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.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

talk of The Dead

When we set up to play in Lismore, the front of house mixer was playing "working mans dead" over the pa. It sounded great. Later, before the opening act went on, I asked if he had any other Dead stuff on his player. He had it all and I asked could he play "blues for allah" all night. This, he did.
The opening act were very young. Two women and two men. After the gig, when were all packing up and havinga  laugh I told the two girls that their singer should get an electric guitar ( he was fooling with an acoustic) - perhaps a Gibson Explorer or Firebird- and grow his hair long as he had a  bit of a Charles Manson look about him. I also said that they ( the girls) should daub crosses on their foreheads and stare directly at the audience. I told the bass player he could smile and nobody else.

The next day I took my guitar to get the toggle switch fixed in town. I told the guy that the gig had been cool and that the mixer had played the Dead. He kept working but pointed at a  picture on the wall. There was indeed a framed shot of Jerry Garcia. We talked idly of the Dead and such for the short amount of time it took to put a new switch in. He plays in a  band in Lismore who do a few Dead tunes, as well as some  Airplane stuff. "People around here know it too!" he added. I don't doubt it.

A big part of me fucking died on the Gold Coast.

Brisbane's Beetle Bar is a great joint run by cool people. The audience were so into our stuff it was like being hugged and yelled at and embraced all night. people in Brisbane are ferocious when they get into something. Felt really elated.

It'll be a  long while before we are back up that way. Actually, I'm back there next week for a Brisbane Writers Festival gig. I'm part of a panel and also doing one of those nights where they rave on about a certain rock album. They've done this in Melbourne. Fleetwood Mac's' self titled album, then INX's KICK and this time "Ziggy Stardust". I mean they're doing it in Melbourne and also in Brisbane. A band does the songs and a writer has to do a  turn in some other way thats related to the album.




Thursday 30th August - Aararat Live - Vic
Saturday 1st September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sunday 2nd September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA (4pm show)
Sat 15th September Westernport Hotel - San Remo
Friday 21st September - Palais- Hepburn Springs
Saturday 22nd September - NEWPORT SUBSTATION - NEWPORT book tickets here




a fucking great article on us in a  Brisbane based magazine...click






Tuesday, August 28, 2012

abandoned giant prawn.... ......

Played in a lovely room in Lismore. Although when unpacking I noted that the airport baggage handlers had been so rough with my guitar that the toggle switch had been jammed back into the guitars body. Couldn't switch between pickups.
The promoter had provided a fender Blues Junior for me and a Fender Twin  for Stu. Well, I baggsed the Junior anyway.
Lovely to play in a  theatre.



Met up with the Stress of Leisure, who were lending us their backline, at  the gig on the Gold Coast. I had a  Blues Junior again. Stu had a Vox. The Stress of Leisure were terrific. Great big choruses and bangin' beats. Loud Synth lines and Ian wailing with his voice and his Strat.

The Beetle Bar was a really cool joint run by people who dig music. Thats all we ask!
The audience were ferocious, as only Brisbane people can be.

The Sol Bar in Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast is a fucking lovely joint. Both Stu and I were provided with Fender Hot Rod Deluxes, mine being tweed. Both of us fucking want them now!

People were listening in a Sunday night kind of way and we blasted them with two sets.


Thursday 30th August - Aararat Live - Vic
Saturday 1st September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sunday 2nd September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA (4pm show)
Sat 15th September Westernport Hotel - San Remo
Friday 21st September - Palais- Hepburn Springs
Saturday 22nd September - NEWPORT SUBSTATION - NEWPORT book tickets here




a fucking great article on us in a  Brisbane based magazine...click



Wednesday, August 22, 2012

How I wrote you've been in my mind"




blues negative. I wrote this little lick to start the song off , it’s all around a D 6/7th. Then it flows into the Em6/7 th that I call the verse. A very open chorded song with a charging latin beat. The lyric is a bit of a blues joke “I didn’t wake up this mornin’/my woman was there…”
Kind of a post punk feel in the cascading chords in the chorus. Though this is what I meant when I said the album was "west coast". I meant the latin beats, the electric 12 string  and the harmonies.

flash in the pantz. Very blocked out major chords. I asked the mistLY to play it like a real 80s song. Like the Cars or something. Muted and dampened. The chorus opens out to a  suspended and then to a  minor 7th. Jazz style chords. Song is about life on earth. Also about being a man and how we see women. "I'm a man! I do the seein' and the lookin!"

field record me. I’m asking for a bunch of super smart aliens to come and dig me! Because the people on earth ain’t! Songs verse is in Aminor and descends within that A root note. The Chorus is Em to F with a  flat 7th. I hear this as a blues song. R&B. A BIG chorus.

we need a champion.Had this groove for ages, demoed it in 2004 and that demo is on the cd. Major chords in the verse. The chorus is D9 to Dm7 to A9 to A6/7th. The middle 8 is B to F#. Lyrical concern is about the dearth of champions in Australian public life. the politics, what a bunch of mediocrities! Sounds very West Coast and mid seventies to me. 

