When Allison Del Fium first came to University of Oregon from Los Angeles, she wondered if she’d made the right decision.
“I’d always been around musicians, people who knew about the entertainment industry,” the lifelong musician said. “I came to Eugene and was like ‘What do I do?’”
She soon met fellow student Desmond Harvey, who fell in love with the music industry after a trip to Texas music festival South by Southwest and was working on a club for students hoping to get a leg up in the music biz.
Del Fium is now vice president of public relations for the UO Music Industry Collective, which holds its first meeting on Oct. 6, at 6 p.m. in Lillis 212.
MIC hopes to help students make connections in the music industry by booking guest speakers and posting internship and job opportunities on its website, www.theuomic.com.
MIC has a spate of guest speakers lined up, including December Carson, former manager of Portland indie stars The Decemberists, who will speak at the group’s first meeting.
The club hopes to book guestspeaker musicians in the future and even live performances.
MIC leaders emphasize that the group’s focus is as much on making music industry connections as helping music fans meet fellow students with common interests.
“Coming from a membership perspective, I want people to come to the MIC either knowing they’re gonna get a job opportunity or knowing they’re gonna make friends,” said Membership Vice President Bobby Schenk.
Like Del Fium, Schenk had trouble finding people to share his love of music with when he first came to UO from Colorado Springs, Colorado. After meeting Harvey through Oregon’s campus radio station KWVA and helping others to get the MIC rolling, Schenk says they’re “all buddies” now.
“Harvey brought us together February to start planning this,” said Schenk. “We had all of spring term to hammer out the constitution.”
Harvey graduated before the first meeting, but the group has attracted considerable online interest; 56 people have RSVP’d on the first meeting’s Facebook event page.
MIC hopes to attract not only students interested in the music industry but musicians seeking to promote their own bands, especially in Eugene, a town with a small entertainment industry.
“In a place like L.A., you can have no connections and be a small fish in a big pond,” said Del Fium. “Here you have an opportunity to be a big fish in a small pond.”
But, as MIC president Aidan D’Angelo said, “You don’t have to be a music god to join this club.”
“This isn’t about ‘You’re gonna work at the Grammys if you join this club,’” said D’Angelo. “It’s about getting people together who aspire to those goals.”
