Diamond Rings

This kid was in a band called The D'Urbervilles.  Pretty much your standard fare indie band from Canada.  But in 2009, after dealing with some health problems, he decided to cover his eyelids with colorful makeup and go off on his own.  This side project, Diamond Rings, is basically just him, John O'Regan.  The video below is the first one I heard.  Thanks be to Emilie Raguso, friend and editor in chief at the Albany Patch, who posted this video on her facebook.  I did some research on Diamond Rings and found out that he used to be somewhat of a jock.  You can see him wearing an old Seattle Supersonics jersey in the video below.  In some other of his videos, he plays up his sports background (no pun intended), and appears to be a pretty good basketball player.  For example, he can make a reverse lay-up.  In one video he and some back-up dancers perform a flamboyant, choreographed dance on a basketball court.  By performing this dance in the hyper-masculine space of a basketball court, Diamond Rings creates the best kind of cultural confusion.  It forces us to think about masculinity and femininity, hetero and homosexuality, and the titles "man" and "woman".  Many of the articles I read about Diamond Rings discussed the androgynous nature of his look and performance.  There are many references to David Bowie, Grace Jones, Boy George, etc.  Bottom line is the music is really, really good, but the cultural conflict created by Diamond Rings is also very compelling. As a straight ally of the lgbt community, it's always important to remember that we live in a hyper-hetero-normative society.   Therefore, it's so important to embrace artists that create space for queer and/or potentially queer expression.  Diamond Rings doesn't answer the question, "are you gay or straight?", citing the lack of binary oppositions in relation to human sexuality.  In one interview, he said, binary code works with computers, but not with humans.

Diamond Rings

much love,
Anthony