I don’t wanna know myself.   Found myself reading a mag about some dork musicians “life journey” to “know himself”. This wrote itself in two minutes. What I don’t know by now - I don’t wanna know!”
Opens in A to G. Verse is in E7 to some other E and then A-G#- C#m B-A. I love those chords. 

cop this, sweetly. Demoed this in 2004, well the song didn’t have those shimmering chords at the start then. They are E to F# to A to E
The verse is Em to Am and Em to G to A
The chorus is some wide open D7sus to F7/9th to G. Wide and suspended chords. The song title uses the Australian vernacular. 

life’s a dream. Had these opening licks for a long time. Well all the chords actually. Took ages to get the right lyric. This tripped off very sweetly, when I got them. Cmaj7 – C9 - Gmaj7- then to Dm9 to G9.
The chorus is A#maj7-Amaj7 A#maj7 and ends on Gm-Gmaj7 -G9. I reckon a lot of people could sing this song. 

playin’ chicken. This song is about playing another song of mine. The one people call “the chicken song” . Nobody knows the title. I do. Very open chords. Amaj7 to Gm in the verse then all these descending chords  around E, ending on Em7. The chorus is Em9 to dmaj7. A great disco beat in the chorus.

midnight cats. A song about the subconscious. Thoughts and emotions padding across your brain night and day. And you don’t know. The stuff that is mostly YOU.  All kinds of fruity chords in this. Wherever there's a chord, throw a flattened 5! Verse is in Dsus to a flat 5 to a Bflat5. I give up.

mt gambier night. This starts in Cm9 to Gm9 then Dm7/9 to Em9 to Gm9. Then a bunch of chords moving around an A root note then Dm9 to Em9. A song about walking around a small town which you grew up in - at night- and the darkness envelopes you and a  strange funk gets within you right to your bones.

mistral. One of my favourite songs. F3sus to B to Asus….Hell the chorus is Fm to Fsus9 to E the same way. The mistLY thought I was mad. 

I’m not the guy I tried to be. I was singing about something Willie Nelson once was reported saying as he looked through the curtains to peer at the people who were coming to see him. But I got it all wrong and wrote this instead. Its in E. Chorus is in A though. "once I had so many futures? i was furious goin' foward". 

This record is the best rock album we've ever made. And lyrically its the most straight on and concise. Just the right balance of killing language and throwaway attitude. The "throwaway" being right there in the writing too. Right through it. My "throwaway" is my best though. Most others would dream of trash that great. 


This week we are in QLD- come along to a show.


Thursday 23rd August Starcourt theatre - Lismore Book tickets here
Friday 24th August - Miami Tavern- Gold Coast, QLD
Saturday 25th - Beetle Bar- Brisbane book tickets here 
Sunday 26th August - Sol bar - Maroochydore, QLD Tickets are currently available at Solbar. Ring us for details: 07 5443 9550
Tickets are also available at: Ebony Rose & Billy Hyde 
Maroochydore
Thursday 30th August - Aararat Live - Vic
Saturday 1st September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sunday 2nd September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sat 15th September Westernport Hotel - San Remo
Friday 21st September - Palais- Hepburn Springs
Saturday 22nd September - NEWPORT SUBSTATION - NEWPORT book tickets here

This tour is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria




Monday, August 20, 2012

interviewed by Ben Michael X about YOU"VE BEEN IN MY MIND


An edited version of this emailed interview is in the current issue of "RHYTHMS magazine. 



Your book’s been out for a year or so now. Has anything changed?  New fans?  New doors opened?

People have been coming up to me and saying very complimentary and nice things. Just yesterday a music biz gent stopped me and barked " loved the book! I missed out on your career so it was good to catch up!" Things like that stay with me.
Other people sent very heartfelt letters and emails, as if we were old friends, and we were in some ways.
I am still doing some literary type events and write a column for the Melbourne Review every month. 
In some ways it led to the title of this album, "you've been in my mind". 
I get squeamish when family or close friends mention my book, I scramble to change the subject. They have been in my mind. With around twenty five albums or so I have been opening my brain for a  long time. Its a public space!

