Preview
SEKIDEN
Saturday, April 10
Liberty Lounge
Brisbane, Australia. Population: three million. Musical exports: The Saints and the Go-Betweens. Location: approximately 12 hours north of Sydney by car.
When I ask Simon Graydon, the guitarist for three-piece synth-popsters Sekiden, for some background on his band, these are the geographic stats he offers. He’s not skirting the issue. He duly informs me that Sekiden’s discography consists of two EPs and a new full-length, but he is very specific about where they come from.
"I don’t even think of us as an Australian band," he says. "I always think of us as a Brisbane band. Australia’s got this thing where it’s isolated and we’ve got some amazing bands because we are so far away from everything else. But within Australia, Brisbane is even further out from that again, ’cause all the music industry stuff is in Sydney and Melbourne. I’m always flying the Brisbane flag."
This is in direct opposition to a phenomenon that, according to Graydon, runs rampant in the music scene down under – tall poppy syndrome. It seems that Australians are particularly hard on their own. "You want to cut that flower down when it gets too high. As soon as a band gets popular in Australia they get cut down," says Graydon. "You don’t even want to know what we think of The Vines and Jet back home. Even if you had a good band that got big – there’s still the haters."
Ironically, with that statement Graydon goes on to tell me about all the great bands that work twice as hard as the last two he mentioned. Before I let him tell you who to check out the next time you’re in Brisbane, let me tell you why you should check out Sekiden.
Sekiden were formed six years ago when Graydon and long-time friend, ex-patriot German and drummer Mirko Vogel were joined by Vogel’s sister Seja on keyboards. As a three-piece they offer a huge sound with economic touring potential. "You’re more like ninjas," says Graydon, "in that you are more efficient, it’s cheaper to travel and there’s less people to organize in the morning."
Describing their sound as ’50s-or-’60s rock played like the future sounded in the ’70s, their latest album Junior Fiction offers raging pop melodies, sweet vocal harmonies and – you guessed it – synthesizers.
"I prefer synths that sound like synthesizers," says Graydon, "not synths that sound like woodwind or brass." While Graydon’s childhood nostalgia for the synth goes back to Duran Duran, Sekiden play fuzzy, good-time pop with nods to bands such as The Rentals and The Cars. It’s this keenly honed sense of pop that has made them part of the small but vibrant Brisbane music scene.
"There are probably a couple hundred people in the town who go to shows, but they’re all in bands and they’re all really good," says Graydon, citing two of his favourites. "Turnpike, who sound like Polvo and Sonic Youth… have been doing it for 10 years. I see a band like (And You Will Know Us by the) Trail of Dead and I think ‘I’ve got that band – they live in my town.’
"There’s a band called Screamfeeder and if they were from Minneapolis they’d be bigger than Husker Du, but it gets kind of isolated."
Not that Graydon feels limited by his location. The man who produced Junior Fiction, Magoo, is not only their dream producer, but a Brisbane native. Graydon continues to boast about the Brisbane scene with a seemingly endless list of bands who, in his opinion, are not only great musicians, but great people.
When I ask Graydon to rate himself against Australia’s other musical exports he seems at a loss. "I couldn’t really rate us. There’s too many genius bands. You can’t even compare yourself to AC-DC." However, when I turn the conversation towards Russell Crowe’s band he has a change of heart. "I think we’d put ourselves higher than Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts."
CELEB TOP FIVE
Top Five best things about Canada according to Simon Graydon of Australia’s Sekiden
1. Snowballs – actually being able to pick up snow and throw it at someone’s head.
2. The beer.
3. Driving on the other side of the road.
4. Toonies – they look pretty cool.
5. Cheap CDs. |
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