dave graney - Moodists-Coral Snakes-mistLY-FEARFUL WIGGINGS

dave graney - Moodists-Coral Snakes-mistLY-FEARFUL WIGGINGS
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About Me

My photo
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.

Friday, June 29, 2012

article for the current (winter) issue of Australian Musician magazine-


Of course you have to do things yourself in this world, if you really want to be sure they have been done. Also if you want anything done the way you want it to. Don’t hold everything too close to your chest though, that’s a bit creepy – and needy.
The way the music scene has been blown to pieces, you have to build your palace DIY anyway. Forget the idea of a Sugar Daddy coming to set it all up for you. You have to get your hands dirty all the way. Don’t be afraid to let people in is all I am here to say.

Modern technology has brought the studio into the realms of reality for anybody who wants to have a   go. Still, you need to get some knowledge in the black arts of the studio. You need to listen to people and to pick people brains. Of course, you can do a lot of this via the internets as well. Never leave your cave and pull in the knowledge of  the world. Of course, ultimately, you’ll have to dive in and press “record” and listen back. At that stage you’re by yourself as well, though wouldn’t it be great to have someone else there to bring their ears to the sounds as well? Through some trials and errors you get some tracks happening. You can do it all by yourself. In the olden days it was truly for the superfreaks like Dave Edmunds (“I hear you knockin”) or Todd Rundgren or Stevie Wonder (“Superstition”) or John Fogerty (“the blue ridge rangers”) who could cook up multitracks of pop genius in their own studios. They had grooves and feels at their fingertips. They had mad chops. They also had come out of group situations and had things to say that they wanted to capture all by themselves. They thought the sounds were so sweet and delicate that they could only be caught by a lone player. They were right too.
The DIY of 2012 has more often than not come straight to the solitary situation without ever experiencing the thrill of an idea being blown up huge and alive by a group of players in a room taking it and wailing hard. Some ideas are killed stone dead by all that energy, its true. Most are enlivened by it.
Anyway, it is possible nowadays for a lone star to do it all. A lot of music misses that extra filter of another person considering certain parts or possibilities of different tempos or arrangements. Think of a filmmaker sitting day after day editing the scenes. How does he get to trick his mind into seeing the whole film again as if for the first time? Usually he has to sit with someone else and watch it through him or her. Its powerful, the idea of another person. Because, with music, in the end, you’ll have to open the door and let a whole lot of people in to hear what it is you’ve been building up. And you can’t stand by them and tell them how to hear it properly.

I like to play music with my band. I write the tunes, words and music. I demo some songs or bring it to a rehearsal, then we go and play and after a while we go to a  studio. Of course, in the meantime we have shared many long drives and dull hours in between sound checks and shows and built up an understanding – a general feel for the battleground and a rough plan of attack. Quite detailed actually. I like to be in the room all together and lay it down quick. That’s me on electric 12 string and Clare Moore on drums (we’ve played together since 1979). Clare is great for arrangement ideas and textural hooks. A great drummer to begin with. Bass player Stu Thomas has been with us since 2004. He’s got a great ear for vocal harmonies and grooves. Stuart Perera has been with us since 1998. He plays a solid bodied Rickenbacker, left handed. Thats dave graney and the mistLY.

For this album we did very few overdubs, perhaps one acoustic guitar and some tambourine and some shakers and a guirro. I think we nailed the 70s rock sound I’ve always loved. By that I mean Lou Reed “Coney Island Baby” or the Stones “black and blue” 70s sounds. The guitars pretty clean and all intertwined, panned out, trebley and compressed. Mine through some Fender amps and Stu through his Laney. Lots of room in the sound too.

Then I went and mixed it all by myself. On our Protools setup. That stuff is so amazing to us- we knew the world when studios were expensive and full of tension and dread. Of course we also know that those same studios were like schools for engineers and love to work with people like Andrew “Idge” Hehir at Soundpark who have all those old school, big recording room skills of mic placement and people management. Melbourne is blessed with guys like that at the different studios. Some things you cant DIY. Use those white coated, backroom devils like Adam Rhodes and Casey Rice and Simon Grounds! They have skills and knowledge of arcane gadgets and mics. They know how shit works.
On this album Idge pulled out the ribbon microphone. I have never heard such a great vocal recording. Dark yet peaking with pink fuzz like some old 40s r&b session. Just the way I like it. Of course, sounds like that got made because we work fast and the engineer has to know his field and all the tools and gets shit down while the time is right. When you’re by yourself, you don’t get to be just the mule kicking in the stall (alright the vocal booth), you have to do the miking and the recording as well. Bummer.

