#JonLeidecker (aka #Wobbly) is a human in the loop, making music with people and machines that listen. He will give a lecture (perhaps on the secret histories of electronic music?) Thursday, September 21st in the Jeannik Méquet Littlefield Concert Hall at #MillsCollege (5000 MacArthur Blvd, Oakland). https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jon-leidecker-lecture-tickets-696314935717

Oakland's Forgotten Creeks #3 - Oakland Tribune, January 30, 1947

(Third in a series of five articles. Tomorrow - The City Grows.)

https://fastestslowguy.blogspot.com/2023/01/oaklands-forgotten-creeks-3-maybe-you.html

The damming of #Temescal, #SanLeandro and #Sausal #Creeks to form commercial #water supplies for #Oakland, creation of #MillsCollege between two creeks, #commerce and #recreation developing alongside creeks, #salmon #fishing, #hunting, growth of #streets and #housing

#water #municipal #california

The Coalition to Save #MillsCollege put out a little video where an alum asked a question of the chair of the board of trustees and she just logged off rather than answer it. It's hard to capture this kind of moment in a video of a zoom session, but the whole incident is shocking and outrageous. https://vimeo.com/536391210

I'm starting to get a feel for why the college is in trouble as apparently, they've been treating faculty this way for years. By becoming an institute, they can finally be rid of annoying students, teachers and alums and focus of having a managerial class and nothing else.

BandCamp today is covering the music department of #MillsCollege, which is threatened with closure: https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/mills-college-list

If you care about experimental music and have an account on birdsite, if you could spare a tweet or two with the hashtag #SaveMills, there's a twitter campaign set for today.

You might say why the music department in particular or the college in general should carry on.

This is a cause that is personally very important to me. I want others to have the opportunities that I had and I also want to be able to keep hearing new music coming out of this milieu.

The graduate programme is all genders, but the undergrad programme is for women and trans people. (Mills was the first HWC to admit trans women without regard to their legal gender status.) There aren't many places that have helped so many musicians find such distinct voices and fewer still that had such a high degree of access for women and enbies.

Now listening: https://othermindsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/first-things-first

Irreverent, fun, weird sound art from former #MillsCollege faculty Anthony Gnazzo

#SaveMills #SaveCCM

Lou Harrison's Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with Javanese Gamelan (1981/1982) was also completed when he was working at #MillsCollege #SaveMills

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5xZLMKsbLw

Harrison's music is beloved in California, but doesn't get the recognition it deserves east of there. This is partly because he rejected the New York scene, which is unforgivable. But it's also because Harrison's music is unapologetically beautiful. His music has strong Pacific Rim influences, but also holds on to the 1930s vibe of when he started writing. It's pretty. It's meant to be pretty. His music is a great example of how one can be challenging and thought provoking while maintaining an intentionally lovely and accessible aesthetic.

Here are some pieces he completed during his times at Mills:

Mass to St Anthony (1939)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQd_La1ujDA

(The still photo shows him with the #MillsCollege Gamelan which he and his partner Bill Colvig built)

Anyway, in 1938 John Cage "scored a gig teaching at #MillsCollege in Oakland. During that summer, Cage met the school's dance instructor, Portland-born Bonnie Bird, and presumably, her teenaged assistant from Centralia, Washington, Merce Cunningham". Cage did not stay at Mills long, but moved up to Oregon shortly after. https://www.historylink.org/File/9423

In gay culture at that time, age taboos are not what they are now partly because everything was illegal anyway and it was understood by gay people of the time that young people might seek out and consent to sexual encounters. However, Henry Cowell served time in San Quentin over this.

Now listening: https://othermindsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gallivants-and-garnishes

Ramón Sender was a co-founder of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, which later became The Center for Contemporary Music at #MillsCollege. Sender was instrumental in the invention of the voltage controlled synthesiser and I think I hear a Buchla on this delightfully weird, multilayered album.

#SaveMills #SaveCCM

Now Listening:
https://millscollegemusic.bandcamp.com/album/mills-spring-2020-compilation

Music from #MillsCollege CCM, spring 2020. This is a selection of what recent students have been doing.

