded to three times its
original size, he said, and it is only pos
sible for the gallery to exhibit 3 to 4 per
cent of the collection at one time.
The proposed expansion, which
Fairfield said has been approved by the
Sheldon’s architect, Philip Johnson,
would be located west of the building,
all underground.
The expansion would also add
space to the north side underneath the
building for needed office space and
storage room.
“It will double the gallery space,” he
said. “Now it is just a function of attract
ing private gifts to make it feasible to
move forward.”
Moeser said he has other more per
sonal goals for the future of the muse
um as well.
“One is the expansion of the facility,
combined with educational programs,”
he said. “I’d like to see die collection not
only in the building but take it on a tour
nationally - to spread its reputation.”
When it comes down to it, Siedell
said he thinks the collection itself will
speak loud enough to bring in a quali
fied leader for the museum, a person
who will utilize the changes in a posi
tive manner to ensure the success of the
gallery.
“I look at the museum, and I see
how the location makes it special and
how it makes the people in charge have
to deal with it in a unique way,” he said.
“You have to do it that way. It’s just
another one of those challenges.”
Ross Film Theater
gets new location
By Sarah Baker
Senior editor
Soon, the reels of film will
slow down and the Mary Riepma
Ross Film Theater will roll its final
showing in its space at the Sheldon
Memorial Art Gallery.
As the Ross prepares to relo
cate to its own building at 12th and
Q streets by March 2002, a new era
of programming in its former
space will begin - programming
with an agenda based on the
Sheldon Gallery.
Dan Siedell, curator of the
Sheldon, said he looks at the depar
ture of the theater as an opportuni
ty to bring more collaborative pro
jects into the gallery - something
that has been hard to coordinate
with the Ross in the past.
“It will drastically increase the
potential for us to try things,”
Siedell said.
Once the Ross is gone, its old
space will belong solely to the
Sheldon.
Karen Janovy, education cura
tor at the Sheldon, said it was diffi
cult to predict what would happen
to the theater once the Ross moves.
“It all depends on how we
decide to program the theater our
selves after it is vacated,” she said.
“We may use it for different things
- lectures, seminars - there are
many possibilities.”
Although the Ross does draw
people into the Sheldon, Siedell
said most of those people only ven
ture into the museum to see
movies, not to see art.
“We will be losing that traffic
but gaining a lecture hall that will
_ be ours to use every night of the
week,” he said.
In the past, there have been few
opportunities for the Ross and the
Sheldon to work together.
Dan Ladely, director of the
Ross Film Theater, said the space
in the Sheldon could be used for a
great variety of things.
“There is going to be lots of
demand for that space after we are
ti
It will drastically
increase the
potential for us to *
try things”
Dan Siedell
curator of the Sheldon
gone,” Ladely said. “Things like
lectures and presentations relating
to exhibitions will probably go on
there, and a lot of other university
departments will use that space for
a great variety of programs.”
Ladely said the space that is
now the Ross was used originally
as a film theater but had a different
mission.
“Films were shown there a long
time before I was director here,”
Ladely said.
The original mission of the
Ross began with the gallery’s
opening in 1964. The theater was
used only on a limited basis until
1973, when the Sheldon began a
full-time program in the theater
under the name of the Sheldon
Film Theater.
In 1990, Mary Riepma Ross, a
longtime sponsor of the theater and
a resident of New York City, estab
lished a $3.5 million irrevocable
trust with the University
Foundation for the purpose of
building and endowing the theater.
The Sheldon Film Theater was
then renamed the Mary Riepma
Ross Film Theater in honor of the
gift.
Because the Sheldon’s pro
grammers view film itself as an
art, Janovy said, different kinds of
films may be implemented in the
theater after the Ross’s departure.
“We don’t want to compete
(with the Ross), but (the theater)
would definitely work to augment
exhibitions in the Sheldon,” she
said. “It’s been and is going to be
an interesting journey.”