Mel Parsons Day on East FM, Saturday from midday

Phil from Farm Cove

It’s Mel Parsons Day tomorrow as we talk with her about new album Sabotage and look forward to the start of her upcoming regional NZ tour in Howick, on tomorrow’s She’ll Be Right on Saturdays Show with PJ Taylor, midday to 4pm (NZ time, August 3) on East FM.

We’ll also pay tribute to the late-great Martin Phillipps, who passed last Sunday, by playing music by The Chills.
There’s also a new song – Caffeine High – by Auckland indie pop-rock band Marmalade to spin.

And we’ll also play tracks by artists Floral Clocks, Shindig, and Hoop, the line-up for the next Ministry of Folk concert on August 10 in Mt Eden. Tickets at www.undertheradar.co.nz...

Mel Parsons, being one of NZ’s leading singer-songwriters of this era, is a favourite artist of the She’ll Be Right Show, and it’s with great pleasure that we chat with her at 12.30pm in the lead-up to the tour-opening concert at East Auckland’s beloved Uxbridge Arts and Culture in Howick on Thursday, September 12. Tickets at www.plus1.co.nz...

Mel Parsons’ Bandcamp page says: ‘Sabotage sees the award-winning Lyttelton-based artist exploring darker, melancholic territory on tracks like Offer Down, Little Sadness, and Circling the City. They sit alongside songs such as 5432, the gorgeous Hoping For Rain, and the brooding Sabotage, from which the album takes its name. Also featuring is the track Hardest Thing, which Parsons recently won the MLT Songwriting Award.’

“I like the word, especially with its layered meanings,” says Parsons. “Sabotage comes in many forms. Self-sabotage is the main one in focus here, but leaving it open to however people want to interpret appeals to me as well.

“It was a different process to making previous records – a more collaborative vibe in that it was just two of us who put the whole thing together,” she says. “We jumped around on the instrumentation – I played guitars and some drums; [producer] Josh [Logan] played everything else, and together we pulled the tracks into some kind of song form.”

Caffeine High, say Marmalade, “is a playfully ironic song about working as a barista and getting an intimate look into people’s everyday lives”.
It’s the band’s third single release. The Tāmaki Makaurau five-piece are a group of friends composing music “swinging somewhere between clean-pop and indie-rock… soaring female vocals and honest lyricism float above a steady musical backbone to create a juicy jar full of sounds”.
Marmalade are Jemilah Ross-Hayes (vocals, songwriting), Koen Aldershof (guitars, keys, production, songwriting), Liam Nuttall (lead guitar), Chelsea Naepi (bass), and Dean Rodrigues (drums).

East FM is East Auckland’s fair-dinkum community-powered public service radio station, on 88.1FM and 107.1FM on local frequencies, nationally and globally at www.eastfm.nz... and on app iHeart Radio.
She’ll Be Right - it’s all about the vibe; it’s all about the groove. Providing a platform for NZ music and performance artists to exhibit their talents since ages ago. Ka pai. – PJ