Then there’s artwork. Graphics, lettering and the like. We have been lucky to work with Tony Mahony for two decades now. We’ve been with big labels and small and he’s brought some class and continuity to all our releases. He has old school skills too. He letters and draws by hand. To do that sort of stuff DIY takes a long time of dedicated sketching and cutting just for practice, before you let loose on someones image.

Yeah, you can do all sorts of stuff by yourself but musics a scene where its about people, in the end. You have to let go and let other people get their hands on it. You see how strong what it is that you’ve cooked up is then, anyway.

dave graney and the mistLY have a  new album “you’ve been in my mind” . written, recorded and mixed by them, on their own label COCKAIGNE, out now through Fuse Music Group. 


Wednesday, June 20, 2012

you've been in my mind - out now


dave graney and the mistLY
you’ve been in my mind

  1 : blues negative
  2 : flash in the pantz
  3 : field record me
  4 : we need a champion
  5 : I don’t wanna know myself
  6 : cop this, sweetly
  7 : life’s a dream
  8 : playin’ chicken
  9 : midnight cats
 10 : mt gambier night
 11 : mistral
 12 : I’m not the guy I tried to be

extra tracks
13 : cop this,sweetly (demo version)
14 : we need a champion (demo version)
15 : I don’t wanna know myself (demo version)

all songs written by dave graney
© Mushroom music
(p) cockaigne 2012






cover art by tony mahony


dave graney and the mistLY
you’ve been in my mind

recorded January 2012 at soundpark studios Melbourne
recording engineer andrew “idge” hehir
mixed at the ponderosa by dave graney


dave graney, vocals, 6 and 12 string electric guitar
clare moore, drums, percussion  and backing vocals
stu Thomas, bass and backing vocals
stuart perera electric guitar and backing vocals

mastered by greg wadley

artwork and photos by tony mahony
photo of dave at the mt gambier mill by krystin jones

dave graney and the mistLY  (aka the lurid yellow mist). The album is full of pop rock sensation, flash  and drama and the aforementioned outfit fires at will with a simple but totally drilled arsenal of two electric guitars, bass and drums. It will be the first album of new dave graney songs since “knock yourself out” in 2009.

a few words from dave…
this bunch of songs was recorded quickly, just the way I like it. Its not about layers of sounds, its just the simple setup of the band in the room and the songs. We knew them all pretty well so every song was put down to the machines with absolute certainty, power and poise. Its got all the flavours and tones about music that I’ve loved.They all came out in this session. . I guess the bedrock tone and attitude of my music is 70s rock.  That’s the west coast american sound in the vocals and my guitar and the r&b grooves and the jazz voicings of the chords. They are all the changes and tempos  that come out of me, naturally. Its pretty upbeat and begins with a  2:40 second song called blues negative that’s over before you know it and doesn’t let up”.

you’ve been in my mind comes out on cd with three extra tracks, demo versions of songs as first put down by dave graney and clare moore. The digital version of the album doesn’t have these tracks but includes the earlier 2012 single “king of the dudes” and two remixes of older dave graney songs, “sometimes you can see yourself” from 2005 and “midnight to dawn” from 2005.The latter features a cameo vocal from fellow traveller Henry wagons.

dave graney and the mistLY  will be touring nationally to promote the album in July.


2012 shows 
dave graney and the mistLY
Thursday 19th July - Lizottes, Kincumber
Friday 20th July- Lizottes, Newcastle
Saturday 21st July - Notes, Newtown (click here to book tix)
Sunday 22nd July Lizottes Dee Why
****all nsw dates w/ liz martin
Friday 27th July- the Regal Ballroom,High st Northcote-Melbourne
click here to book- click here to book tickets for the Regal Ballroom
**** special guests Matt Walker + Adele and Glenn
Saturday 28th July- Baha Tacos- RYE

Saturday 18th August Republic Bar- Hobart
Thursday 23rd August Starcourt theatre - Lismore
Friday 24th August - Miami Tavern- Gold Coast, QLD
Saturday 25th - Beetle Bar- Brisbane
Sunday 26th August - Sol bar - Maroochydore, QLD
Thursday 30th August - Aararat Live - Vic
Friday 31st August - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sunday 2nd September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA

Coming to WA in October.




the back cover of the album is a shot I took of a disused mill on the east side of mt gambier, near where I grew up. Off Pick avenue.



