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Dan Parsons’ debut album is less a case of boy meets girl but rather boy meets world. It’s a snapshot of someone who after spending his high school years emulating seventies heroes on a reel to reel eight track, leaves his bedroom and begins tumbling through one blinding, visceral experience after another.
What Parsons could grab hold of and pin down from experiences such as this, and his first brushes with the Brisbane music scene after growing up in country Queensland, inspired a drastic change to the primarily acoustic sounds that were on his 2008 mini-album Old Brown Shoe. |
These new experiences convinced him to, as he puts it “let go of the wheel” to some degree and he brought good friend James O’Brien (The Boat People) on board along with producer John Castle (Washington, The Boat People) to record the album. He was left with an album split in two in terms of material and, in what would prove to be a cathartic experience, he jettisoned his older material in favour of new. What wasn’t lost with his acoustic tunes was the sense of someone singing from the heart.
The result is Firestarter – ten tracks of sincere pop that go straight for the jugular- including ‘Back Off’, written about Parsons’ short lived career in labouring hell and ‘Cedar Creek’, a bittersweet tune about his hometown. Others shift and change in the light, music and lyrics pulling against each other. Opener ‘Run With Me’ wears a melancholic demeanour, but glimmers of hope are felt through its understated enthusiasm.
Dan will join Sianna Lee at The Troubadour on Sunday May 30 before embarking on an East Coast album tour – catch him at the dates below – with more dates soon to be announced.
Firestarter – Available in-stores and via 
– May 21 2010
Click Here for Dan Parsons at iTunes!
Up-coming Dan Parsons Shows:
Sunday May 30 2010 | The Troubadour, Brisbane
Supporting Sianna Lee
Saturday July 3 2010 | Fans Presents – Alhambra Bar, Brisbane
Album launch (full band) with Charlie Mayfair
Friday July 9 2010 | MUM, Sydney
Album launch (full band)
Friday, July 23 2010 | Sound Lounge, Gold Coast
Double album launch with The Boat People