[posted from my myspace blog page since I’m too lazy and uninspired to write anything new today]
This weekend is Pride in Vancouver. I’m going to be helping out with some filming of queer events and performers for a documentary a friend of mine is putting together about local queer performers in the city. Of course, interviewing bands and musicians who are playing shows when I myself am a queer musician and have a hard time even getting a show kinda makes me jealous. But there’s something else that I’ve been thinking about as well.
When I think of “gay” coupled with “music”, I–and I think most people–tend to think of dance-y, trance-y, electronic stuff that simply makes people want to dance. And who better dances than the gays? (The correct answer is no one, in case you didn’t get that) Then there are also bands that can put on a good show because well, frankly, they’re noisy and during a celebration like Pride, noise = good.
But then there’s me. My music/style isn’t particularly upbeat, both in a tempo sense as well as an uplifting way, and it’s not really loud either. I thought about it a lot over the last few days and I realized my music isn’t… very gay. Not that that’s a bad thing or that I feel like I should change my sound. No way. But it’s just difficult sometimes to try and get people, especially the gay community, to listen and enjoy my music when I’m so much different than what they typically listen to.
My music can be brooding, pensive, and sad, and a lot of people don’t want to listen to that, which is fine, whatever. But then to see other musicians making it because they’re more… accessible or have a more popular sound and have more fans is kind of disappointing, especially when I feel like my music and my songs are a lot more meaningful than stuff that’s already out there.
I sent an e-mail to the Pride organizers with a link to my music several months ago when I saw an ad for acts in the upcoming Pride. I never got a response from them so I can only say that my music wasn’t what they were looking for.
It’s not that I don’t have any happy songs, but that I don’t feel the need to write happy songs when I’m happy because I’m out there being happy! It’s only when I’m utterly depressed and unwilling to do anything else that I write. And if that gets me fewer gigs, than what am I supposed to do?
Anyhoo, I’ll try not to be a downer for Pride. Just a reminder that my short film, Stay, will be screening on August 16th at 9:30 at Tinseltown. Happy Pride, tout le monde,
Aaron
aaron's random musings 
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