#SaveMills #SaveCCM

Now listening: https://maryclarebrzytwa.bandcamp.com/album/experimental-electronic

Experimental Electronic by #MillsCollege alum Mary Clare Brzytwa

The extremely cool album photo shows a clarinet with a proximity detector on it. Listening so far, it sounds like left coast dreamy electronics.

#SaveMills #SaveCCM

The New York times reporting on the #MillsCollege music department: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/arts/music/mills-college-music.html

I feel like this is a cultural emergency. We've lost ~so much~ in terms of musical centres and spaces over the last decade.

There is ~not~ a money shortage. There is an inequality problem. Rich people have too much fucking money and the idea that the rest of us should make sacrifices to support that is a fucking outrage.

Jeff Bezos could lose half his money and he'd still be way too fucking rich, but how much food, housing and art could that cover? Why are people going without these things while he plays with rocket ships? Guillotine that asshole and all the fucking billionaires.

Now listening:

https://newbraxtonhouse.bandcamp.com/album/composition-no-19-for-100-tubas

Composition 19 for 100 Tubas by former #MillsCollege professor Anthony Braxton.

When I asked Braxton why he left Mills, he dodged the question, but there are rumours that some of the high ranking deans of decades past were racist towards him. Mills was in danger of losing its accreditation for how white it was 20+ years ago, but they've made major gains on this front and how have a diverse faculty and a majority non-white student body.

The artist Sharmi Basu (Beast Nest) told Bandcamp that as recently as 2013, she faced racism in the music department at Mills. She says things began to shift in the whole Bay Area scene around 2014, thanks to activism on the part of artists of colour.

Braxton was not on tenure track at Mills but went on to teach at Wesleyan university where he became a senior member of faculty. He decided a few years ago that he wanted to shift his focus away from teaching and concentrate on making music.

I feel like Mills has done work on it's flaws, pushed along by student and community activism.

Now listening:

https://djll.bandcamp.com/album/skin-tightener

Noisy free improv. Recorded at #MillsCollege by people involved with the music department in various capacities.

#SaveMills #SaveCCM

Now listening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy3W-3HPMWg

A Rainbow in Curved Air by former #MillsCollege faculty Terry Riley.

His second most influential piece has a droney undercurrent, but is a steady forward momentum. Loopy but linear. Busy but still. The Guardian describes this piece as "feel good".

#SaveMills #SaveCCM

Now Listening:

https://othermindsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/om-live-hommage

Cello and electronics from #MillsCollege teacher Joan Jeanrenaud

Very complicated droney new music vibe.

#SaveCCM #SaveMills

Now Listening:

https://johnbutcherginorobair.bandcamp.com/album/new-oakland-burr

Free improv duo with London-based John Butcher and California-based #MillsCollege alum, Gino Robair.

Weird sounds, good skronk.

Now listening:

https://beastnest.bandcamp.com/album/plundering-my-dreams

A very short noise album from Oakland-based artist and #MillsCollege alum, Best Nest.

As optimistic as Constance Demby, but with critical reflection and some glitch aesthetics.

Now Listening:

Lovely Little Records

https://www.ubu.com/sound/lovely.html

A fascinating compilation of the state of experimental electronic music in 1980. Everyone on the record either taught at or studied at #MillsCollege.

John Bischoff was a founding member of The Hub and taught at Mills for ages.

Paul Demarinis is a Mills alum, who has done amazing work with text. (This computer work is 1980!!)

Phil Haromic was a Mills alum and also the housemate of my MA thesis advisor. I wish I'd met him, but alas, he did not survive the AIDS crisis.

Frankie Mann was an early adopter of computer controlled synthesis. I know of her because John Bischoff told me to to look her up. This is one of the only things I've found.

Maggi Payne is a Mills alum and the former director of CCM at Mills. She was my composition teacher.

Blue Gene Tyranny was a teacher at Mills and also a member of the Once group in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His work is extremely influential, especially on piano.

#MillsMusic #SaveMills #SaveCCM

Now listening:
OM Live: Inner Cities 8 from Other Minds Records

https://othermindsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/om-live-inner-cities-8

Thoughtful piano music from #MillsCollege's long term composer in residence.

#MillsMusic #SaveMills #SaveCCM