2024 release of two albums. (strangely)(emotional) and I Passed Through Minor Chord In A Morning.
2023 book THERE HE GOES WITH HIS EYE OUT (lyrics 1980-2023)
2023 reissue Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes Night Of The Wolverine. Double vinyl release.
2023 ROCK album with Clare Moore IN A MISTLY .
WORKSHY - 2017 memoir out on Affirm Press. Available at shows or via website.
Moodists - Coral Snakes - mistLY.
I don’t know what I am and don’t want to know any more than I already know. I aspire, in my music , to 40s B Movie (voice and presence) and wish I could play guitar like Dickey Betts, John Cippolina or Grant Green - but not in this lifetime, I know.
We have done a few shows so far in 2025 and are booking more.
original photo by Charlie Kinross
We played a great set as Dave Graney and the mistLY in January at George Lane in Melbourne and then headed to Adelaide where we sold out the Wheatsheaf on a Thursday night for two sets with Cousin Q on bass. The heat was incredible. We rehearsed the day before in Q's basement in 44 degree heat. It was psychedelic, fierce Adelaide heat and light. Taking no prisoners.
We then drove to Bellwether Wines in the Coonawarra (just outside Penola) where Clare and I made show as a duo. The venue is inside a heritage shearing shed that has been converted into a small winery. Squizzy Taylor brought up a smaall PA from Mt Gambier.
It
was the most blood related gig I have ever done! A brother and his
partner from Canberra, a sister from Melbourne (with my niece), a cousin
and spouse from Adelaide
, a second cousin from Carpenter Rocks and another from Dismal Swamp. I
opened with my song Family Gatherings name checks all my uncles and
aunties and generally admits that I ran away from familial duties to
join a circus. But as usual I didn’t expect anybody to notice. One
cousin who had never seen me perform thanked me for putting his mothers
name in a song. He also said all my between song talk was “very Graney”.
I nodded. I talked with another fellow who knew my late cousin Marty
from Naracoorte who was my age and had a fierce reputation. So fierce I
dropped his status as a relative to a character in Semaphore a few years
ago who was making signs that he was about to attack me and he turned
white and fled. Even though Marty was no longer with us on earth. The
fellow at the gig said Marty loved to read books and did so even when he
was out driving his semi trailer truck on long hauls. I asked what kind
of books but he did not know. Just books. Another family mystery never
to be solved and perhaps only me left wondering. The last image was
taken by my sister Julie and shows the glamping tents that you can stay
in at Bellwether. Lovely canvas tents on timber platforms. A communal
kitchen and bathrooms up near the winery
The duo setup is a little like this. (Footage from a different show)
I was part of a team singing some Tom Waits songs recently in Melbourne. A great bunch of players to be part of a team with. I concentrated on songs from TW's Tropicana Motel/LA piano ballad period as that is my favourite of his.
We played three shows in a weekend in Melbourne and Castlemaine. Tom Waits fans are really invested in the material. They bought in , fiercely. I played a few guitar chords and sang. The songs had loads of lyrics but I didn't use any cheat sheets.
Thank you, team!
Castlemaine
brunswick ballroom - photo joyce prescher
memo music hall
We have some Dave Graney and Clare Moore shows coming up in Melbourne, Sydney, Kiama, Port Kembla and Castlemaine.
Parking
Lot Scenes takes it title from a movie about Grateful Dead fans who would gather
in force and go off piste in the parking lots around the giant venues they
would play.
I played autoharp and bass and sang to a hip hop loop and Stuart Perera added some beautiful guitar lines.
Its a lyric about musical inspiration, sometimes only flashes or moments of energy or power.
It mentions some of my favourites in the lyric.
two
minutes of Bauhaus - what more do you want?
hey
too bad! Thats all they had
but
hey! For a while - that was enough
Dear Mama- All eyez on me- a disc of Tupac
only
God can judge him now
a
dark star of the Dead- infinite loop
you’ll
get sucked in too
like
a Texas cyclone-like a Texas Funeral
don’t
be a guts- if that’s all they had
a
Happy Trail of Quicksilver
a
night in Tunisa
salt
peanuts , Dizzy!
a
Brave Exhibition from The Boys Next Door
then
put The Hair Shirt on
a
Second Helping of Skynyrd
a
Brian of Stones
a
Chaka Khan
a
Christine of Siouxsie
a
Pop Tone of PIL
a
Date With The Cramps- a Jokey War Dance
don’t
be a guts - that’s all there is
be
cool with that
the
Dead were too big for the formats, awlways
they
couldn’t turn it on
they
gave the Western Desert people framed canvases and said “fill it up”
Its
a single frame from a big movie for all we know
some
people don’t fit the profiles
they
ain’t the usual suspects
they
work in their own time and space
they
make their own sense
no
good in snapshots
no
good for Tik Toks
no
good for porch shows or the blues
parking
lot scenes
Bauhaus live at Coachella in 2009. Can't doubt Peter Murphys commitment here. This song has a great two minutes for me - then they run out of licks. But its worth it for those first minutes.