 

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

great live performance from 2011 - look out for "you've been in my mind"

This is a clip from a show we did at the South Melbourne Town Hall, in the Old Council Chambers, in July 2011. It was at the end of a  long series of live shows and a rare hook up with Mark Fitzgibbon on piano. We like to play in different rooms. This was a show as part of the Melbourne Cabaret Festival, an annual event curated by a couple of great guys who used to run the Butterfly Club, which is a cute room right next door to this Town Hall. We did a few "narrative type shows there. Hour long series of songs around a theme and a story. All my songs to start with. "Point Blank" was me, Clare on vibes and Mark on the stand up piano there. No mic, just singing into the tiny room.
Then we did  a sequel "live in hell" which had me, Clare on a small drum kit, Stu Thomas on a  fuzz bass through a tiny amp and Stuart Perera on nylon string guitar. That had songs on a  them , my own and covers of Roxy Music, the Fall, Elvis and the Doors.
Then we did "MC Bits" which was me on guitar and singing and Mark Fitzzgibbon on piano. Songs of mine and others by Suicide, Bert Jansch, Hoagy Carmichael, Kevin Ayers and Robyn Hitchcock. Oh, and  run through "the blind mans penis" by John Trubee.We did these mainly at the Butterfly Club but also at the Adelaide Festival theatre and the Sydney Opera House. FRom 2007-2010.

This show was just us bringing our rock songs into a  different environment. Playing very quietly. Not many people came. We enjoyed ourselves greatly. You have to do different things if you're a musician.

Gina Robertson filmed it and the sound is great, because of the volume we are playing at.





Mark is now in Shanghai where he has been playing in a jazz band five nights a week at the same hotel since this performance happened.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

a few words about the mistLY




Stuart Perera plays guitar in our band, the mistLY. He was born in '77, the year I pretty much thought about playing music. We had another guitar player Bill Miller (who hasn’t played with us for seven years) had  a number one record with his band , the Ferrets in the same year. We had no trouble talking about musical ideas  because we all like playing music. Its like solving a series of problems, or walking across some abstract plane that keeps changing as you set each foot down. Some times its like a 3 dimensional field and you can see where the notes and the beats fall before it happens. Other times its like a fogged battlefield. Does that make us diggers! Cripes!
Bill went off for a walk a while ago. 2005. He was “gonna be some time”. Actually I started to play more guitar and there wasn’t the room or the moolah.

Clare Moore and I have played music together the whole way. Since 1978. We have shared our terrestrial life as well. We get to run out on that abstract field and we are fully manifest there. We know that. We don't talk about it much , we just know it. The band is completed by our bass player Stuart Thomas and, sometimes , our jazz fellow traveller. Mark Fitzgibbon. (He is full of talk, spending so much of his time in a completely abstract, instrumental world. He loves to talk of the indignities that come your way as you live a musical life. Each outrage is documented and recast to his new audience, us, in even grizzler detail.) Mark has been living in Shanghai for the last year or so, playing piano in a  jazz band five nights a week.

Stu Thomas plays in the Surrealists with Kim Salmon. He also plays his own music with the Stu Thomas Paradox and with Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes (who also feature Clare Moore).
Anyway, we all meet up, like the Wild Bunch and deal with whatever spotfire or situation I have gotten us into. Its not like a band where the experience has all been shared. We all came by a different route. We've all been up and we've all been down. We like to play in this field, this area we know how to operate in. Its like being a pro gambler or a fighter I guess, only the stoned will know. Memory doesn't have much to do with it. We've had to make up some other way to speak with each other. We can't just refer to past battle plans and victories or defeats. Its always been new. We have to go over the top together.

Stuart Perera has played on every album since “the Dave Graney Show” in 1998 the year that broke on us after we finished playing with the Coral Snakes. It was my idea to finish that scene and start again. I needed to do it. Stuart was playing at a  VCA jazz youth concert and I asked him to play for us. I was lucky, . He also plays around Melbourne clubs very regularly in a funk outfit. He is highly match fit. Not at all indie either.

