Sally Seltmann + Parades + Little Scout @ The Zoo 09-07-10

Sally Seltmann

Although Sally Seltmann is the headliner tonight, it’s clear that Parades are the drawcard, with Seltmann playing to a much smaller audience than the main support act.

Whilst Parades are an interesting and intriguing band and have a lot of good things going for them, there’s something about them that just hard to actually like, although it’s hard to actually put your finger on what it is.  The genre description ‘Art Rock’ has been used with abandon in all the reviews of the band I’ve seen (both live and of their debut album Foreign Tapes), but whilst the tag has generally been used to apply to the likes of Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel, the sound of Parades has a lot more in common with the prog rock bands of the 1970s (amazingly, and more laughably, the band’s Wikipedia entry describes them as post-punk).  It’s best demonstrated in their song Loserspeak in New Tongue, the first single from the band and viewed by various music commentators as the definitive Parades song; a musical microcosm of what exemplifies the band. And yet in listening to it, the first thing I think of is 1970s cape-wearing, prog rockers Yes; it’s not necessarily the actual sound – the lack of keyboards and all the extended solos does for that – but it’s all the chord and the tempo changes and the changes in sound throughout the song.  And it’s a similar effect on Parades’ Dead Nationale, as well as their other songs.

I can’t help but think of early Yes songs like Yours Is No Disgrace and Roundabout.  Or maybe they’re just a couple of double-necked guitars, the world’s most ridiculous drum kit and a bass solo or two away from being Rush…

It’s interesting that intricacies and diversity of the songs has been so highly praised when these are the key attributes to 1970s prog rock bands be they Peter Gabriel era Genesis, the aforementioned Yes, King Crimson.  Looking at Wikipedia’s entry for progressive rock, Parades manage to tick all the boxes on the list of musical characteristics and yet I doubt there are many people praising the band who would admit to listening to, let alone having a copy of, albums like Fragile or Foxtrot in their collection.

And yet whilst has echoes of 1970s prog rock, it is an updated sound; as well as an obvious absence of never-ending keyboard solos, there’s also a strange 1980s sheen over their music.  It’s as if a prog rock band had formed a decade after the 1970s hey day and peaked around 1986.  Yes meets Once Upon A Time era Simple Minds if you will.  The presence of the female vocals, provided tonight (along with keyboard) by Little Scout’s Kirsty Tickle really adds to this.  Surprisingly Mess+Noise’s review of Foreign Tapes describes the album as ‘gender-less’, as to me, although there are female vocals throughout, they’re undeniably a very male-sounding band.  Maybe it’s because the female element in Parades isn’t an integral part of the core band, as opposed to a band like Songs, where, although Max Doyle’s voice is more prominent than Ela Stiles, the overall sound is more gender-neutral than the very ‘blokey’ sound of Parades.

In many ways, based on what’s in my record collection, it should be the sort of thing I should really like and yet it just hasn’t connected.  There’s definitely something there and yet there’s definitely something missing.  Maybe one or the other will become clearer in the fullness of time.

Surprisingly, despite the positive reviews of her new album (even Pitchfork getting in on the act), the Triple J playlisting, and having built herself a solid platform with her previous New Buffalo incarnation, The Zoo is far from full tonight and by the time Sally Seltmann starts it’s maybe only a 1/3 full.  Maybe she would have been better off playing at The Troubadour as she seems slightly overwhelmed and awkward at playing the larger and less intimate Zoo stage.

Every time I hear the recent single, On The Borderline, I’m reminded of CSNY’s Our House.

The trouble is that too many of her songs on show tonight have that same sickly sweet glaze.  They’re songs that would be rejected from being on the soundtrack of a Richard Curtis film for being too sappy and the schmaltz carries through all the way to the encore of Henry Mancini’s Moon River.  Although she’s a darling of Triple J, surely the youth market isn’t the right demographic for her; maybe this explains the small numbers in attendance tonight, with what she offers being far too “mature” (for want of a better word”) to appeal to your average Triple J listener.  Where it would fit on the radio dial is a little harder to say but it’s very Adult Orientated and FM wherever it is.

Little Scout start the evening off and  surprise me when they play Dead Loss, which previously had been their best song and which used to to be played last, so early on in their set.  But they then go onto show that they’ve got a few more really strong songs in their repertoire, that easy match, if not surpass their previous benchmark tune.

Some more photos on Flickr.

Sally Seltmann
Sally Seltmann

Sally Seltmann

Parades
Parades

Parades

Parades

Little Scout
Little Scout

2 Responses to “Sally Seltmann + Parades + Little Scout @ The Zoo 09-07-10”

  1. “The trouble is that too many of her songs on show tonight have that same sickly sweet glaze.”

    So I wasn’t the only one to think this. I thought it was a really laboured performance at times, one not helped by the full band just layering the sound to the extent where it drowned her voice.

    I saw her support Paul Kelly at QPAC, and she was much, much better. Much less schmaltzy. The contrast on the night with my memory of that performance was just stark.

    TBH, I thought Parades were more post than prog, more like mono or sigur ros than King Crimson. The vocals were off-key for a lot of the performance and I found that extraordinarily off-putting. Made it difficult for me to appreciate them, but I could probably get into them if they fixed that problem.

  2. Justin says:

    I don’t know if laboured would be the right word. She seemed very uneasy on stage and the music just didn’t do it for me; it was verging on easy listening, which surprised me as I don’t really know her stuff that well and guess expected it to me more alt/indie. She’s a very strange choice for Triple J and maybe that’s why the numbers were low. And maybe it highlights the need for more/better alternatives to Triple J as there is a very large range of music that does’t belong on Triple J but has no other place to be played on the radio in Australia.

    Don’t know Mono and I guess I always think of post-rock in the more instrumental form of the genre. I think Parades have potential, it was more an observation that whilst they’re getting plenty of attention, most of the reviewers would be completely oblivious to the obvious influences.

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