Tupac - Dear Mama. Incredibly afeecting song for me . (Not strictly from ALL EYEZ ON ME though, it preceded it).
Tupac- Only God Can Judge Me Now, from ALL EYEZ ON ME
The Grateful Dead - Dark Star
Jon Wayne - Texas Funeral. The album that contains Terxas Cyclone , Texas Jail Cell, Texas Wine and Texas Studio and But I Got Texas.
Quicksilver Messenger Service. Mona. A different version to that on HAPPY TRAILS. This performance also features their singer Dino Valenti who was in gaol when they recorded that album.
Dizzy Gillespie- A Night In Tunisia.
Dizzy Gillespie - Salt peanuts.
The Boys Next Door - Brave Exhibitions. The four piece, pre Rowland Howards joining.
The Boys Next Door - The Hair Shirt . After Rowland Howards joining.
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Workin' For MCA. A couple of years after Second Helping and minus guitarist Ed King who wrote the music for Sweet Home Alabama.
The Rolling Stones, still with Brian Jones. His power still matching both Mick and Keith. Their sound still holding all the magical shimmer and fog he brought to it.
Chaka Khan with Rufus
Chaka Khan solo
Siouxsie and The Banshees- Christine
PIL performing Poptones live. Not as good as the recorded version on Metal Box. They didn't have it in them to hold together or to play live much. But the music they made in that brief period was great.
Garbage Man from the Cramps. I loved the Bryan Gregory period.
Killing Joke - The War Dance. Geordies great guitar that he played for their entire career and Jaz's mad, paranoid ranting. They really had a spark.
The Grateful Dead crowd. Parking Lot Scenes.
Hey we are playing some shows soon....
Jan
18th Saturday afternoon at George Lane, St Kilda Dave Graney and Clare Moore/Dave Graney and the mistLY
Dave
Graney, one of multiple singers at these three Tom Waits shows. Ten Years Of
Tom Waits. Focusing on albums betyween 77-87
"Celebrating
the 40th Anniversary of Tom Waits’ ‘Rain Dogs’ with 10 Years of Tom is a homage
to Tom Waits from 1977- 1987. Performed by Dave Graney, Lachlan Bryan,
Brooke Taylor, Delsinki and Maggie Alley. Backed by richly talented band"
Dave Graney and Clare
Moore – featuring Stuart Perera.
Digital album, out Now
14 songs. All new studio
affair, no songs written as chords and lyrics on a guitar. Cover image by Izabella Shaw.
"The sign of a good
album is that you immediately want to go back and listen to it again. As
someone who listens to at least three new albums a day as part of the process
of creating the World of Jazz and Different Noises Shows the chances these days
of listening to a new album more than once are small. With this one there is a
compulsion to return to it - the verbal dexterity alone is sufficient to
warrant repeat listenings but the difference in the music on offer this time
from Dave and Clare also draws me back to it. ".
Could be called our basement tapes album. (Our
studio is downstairs). Could also be our most post punkest of
albums. Certainly our most auto-harped album.
Some songs started life twenty years ago, some six
or seven years ago, two built from processed and distorted sounds recorded
almost thirty years ago. Four began life as bass and drum improvisations into a
single mic four months before the albums release and two as fresh as two months
before it was pronounced cut and printed.
“After we finished our April 2024 album (strangely)(emotional) Clare Moore suggested I do an album of
freewheeling lyrics and perhaps even talking/speaking. That’s where it kind of
started”.
Dave Graney – guitars,
bass, autoharp, some keys and some beats and lead vocals.
Clare Moore – keys,
vibes, drums, percussion, backing vocals.
Thanks to everybody who came along to our shows in 2024. We appreciate it. Thanks to Stu Thomas and Stuart Perera for playing music with us, as well as Greg Thorsby, Quintin Dunne, Martyn Casey and Adele Pickvance.
