Week 11 - The Demonstration

Video first this week

It's late April and so far this is my favorite record this year. It came out in mid January and I have had a lot of trouble trying to not over play it. It's called The Demonstration and it was put out by an artist called Drab Majesty. It's a perfect blend of crispy drum machines, analogue synths and sparkly guitar. Drab Majesty is actually solo project by Andrew Clinco AKA Deb Demure. Deb Demure is the androgynous persona Clinco adopts when he performs Drab Majesty. Clinco doesn't identify as trans or queer in his day to day life, however when he switches to this alter ego he has created that he is able to "receive" influence and inspiration to make the music that he does. I can't explain exactly what that means. Outside of doing Drab Majesty he plays drums in a handful of projects. Given that you are a fan of synth/dance music you might be into this. Track 6 Too Soon To Tell is a favorite.

In other news our show tomorrow is actually looking like it will go well. It has been giving me nightmares. The bands we organised are pretty bad communicators, or rather the one girl I am dealing with. It was making me especially nervous that the night was going to be a mess, it very well still might be but at least now we are as prepared as we can possibly be. I really didn't like that we had no idea what the first band was doing either. That was a huge unknown but one of the members of Venetian Blinds actually emailed me a stage plot, input list and set list that name all the vocalists and effects requirements for each song! So that is amazing and a huge relief. I have to jump on a plane the day after to go and play shows myself so maybe next week when I am home I will blog about the success or failure of this whole thing.

The point I wanted to make is that I am the one that started speaking to these people by default I get landed with this leadership role. It seems to happen a lot with projects at SAE. A lot of people don't seem to want to be proactive about their project they want to sit back and wait to be told what to to do. When dividing roles for this night no one actually stood up and went "I am confident and comfortable in my abilities to do XYZ" It's the lack of assertiveness that urks me. Our group has spent 3 months working together closely and the last year and a half in each others company. At this stage people need to be able to jump up and be vocal in these situations. Or maybe I would like them to be more vocal because I don't enjoy having direct. I should note that not everyone in the group is bad and this also applies to people I work with on other projects. It's just confusing to me that we can get this far in our degree and people are still inclined to sit back and coast.

A big part of why I am so invested is because I want the night to go well for the bands. If anything goes poorly, regardless of who's error it is, I brought these bands in and organised the evening so it's all a reflection on me. Everyone else walks away and goes home but I still speak to and deal with these people outside of SAE going forward. It's a completely pressure that I feel. It'll be fine though. I have run into some very unideal situations at SAE where things went bad but nothing that could never be salvaged.