 The new album has a very specific tonal feel. In both production and playing. What were you aiming for?

Well we are in the same studio and the same engineer as our 2011 album of re recordings "rock'n'roll is where I hide"  so we liked the situation and the approach. Hardly any overdubs, no layering , just panning the approximate placement of the different instruments.
I do most vocal takes once, maybe twice.
Recording songs the band knows their parts and getting a  performance. This time with unrecorded songs of mine. 
A pretty upbeat record. Where we master it, Greg Wadley is always getting out a Radiohead cd to use as some sort of a standard. I'm always telling him to get that shit away from my music. I make him play a  Bobby Womack best of to tune his ears. 
My musical forms and feels are very much 70s rock. Southern rock, mid seventies Stones. Clean guitars and grooves. Vocals up front. West Coast in some ways with lots of singing.
I love to play electric guitar and love my 12 string. Worked a lot on getting a super clean sound out of a  solid state amp. 
Stuart  Perera's blazing lead is a real feature on the album. Stu Thomas is a great bass player. The album charges along for 6 tracks before we take a breath with "lifes a dream". That song is something I'm very mystified by, I think its something that , in a different music scene, all kinds of people could cover. I've only written a  few songs like that. 

The album does jump out of the gates, although a thing that interests me is, you’ll still throw in a not obvious chord change to keep us guessing.  You don’t go for the big major chord change – why is that?

 Well I did do that with the song "flash in the pantz" which I have been fooling around on for a  while. Its got big , blocked major chords and then flips to a suspended and a  minor 7th in the chorus. So, in my mind I was looking for a very 80s, tightly would and dampened feel for the verse. Something like teh Cars or Midnight Oil. Then I wanted the chorus to be like something from a mad jazz musical, something like "its time" by Max Roach.
 "we need a champion" is pretty much major chords as well. I am jealous of songwriters who can work with real primary colours. Ron Sexsmith and Robyn Hitchcock and Will Hindmarsh from GoGo Sapien. 
Other songs on the album are more in my weird melange of what I would identify as Brazilian / jazz/ r&b chordings and voicings. I like music to be open.

Another quirk I’ve noticed is that your live shows have become Springsteen esque in length.  I don’t know how you do it. I’m a 45 minute man myself – would do less if I could.  What is it about the long show that excites you?  Life is short, there’s much to say?  Or a reaction against the more fashionable punk short sets.

I got too many songs! Over the last few years we've done two albums that were pretty retrospective in tone. "Supermodified" and "rock'n'roll is where I hide" . In the middle of that I had all these songs and was wanting to start to play them into shape. Usually just getting warmed up after 45 minutes!
A 3 hour gig would be great to do.

Tell me about Stu Perrera.  An underrated guitarist if ever there was one.  Beyond fashion.

 Stu joined us in 1998, after we finished with the Coral Snakes and Universal records. I saw him playing at a youth jazz workshop concert. I wanted to get a  band of teenagers. Got sick of talking to kids still at high school who were going to have to get their parents permission. Stu sounded great. I wanted to have a "beat combo" with clean and dry guitar sounds and simple songs. We did a great album for Festival called "the dave graney show" and he has been on every album ever since. A great guy. Loves jazz and Slash and plays all the time in bars in the inner city. Totally match fit.. He lived in his van in the street for about four years, holding down a job and doing gigs. Very well educated. He plays a left handed solid body Rickenbacker through a small Laney valve combo. He used to drive   a Morris Minor but has had his hot rodded Bedford van for a  while now.


You’ve always had a knack of finding new cool musicians/bands, often giving them the chance to open for you at shows. Music seems very exciting at the moment, who’s new and tickling your fancy?

Well I love Go Go Sapien for their songs and their daring. The presentation they put into shows and their great songs. I also love Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes. Clare and Stu play in them so I hear what they are cooking up. the new album is going to be a very prog/space rock set. Matt Walker is putting out a  new album and he is a killer singer , player and songwriter. The Sons of Rico from Perth are favourites. Their last album was so NOT indie rock it was amazing. I also loved Dan Kellys last album. Many others. The last Beastie Boys album. The new Bobby Womack album .

And a final one.

Five decades of music.  It’s kinda insane.  One of the things that has always struck me is your and Clare is purity – you have committed to this life – no jobs on the side, etc.
Most people flake out.
What are you most proud of?  Come on, open up, brother.