We are playing some shows in 2025 and here are some links...
Jan 18th Saturday afternoon at George Lane, St Kilda Dave Graney and Clare Moore/Dave Graney and the mistLY
Dave Graney, one of multiple singers at these three Tom Waits shows. Ten Years Of Tom Waits. Focusing on albums betyween 77-87
"Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Tom Waits’ ‘Rain Dogs’ with 10 Years of Tom is a homage to Tom Waits from 1977- 1987. Performed by Dave Graney, Lachlan Bryan, Brooke Taylor, Delsinki and Maggie Alley. Backed by richly talented band"
A Lost Lady by Willa Cather Clinton Walkers 33 1/3 book on Saturday Night Fever The first half of John Dos Passos USA Phillip Of Australia by M Barnard Eldershaw Nick Tosches Save The Last Dance For Satan The Collected short stories of JG Ballard
tv series
The Deuce From Man In A Suitcase Dangerman
podcasts
Sizzletown Nymphet Alumni BTR boxing Career overveiews of Sonny Liston and others History of Rock in 500 songs The Rest Is History - especially the lead up to WWI, and the Aztecs and Cortes.
Music
Tropical Strength by the Fauves Luxury Bat by Cold Hands Warm Heart
Probably the most played album would be Nicely Out Of Tune by Lindisfarne
Looking forward to.....
Album release from Twinkledigitz Single release by Keyo Roses Flying Circus
Could be called our basement tapes album.
Our studio is downstairs.
Could also be our most post-punkest of albums. Certainly our most auto-harped album.
Some songs started life twenty years ago, some six or seven years ago,
two built from processed and distorted sounds recorded almost thirty
years ago. Four began life as bass and drum improvisations into a single
mic four months before the albums release and two as fresh as three
months ago.
There are some two minute songs and several almost ten minute epics.
After we finished our April 2024 album (strangely)(emotional) Clare
Moore suggested I do an album of freewheeling lyrics and perhaps even
talking/speaking. That’s where it kind of started.
Elvis Never
(words
Dave Graney/music Dave Graney)
Dave Graney, found sounds, 4 track bounces and cuts and
pastes, vocals, keys, bass, guitar.
Australian colloquialism. When its said "so and
so never..." It means that didn't or never had to do somethin.
This and Still Got The Truth were slabs of cut and
paste chaos which I’d been experimenting with since 2021. I had bought a 4
track cassette recorder and was bouncing sounds into and out of it and bringing
them into the digital realm. I had no grid or sequence to cut it all to but I
could hear a beat and sang to it and then cut and pasted and deep fried it all
some more. I was most happy that the songs were barely two minutes in length.
Still Got The Truth (words
Dave Graney/music Dave Graney)
Dave Graney, found sounds, 4 track bounces and cuts and
pastes, vocals, bass, guitar
Its true- I still got the truth. But like the song says- you
got to choose your battles!
This and Elvis Never were of a pair in cut and paste madness and squall. Also both worked out of base material that was decades old. I
was most happy that the songs were barely two minutes in length.
Acceptable Back Story
(words
Dave Graney/music Dave Graney-Clare Moore)
Clare Moore, drums. Dave Graney, bass, reverse guitar sounds, vocal Stuart Perera, guitar Mark Fitzgibbon, piano from 2007 treated backwards (sorry
Mark)
Some people need trusted sources if they are going to give
you their attention. They are easily spooked. Musiccame from an
improvised session of bass and drums being recorded by one mic and a stereo
Zoom recorder in our studio in July 2024just before we headed off to do some shows interstate. We then forgot
about them. I just wanted to have a long groove that drifted in and out of
focus that I could talk over. It had a funny quality to it in that we were both hearing
the one in different places (as in 1-2-3-4) but it still all held together. I
brought in some backward sounds from older recordings. I also used a few studio
plugins that had a life of their own. Its all very improvised, even the studio
stuff.
"the principality of Werona" refers to the street I grew up in in Mt Gambier.
Parking Lot Scenes
(words
Dave Graney/music Dave Graney)
Dave Graney, beats, loop, bass, vocals, autoharp Stuart Perera,
guitar
(words
Dave Graney/music Dave Graney-Clare Moore-Stuart Perera)
Clare Moore, drums, backing vocals Dave Graney, bass, vocal Stuart Perera, guitar
From the improvised bass and drums into one mic session. Then Stuart Perera added some hard rock
tones and turned it into something else. I tried to keep the vocal steady and deadpan but commanding.
