There was a week in December last term where I met a pirate, learnt the intricacies of target shooting, got invited to an Aikido class, a fire performance on Sandymount Strand, and discovered that, if I wanted to, I could launch a rocket with zero expertise.  Did I join some kind of intense, action-packed cult? No. Well, maybe. I met the members of five different Trinity societies to learn more about what they get up to when the rest of the student body aren’t looking. 

What was intended to be one article covering five different societies, has become five different articles. The first spotlight in what will now be a five week series is on DUAMS. If you have yet to make the blood sacrifice (pay the €2 membership fee), keep reading.  

*The following conversation has been shortened for brevity. 

I meet Adam, chair of DUAMS, on a late evening at Goldsmith hall. He has been involved in DUAMS since first year. DUAMS stands for Dublin University Alternative Music Society, but this has not always been its name. “It’s been around for a long time. It used to be called DERNS – DU Rock Nostalgia society”. He doesn’t know what DERNS did, but sees it as a sign of the variety of music tastes on campus, “to put it all into one society is really difficult”. DUAMS is one of many music societies (Jazz Soc, DU music, Trad Soc etc.) and “ I think people like to imagine there’s this rivalry” between all of these  “but I think it just really comes from how much people who have a passion for music want that space”. 

DUAMS host lots of important events such as a song writing workshop, gigs in aid of charities like Belong To and Women’s aid, and speed dating for musicians searching to form bands, but there’s also “always some humour in a lot of the events we’ve done”. They did a pub quiz a while back in collaboration with Geology Soc. Can you guess the name? “Instead of rock and roll, we did a rock and rock pub quiz”. “It was actually maybe the hardest pub quiz I’ve ever been to, because it was like, niche music and then niche rocks”. We learned a lot, Adam laughs, with that one. 

They also have collabed with DU film to host music-related movie screenings, previously screening Scott Pilgrim and Phantom of the Paradise (80s rock version of Phantom of the Opera). They also watch “The Room” every year and the audience “chuck spoons at the screen” which has become a “tradition” at this point. “There’s a lot of DUAMS that’s silly, as much as we take the live music etc seriously to give bands platforms”. They try to maintain a balance of “serious fun”.

Adam is keen to stress that DUAMS is for everyone, “you don’t have to be a musician” to be involved. “We always like to market ourselves towards musicians, but also music fans”.

Adam describes DUAMS as “almost like a fandom of music”. Everyone has a broad taste and this is “represented on committee pretty well”. “There’s a lot of albums that are famous for being alt rock, and there’s probably 1000 sub genres that every individual person would argue what genres everything is, but there’s a lot of like canon, I guess, like music that everyone knows.” Alternative rock is “so broad” that “sometimes I just say that we’re the Alternative Music Society”. “I feel like alternative now has become the new mainstream,” and of course, he adds, “ what’s in the mainstream is always changing”. 

“I’ve always loved just finding music,” Adam says. “Overall I really like music from Brazil, there’s a lot of genres down there”. At one point, he wanted to learn “at least one album from every country” so that if he ever met someone from that country, they could bond over that. “It’s never because of music that I’m friends with someone, but I think it’s knowing that someone else has the same passion I have, makes it easier”. 

Does he have any music hot takes? “I should be positive, but I’ll be negative”. Joy Division fans, stop reading. The album “Unknown Pleasures” by Joy Division, “everyone says it’s the best, but I just, I can’t get behind it”. 

‘Alt’ is a broad concept. “You could take any band and do a whole PHIL debate on is this band ALT” but alt rock as a genre was probably what a lot of our dads listened to in the 80s, “instead of the hard rock and roll, it was like when it kind of shifted towards Smiths and REM”.  Some albums are alternative in style, and some are alternative in aesthetic. The internet, of course, affects “how people look at albums”.  

Adam plays bass for a band named Seal Spit. A name they landed on at the pub “when I went to the bathroom”, but we agree it’s fitting. He also plays the saxophone which he has been able to play more since moving out of student accommodation. 

For someone who wants to be a musician, DUAMS facilitates a way in. “We have a group chat for people to come together and make groups. And we’ve had musician speed dating” where “anyone who’s looking for a band comes and hangs out and meets other musicians”. A big part of DUAMS is acting as this kind of “entry way”. Their biggest event every year is Battle of the Bands.

At the Freshers Fair every year, Adam tells interested freshers that DUAMS is a society that “tries to prioritise both the performer and the audience member. We really want to give platforms to new performers and experienced performers who have this passion for music. But we also want to have a social world for people who like music in general”. 

In Kentucky, where Adam used to live, a live punk gig called No Comply (after the skateboard trick) took place in a skate park each year. “They had heavy metal bands and punk bands in the bowl of the big skate park, and then people in it, and people sitting on the edge. And it’s really crazy”. Thanks to his parents, alt rock has always been on his radar. “They really like the band Cowboy Junkies…I always had people around me that were listening to interesting stuff”. 

For someone wanting to know more, Radiohead, Nirvana, and Joy Division are good starting points but people don’t need to worry about the extent of their knowledge to be involved in DUAMS. “You could come in knowing the entire Nirvana discography, but I think people care more about, like, an album that you find interesting”. Chances are that people passionate about music will be just as eager to hear your pick of an album, as you are to share it.  

There can be a fear around arts-based societies like DUAMS that “people who are fans of these things are going to get like ‘out-fanned’ when they go into these societies” or that the members will be pretentious. “I would really just urge people to go for it anyway” and see what it’s like in person. 

Adam has a final hot take. “I was thinking a better one, more positively, my hot take is that I love Maroon Five”. A lot of people only like the first album but “I will go as far to say I just like all of them. And I’m not ashamed to say it”.