Whether it’s providing equipment to jam out or encouragement along the way, Queen’s Music Club (QMC) has been a resource for emerging student bands since 2011.
This Friday from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., QMC is presenting four Queen’s student bands live at The Mansion: Refreshingly Biblical, Pretty Young Thang, Hello Nurse, and Barely Legal.
The Journal spoke to three of the club’s organizers, Lauren Russo (ArtSci ’23), Sebastian Duff-Mailloux (ArtSci ’20), and Jordan Davis (Law ’20) about the opportunities QMC provides to aspiring student performers and what the club means to them.
“I wanted to get involved with something where I could participate in music because that’s what I did a lot through high school,” Davis said. “What I do in the club is run a lot of the jams.”
QMC hosts weekly jam sessions on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 6 to 8 p.m. in MacGillivray-Brown Hall, room B24. Anyone is welcome to come use the equipment and meet with other musicians in a laidback, supportive environment.
“I make sure everyone gets a chance to play [and] gets a chance to have fun and show off their musical talent,” Davis continued.
Duff-Mailloux described how QMC played an integral role in getting him to keep playing music after arriving at Queen’s.
“I started showing up to jams in first year mostly because before coming to university I was involved in a music project and then I left that […] and I was afraid that, if I didn’t have a project going on, I would lose touch,” Duff-Mailloux said.
“You can get what you want out of [the club],” he continued. “Right now, I’m in two different bands at Queen’s and I met all those people through Queen’s Music Club.”
QMC is beneficial to Queen’s students wishing to pursue music because it provides an outlet for like-minded individuals to connect, work together, and inspire each other to keep going.
“The most rewarding part [of QMC] for me has definitely been the people that I’ve met. When you go to university, especially being in my first year, it’s really overwhelming with the sheer amount of people that live here so it’s hard to find […] people you can relate to,” Russo said.
However, joining QMC helped Russo meet the right friends and associate with a group of people who share her passion for music.
Davis explained that QMC also helps emerging bands find greater visibility and assists those groups with booking gigs in Kingston like the upcoming show at The Mansion.
“One of the functions of our club is to expose new artists,” Davis said.
The four bands performing on Friday, and others who have gotten involved with QMC, owe much of their success to the club and its organizers. The Queen’s—and Kingston—music scene wouldn’t likely be all it is today without their efforts to inspire and promote student talent.
Corrections
This article has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of the executives’ names.
The Journal regrets the error
Tags
campus concert, Canadian Music, Concert
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