I didn't want to get all emotional/angry. Surely you have met people who have always had other people
following them to clean up their mess?
Goes back to 2004 and an experiment with open D tuning and
some 12 string raga guitar moments. Clare added a stomping bass drum and keys. When I had first dug it up and out and
spruced it a little she thought it was a track by the Moodists.
1985
(words
Dave Graney/music Dave Graney-Clare Moore-Stuart Perera)
Clare Moore, drums Dave Graney, bass, found sounds, effects, vocal Stuart Perera, guitar
A
roundabout song which in a roundabout way refers to the year before 1985. A
famous year that promised a dystopian world. But here we are decades later. From
an improvised session of bass and drums being recorded by one mic and a stereo
Zoom recorder in our studio in July 2024just before we headed off to do some shows interstate. We then forgot
about them. Stuart
Perera added some guitar and it seemed he heard a different song as he
transformed the whole vibe, like a jazz player taking off. He added all these
changes that were not there before. Changed it at will from minor to major.
A Rampart Across Time
(words
Dave Graney/music Stuart Perera)
Clare Moore, drums, organ Dave Graney, bass, vocal Stuart Perera, guitars
Stuart Perera sent me this music that he had recorded to his
phone back with his nylon string guitar in 2021.I turned into a song and sang along to it.
Stuart added some more guitar parts. Lovely kind of Bill Withers feel to it.
Girls Are Famous (words
Dave Graney/music Dave Graney-Clare Moore)
Clare Moore, drums, keys Dave Graney, bass, autoharp, vocal
From the improvised session.
Clare added some keys from a new/old module she bought after
we got back. The original jam was about ten minutes and I cut into it at about
half way through, when we had found a solid groove. The lyric is deadpan. The singer is a man and he is
addressing the listener who has to be another man. Talking about girls. Women.
Famous things are objects. That “people” stare at, consume, touch.
I Passed Through Minor Chord In a Morning
(words
Dave Graney/music Clare Moore
Clare Moore, drums, synth bass, vibes, keys Dave Graney vocal, fuzz guitar Stuart Perera, delay guitar
This was started by Clare Moore with a beat, keyboard bass
synth and vibes in 2008 and she had Stuart Perera play some guitar on it. Its
been sitting in the archives since then. The lyric is talking about Minor Chord
as a physical place - a town that the singer passes through. (I generally avoid
minor chords- and three/four or 6/8 time) . I thought the title had a cosmic folk ring to it. In some ways this is a Quantum Americana album.
Emcee Bitz
(words
Dave Graney/music Clare Moore)
Dave Graney, beat, vocals Clare Moore, organ, piano
Music is a powerful force for the listener but also for the
player. It can be toxic and dangerous. Dealing with forbidden, unspoken, antapped stuff. As well as many other positive things. This and Parking Lot Scenes were both studio improvisations
that happened when I learned how to loop a drum beat. Emcee Bitz is a lyric
about performing your life story.
I’m Against it (whadda you got?)
(words
Dave Graney/music Dave Graney)
Clare Moore, drums, keys, backing vocals Dave Graney, bass, guitars, keys, vocal Will Hindmarsh, backing vocals
Have
you ever seen the movie The Wild One? The scene where somebody asks Marlon
Brando what he is rebelling against? His answer was "whadda ya got?" Music
based on a rhythm track from 2016. And that was based on a track from 2007.
This dates from 2017 and concerns a story Georgio “the Dove”
Valentino (who we had just been touring with) told us about a childhood totem
he had taken with him on an epic journey of many years from Florida and around
the USA and Europe and the trauma he felt when it was stolen from his car one
dark night in Belgium.
I kept piling on guitars and autoharp and keys and using
processors and the 4 track bounces and compressors over and over. The chords
being strangely (for me) MAJOR.
photo Greg Thorsby
The Trojan Egg
(words
Dave Graney/music Dave Graney-Clare Moore)
Clare Moore, drums, organ Dave Graney, autoharp, vocal
The Trojan Egg was built up from the skeleton of a song that
appeared on Fearful Wiggings in 2014. Its a nice prog ending to an album of
strangeness and-hopefully-quirks and charm.