Adele Pickvance played bass on that Dave Graney Show cd and several that followed. She left to rejoin the Go Betweens. Stu Thomas has played with us since 2004 and made his recorded debut on “keepin’ it unreal” in 2006.
Most albums we have made have include about 40% of material recorded and played completely at our Ponderosa studio by Clare Moore and myself. The rest we have gone into a bigger room/ studio and laid down tracks with our band.

For this new album “you’ve been in my mind”, like last years “re recordings album “rock’n’roll is where I hide”, we went and put the whole album down in a big room at Soundpark sthudios in Melbourne. All in the room together, with minimal overdubs, only vocals and percussion.

Its always been a thing with us to have a band. The music sounds best with a collective feel and energy. A unit that is locked in together. Someone could write a book about holding a band together. It might be a bit tedious for some but you consider say, Duke Ellington who had 16 of the greatest, (and they all knew it) players in the world of jazz. They rode trains and buses and planes and reassembled on stages together for 40 years! He apparently never sacked anybody. He just sat someone down next to them playing the same instrument. At the beginning of a show they would do a fanfare, a blast of notes. Everybody had to have their own note. Players  would call out , “get off my fuckin’ note!”
We also like to have a band because our songs need instrumentation and dynamics. We don’t really believe that everything can be boiled down to a single element of an acoustic guitar. I once saw Prince do an acoustic set on cable tv. It was so throwaway as he knew it was NOT what it was supposed to sound like. Nothing else was revealed. Its the same with songs by August Darnell (Kid Creole). The tunes are simple but the rhythms and melodies are nuanced and sophisticated and need the voices and voicings of a couple of keys players, guitar and percussion as well as drums and bass and vocals to bring it to life.

Occasionally we play a show with a keyboard player. Mark Fitzgibbon, a  jazz powerhouse, played with us on “HASHISH and LIQUOR” in 2005 and then on “WE WUZ CURIOUS” in 2008. He’s been involved in the  narrative shows, “POINT BLANK” ,”LIVE IN HELL” and “MC BITS”.

Mark was living in Perth for 2009. That year we had the pleasure of playing with  ADAM RUDEGEAIR who plays with his own jazz trio as well as with HENRY MANETTA AND THE TRIP.
Clare Moore has recorded and played with the latter as well as with JANE DUST AND THE GIANT HOOPOES   (who also feature Stu Thomas on bass) and  THE DAMES ( with Kaye Louise Patterson and Rosie Westbrook).
Dave Graney and Clare Moore also played with  SALMON,a seven guitar/two drummer hard rock orchestra devised by Kim Salmon very occasionally during 2007-2009 and also as bass and drums with HARRY HOWARDS N.D.E. The NDE have an album out in 2012 called “Near Death Experience “ On Spooky Records.

Stu Thomas has his band THE STU THOMAS PARADOX.

We like to play a  pretty upbeat set when we appear. Not much room for ballads.

Our new cd is called “You’ve been in my mind”. Its 12 tracks recorded in two days and mixed by myself over a longer period . Its out on June 22nd. On Cockaigne through Fuse.

Its a guitar jamming pop rock album.The songs are real strong.Written and played together over a  long period. 

I play a Music Man copy 12 string electric through my solid state Fender amp. Stuart Perera plays a sold bodied Rickenbacker througha  small Laney valve amp.
Clare Moore plays her Gretsch kit which she bought in London in 1983. Stu Thomas plays a Fender P bass through an Avalon pre amp into the desk.

It’s the first bunch of new songs I’ve recorded with the mistLY (as a unit with Stu Thomas and Stuart Perera featuring) sing “ we wuz curious” in 2008 (and that was the first album Stu Thomas played on). The last set of new songs of mine that came out was “knock yourself out” in 2009. That was billed as a solo set though Clare wrote half of the songs and played on most and Stu and Stuart guested on many,

Live dates

Thursday 19th July Lizottes- Kincumber
Friday 20th July – Lizottes – Newcastle
Saturday 21st July – Notes, Newtown
Sunday 22nd July – Lizottes Dee Why

Friday 27th July – the Regal Ballroom – high st Northcote with Matt Walker and Adele and Glenn (Go Betweens/Custard)

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