Where there are strange sounds on campus, chances are good that Dave Ruder ’05 is nearby. Ruder, a music major, plays clarinet and guitar, serves as Program Director for the Wesleyan radio station, puts experimental music onstage at Crowell and, long ago, witnessed the founding of the Boogie Club. Also, until recently he had a really big beard.
MB: So Dave, why should you be a WesCeleb?
DR: I don’t know how direct I want to be with my own vanity—as opposed to someone else’s vanity. I haven’t appeared in the Argus that many times, but I feel that I appear in people’s lives regularly. I find myself to be a fixture of the Wesleyan campus.
MB: Because you go here?
DR: Because I go here. Because I’m a little self-centered. I’m not going to say that there’s an explicit connection.
Going to Wesleyan and being self-centered are two things that apply to almost everyone on this campus. Are you saying you should be a WesCeleb because you’re more like everyone else than everyone else is like themselves?
I think that I’m the ideal embodiment of everything we hold dear and true…which is absolutely not true; I don’t agree with a word that I said.
MB: What have been your contributions to the Boogie Club?
DR: It was there when I was a freshman, we had a good time. I was there part of the time when I was a sophomore. I was a little put off by what I saw as boogie complacency; I thought we needed to be, you know, pressing ahead with the boogie mission.
MB: What do you feel is the boogie mission?
DR: I’d rather not answer that.
MB: Tell me about what you’ve done with music at Wesleyan.
DR: Well, here’s the funny thing. When I was invited to join thefacebook, I listed a number of things in the category of clubs and jobs, about six or seven things. And I thought that was normal. But then I looked at a lot of other people’s [lists] and I thought, Jesus Christ, I must do a lot! But a lot of the things take up so little time or are so seasonal. I worked at Scores and Recordings for the summer, I worked in the CFA, was Program Director of the radio station, starting a new music organization/ensemble, which was putting together concerts last semester—I don’t know exactly what it is this semester—and I used to co-captain the Ultimate [Frisbee] team. I’m planning the Campus Center Concert Series, and—I did music for a dance thesis last semester, and I’m doing it again this semester—so I do a lot. On paper.
MB: What’s your favorite thing that you do?
DR: Not to sound self important, but I think Wesleyan is a wonderful liberal arts school and compared to other schools of our size we have surprisingly good arts programs—music particularly, because we have two or three graduate programs. And there are excellent organizations like Terpsichore [a dance group], and Second Stage [theater] and Film Co-op. To my understanding, to some degree, if you get really involved in these organizations you’re saying you really like this particular domain of art, and if you are getting an education in it you’re going to need to supplement it with something—because whatever you’re learning in the classroom, no matter what opportunities you’re getting, you’re not really setting it up yourself—which is an important lesson to learn if you’re seriously going to go into some kind of art.
And I think these organizations are all really good for trying to give art students some way to say, “I’m going to set up my own thing here.” And in music you obviously have that because you can just go start a band and play in WestCo Café or Eclectic or outside or wherever, and that’s very easy to do.
But if you are like me and you are not necessarily a popular musician but an art musician, or fancy yourself to be an art musicia—r a composer, dare I sa—hen you’re in the same boat as film people or theater people or dance people who need other people to work with, unless you’re doing a one-man show or dance. Also, you’re in a community and all these other people are writing all this music, and wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could hear it.
So, the thing I’m happiest with, which manifested itself as two concerts last semester and is manifesting itself currently as a rather small ensemble and hopefully will be a concert in late October or early November is just … a group that’s interested in taking music people who are writing and putting it on in some kind of larger venue.
MB: What is your involvement with the Wesleyan radio station?
DR: As Program Director, I make the schedule. I’m always surprised at how much I like just listening to the station, and I’ve had a really good time doing five or six radio shows since I’ve been here, because they’ve all been kind of different. Unfortunately, WESU, when you get involved in the upper parts of it, is a hell of a lot of bureaucracy, especially right now. And it’s frustrating—but actually fine, because it makes you get a lot of stuff done that makes a lot of people happy. But I’m not the most bureaucratic kind of guy.
MB: What kind of shows have you done?
DR: Last semester my show was called “Your Zs,” and it was the music of Frank Zappa and John Zorn, taken in album-long chunks. I’m a bit of a purist about both of those gentlemen. I liked going to the station and just hitting play once, doing a voice break at the end of that album, hitting play again, and that’s it. I like doing live stuff over the air, too.
MB: Tell me about your large, large beard.
DR: I grew it for five months, from April to September. It was about two inches long, which is long for a beard. The beard was good, but—I didn’t think about it over the summer, and then when everyone came back, I became very aware of it. Because I really don’t feel my beard when it’s on my face. It was a lot of fun. I feel strongly that people who aren’t going to get fired for it should experiment with their facial hair.
MB: What kind of comments did you get?
DR: I got a lot of ‘terrorist’, I got a lot of ‘outdoorsman.’ I guess it didn’t help when I wore a shirt that said “Revolution” in Arabic. Probably not the best thing to wear walking down the street. But you gotta figure, how many people speak Arabic?