I PASSED THROUGH MINOR CHORD IN A MORNINGis a digital release and is available/ accessible through all digital outlets. I see us in a period where we will be releasing lots of music and its not possible for us to make physical releases of them all.
Dave Graney and Clare Moore with Georgio "the dove" Valentino and Malcolm Ross
Dave Graney and Clare Moore with Robin Casinader - In Concert
ONE MILLION YEARS DC
Starts with a Kinksy groover sketching a 21st century populist tyrant who coasts in power on waves of public resentment at those on the lowest rungs of the ladder (He Was A Sore Winner). Sweeps across a sci fi terrain with nods to songs in the sand at the end of the world (Pop Ruins) and nods to the ties that bind in the underground communities (Comrade Of Pop and Where Did All The Freaks Go?).
Songs about intense, long relationships, defunct technology that didn’t answer back, severe social status definition (I’m Not Just Any Nobody), people wandering through your mind as if it was a garage sale, the anxiety of the long running showman (wide open to the elements again) and ends with a song that’s “a little bit Merle Haggard and a little bit Samuel Beckett”.
" Edith Grove! Powis Square! 56 Hope Road! Petrie Terrace!..
The Roxy! The Odeon! Apollo! Palais! Olympia! The Whisky! Detroit Grande!”
Pop Ruins!"
ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS?
ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? (The title comes from the chorus of “Song Of Life” ) is a classic rock’n’roll album. Classic if you lived through what has become known as ”the classic rock era” as it rolled out new and even broke onto the beachhead and morphed into punk. That’s the direction Dave Graney and Clare Moore have always been coming from. They have spent their lives schooled by and immersed in rock ‘n’ roll culture. Neither attended higher education and they dived in deep and kept swimming. From the Moodists through the Coral Snakes /White Buffaloes to the mistLY
This is an album with their band, Dave Graney and the mistLY. Stuart Perera has played guitar with them since 1998 and Stu Thomas on bass since 2004. MARCH 2019
ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? 2019 album out on Compact Disc - available here via mail order...
If you are from outside of Australia and wish to purchase a Compact Disc copy of ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? please use this button (different postage)
LETS GET TIGHT
FEARFUL WIGGINGS
2014 solo album from Dave Graney.
*****"If I've learnt anything in my years of writing about music it's that if you are going to do anything of worth in this tough game, you better have your own thing. Today's generic is easily replaced by tomorrow's. And yet you need to be flexible, to follow wherever the songs demand. In the case of this, only the second credited as a solo album among 30 or so Graney releases, it's a curious yet welcoming lane he walks you down, with acoustic guitars, not much percussion, vibes, smooth sounds. At the end of it you feel like you've awoken from a strange yet pleasant summer's dream. As shot by Luis Bunuel. It ranges from off-kilter reveries (A Woman Skinnies Up a Man, The Old Docklands Wheel) through to the softly seductive (How Can You Get Out of London) and the downright arch (Look Into My Shades, Everything Is Great In The Beginning.) This is music that is neither folk, nor blues, nor country, but it's all Graney, somewhere out to the left field beyond Lee Hazlewood's raised eyebrow. It's astringent on the tongue but sweetens in the telling." Noel Mengel Brisbane Courier Mail
you've been in my mind
June 2012 super high energy pop rock album - blazing electric 12 strings - total 70s rock drive. Greatest yet! available via paypal - $20 pp
rock'n'roll is where I hide/- 2011 "vintage classics/ re recordings" on LIBERATION
SUPERMODIFIED - August 2010 remixed/re-sung/re-strung//remastered/replayed comp via PAYPAL
also available as a digital album
Knock yourself (2009)-first ever dg solo set-filthy electro r&b-available via Paypal- $20
available as a digital album too
We Wuz Curious (2008)-blazing R&B jazz pop album available via paypal-$20
UNAVAILABLE-COMPLETELY SOLD OUT!!!
AVAILABLE AS A DIGITAL album
Keepin' It Unreal-(2006)-minimalist/lyrical vibes, bass, 12 string set - CDs sold out - digital only
Hashish and Liquor (2005 double disc by Dave Graney and Clare Moore) available via Paypal $25
UNAVAILABLE-COMPLETELY SOLD OUT!!!
Single album HASHISH available as a digital release
Heroic Blues- "folk soul" set from 2002-Availableas a digital album via BandCamp
UNAVAILABLE ! Completely sold out!
It is written,baby-book released 1997- available $10 via paypal