Pride means hubris. An emotion I am rarely possessed by. I do love playing with the mistLY. I've leaned a lot from Stuart and Stu and Clare. Amazing players and very sophisticated sensibilities. Thats a bit of pride but mostly just happiness I guess.
Mostly proud of some of the songs I've written that I think could be played or sung by other people in other times. On this record I think there's "life's a dream" and "I'm not the guy I tried to be". On previous records there have been others of these "neo-standards". "Saturday night bath" on Hashish and Liquor"and "don't mess with the blood" on Heroic Blues. The other songs on this album and the ones before it I am also proud of. They're highly tuned and stressed patterns of my own peculiar interests and blues. Very rich and strongly flavoured.
"mt gambier night" and "playing chicken" on this album.
My favourite songs I've recorded have usually ended the albums. Long, meditative pieces. Songs like "crime and underwear" from "we wuz curious" and "everything flies away" from "I was the hunter and I was the prey". 
So I'm proud of the people I play with and pretty much all of the work, some of it a little bit more than the rest. 

Cheers dave, I love the easy going, cocksure nature of the newie.  See you soon I hope.







This week we are in QLD- come along to a show.


Thursday 23rd August Starcourt theatre - Lismore Book tickets here
Friday 24th August - Miami Tavern- Gold Coast, QLD
Saturday 25th - Beetle Bar- Brisbane book tickets here 
Sunday 26th August - Sol bar - Maroochydore, QLD Tickets are currently available at Solbar. Ring us for details: 07 5443 9550
Tickets are also available at: Ebony Rose & Billy Hyde 
Maroochydore
Thursday 30th August - Aararat Live - Vic
Saturday 1st September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sunday 2nd September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sat 15th September Westernport Hotel - San Remo
Friday 21st September - Palais- Hepburn Springs
Saturday 22nd September - NEWPORT SUBSTATION - NEWPORT book tickets here

This tour is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria


Sunday, August 19, 2012

Hobart! Come On! Fuck Off!


Yes the Gretsch Filtertrons are doing the trick with TONE on my 12 string electric.

Went down to Hobart to play at the Republic Bar. A cool venue in the North part of that town.

We were playing two sets. I took my Fender combo on the plane. Clare picked up a  kit . Stu Perera took his Laney and Stu Thomas put his bass through his new bass head into the PA.

The first song, ‘we don’t belong to anybodY’ has a coda where it winds down and I introduce us, as if we are among strangers and well… we don’t belong to anybody ….so “come on ! it’s a sweet ride”.

As I was doing this a buxom woman with a  few genuine tatts on her arms leaned on the stage and started asking me where my leather pants were. This is how I flew to the gig



Perfectly respectable I thought. I gave up trying to talk for a  while and just got into the playing . Digging the sound and the songs. I like playing two sets, you get to stretch out.

AT the end of that set , the lady came up to talk. She moved here from Qld and works in a “shithole called Huonville and when I saw you were playing I thought ‘yeah!dave graney! those tight leather pants! where ARE THEY?’” I said I had a  big wardrobe and felt like wearing  suit. She didn’t like it.

I talked a  lot more in the second the second set . I told them about how “flash in the pantz” was about life on earth and also how concerned I was in my travels about the world that there were so many monuments to the achievements of women., How it oppressed us men. “ Such a chorus of “FuuuuuuCk OOOOFFFFSSSS!” ensued. I copped it , sweetly.



The night went on with a  swinging duality of “come ons” and “fuck offs”.



Hobart could kill more delicate people. They don’t scare me.
Crude, brutish, salty types, like the people I grew up with. 

Strangely, when we play there , people come who are on holiday in town.
A man came up who had last seen us in Melbourne in 1994. He travelled down for the show. He used to come to our gigs and always take me aside for a  joint. I liked that sort of thing.
A woman came up to me at the end saying “ I’m Julie and I’m OLD! SORRY!”
Another come on and fuck off again I guess.
Blew town the next day. Ran into a young friend who is always inspiring to chat to.

This week we are in QLD- come along to a show.


Thursday 23rd August Starcourt theatre - Lismore Book tickets here
Friday 24th August - Miami Tavern- Gold Coast, QLD
Saturday 25th - Beetle Bar- Brisbane book tickets here 
Sunday 26th August - Sol bar - Maroochydore, QLD Tickets are currently available at Solbar. Ring us for details: 07 5443 9550
Tickets are also available at: Ebony Rose & Billy Hyde 
Maroochydore
Thursday 30th August - Aararat Live - Vic
Saturday 1st September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sunday 2nd September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sat 15th September Westernport Hotel - San Remo
Friday 21st September - Palais- Hepburn Springs
Saturday 22nd September - NEWPORT SUBSTATION - NEWPORT book tickets here

