The DAWN PARADE story (2001-2005) is as close to mundane tragedy as you can go without someone dying. Kids in bands should read it and ponder. The full story - from Suffolk village dreams to an appearance at Austin’s South By South West music festival has everything they would need to know.
Hundreds of small gigs, two Peel sessions and making a decent album with a proper producer are all in the script. Personnel changes, running out of steam and not finding an audience seem to have figured too. Even so, misery on top of disappointment, small town underdog not quite keeping it all together at the end (cf THE CLEANERS FROM VENUS) is not a rare enough story to qualify as a legend.
What’s left is the whole of that unreleased album and most of the singles, put out as this “best of” collection. The seventeen tracks are fine-sounding indie-rock anthems that are full of passion, thumped out at a striding four-four and shimmering with guitar. Producer Chris Brown put some quality string parts on too But they are not so well marked with instant magic appeal. Lacking the association with huge crowds, happy days at the massive festival or packed out gigs in prestige venues, the songs themselves are reduced to OK contenders in a crowded marketplace.
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Greg McDonald’s main talent might have been a stubborn ambition to get somewhere with his music. Songs as good as “Wider Than January Skies” should be recorded, celebrated and noted. Riffs as big and brash as the opening to “The Passion” should soundtrack lifestyle commercials. But it has to be noted that there are hundreds of such recorded every year. The secret joy of listening to them now will be intense for those who were close to the band at the time. But for the rest of us, life rushes on too fast. We have this year’s heroes to attend to, and we already have our U2, Muse and Verve tunes to fill the big anthem holes in our lives. So much of rock and roll is the mutual shared experience, and THE DAWN PARADE (eventually changing into THE VISIONS) suffered the noble fate of a cult following.
And then again, this history is so recent that Chapter Three could start at any time.
www.repeatfanzine.co.uk/thedawnparade
www.myspace.com/thevisionsband
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