This tour is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria




Thursday, August 16, 2012

wild bill - kenny burrell - fear- hamiltonian hellmouth etcetc

Spent the day in town after a 10 am call to an ABC Tardis booth to talk with and play an acoustic song on Leon Comptons show on ABC Hobart. Its always amazing how much looser and less fearful of their audience the local ABC is outside the Melbourne and Sydney frequencies. Always been welcome at ABC Hobart and Launceston and Darwin, Bendigo,Warrnambool, Brisbane, Adelaide and Coast FM. The way they talk to you is different too. Its definitely the feeling they are less scared of upsetting somebody. Maybe they know the audience more in smaller places. More intimate. Anyway. it was great to do the interview and the whole thing being conducted thousands of k's apart via the technology. Would be great , of course, if the ABC could throw as much of its resources behind music as it does to sport.

Dropped into Basement Discs in the city. A lovely , almost spring day walking around that area of arcades and tiny streets. Always dig that. Bought a Kenny Burrell disc called "Midnight Blue" and then spent most of the day in the Melbourne library. Something I've always meant to do if I had a  few hours to spare. Up in the Redmond Barry and Latrobe reading rooms. They are exhibiting Ned Kellys armour in there. Ned was of course sentenced by Redmond Barry and yelled that he'd see the judge in hell and Redmond popped his cork within a  year.

Then met up with Clare and saw a film at the festival called "WILD BILL" about a gangster in south london trying to go straight and reconcile with his two sons, 15 and 11, who are living by themselves in their council flat. The film is great. Seemed to have a  lot of familiar faces in it. Some even people I thought I knew!



Saturday 18th August Republic Bar- Hobart click here to book tix
Thursday 23rd August Starcourt theatre - Lismore Book tickets here
Friday 24th August - Miami Tavern- Gold Coast, QLD
Saturday 25th - Beetle Bar- Brisbane book tickets here 
Sunday 26th August - Sol bar - Maroochydore, QLD Tickets are currently available at Solbar. Ring us for details: 07 5443 9550
Tickets are also available at: Ebony Rose & Billy Hyde 
Maroochydore
Thursday 30th August - Aararat Live - Vic
Saturday 1st September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sunday 2nd September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sat 15th September Westernport Hotel - San Remo
Friday 21st September - Palais- Hepburn Springs
Saturday 22nd September - NEWPORT SUBSTATION - NEWPORT book tickets here

This tour is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria






Tuesday, August 14, 2012

current sounds?

been enjoying listening to a lot of music from that british folk scene. Bert Jansch, Davey Graham, Linda Thompson.
Have been playing a Syd Barrett compilation a lot.Had it for ages.  Like the penny finally dropped with me. The scales fell from my ears.
His music goes places only jazz ever reaches with me. Same with a  lot of British folk rock.
Syds mad time and chord changes really fold up into themselves so beautifully.
He was really making music for the sake of it. No business, no thoughts of a  listener even. A true blues-man.

Also enjoying getting into the back catalogue of Paul Westerberg, certainly one of the best rock songwriters of the last 25 years. I love the last Replacements album, "all shook down". The only other one I'm really familiar with is "pleased to meet me" which has his classic "alex chilton" tribute/paen.

Also loving a CTI Kenny Burrell album called "god bless the child". Lost worlds.

Feeling quite isolated and adrift from most currents in the music scene. Thats common I suppose.  I like a  lot of contemporary music. The horrible alternative rock orthodoxy is getting worse. The 90s for me were the Beastie Boys and other hip hop and trip hop stuff. The 80s were all underground.

The new album , "you've been in my mind" has been sounding great in our live shows. Its our best ever rock album, and I mean the Moodists period as well.

The most welcoming people to the sounds have been at the Melbourne and Sydney Triple M stations. they've been playing it a bit at night. Other places, except for community radio, are so uptight. Reflective of the orthodoxy that runs through mainstream culture. All you have to do is keep getting up and working.

The Melbourne launch of our album was problematic and we intend to arrange a show at a more suitable venue.

A young film maker called Nick Cowans has shot and edited a  video for a  song called :"we need a champion" and its looking great. The clip involves a bit of a  dance contest/showdown.

other dates are looking good. Come to a show, the band is really something else. No one plays guitar like Stuart Perera and Stu Thomas and Clare Moore are the greatest and most sophisticated rhythm section. And everybodys singing.




Saturday 18th August Republic Bar- Hobart click here to book tix
Thursday 23rd August Starcourt theatre - Lismore Book tickets here
Friday 24th August - Miami Tavern- Gold Coast, QLD
Saturday 25th - Beetle Bar- Brisbane book tickets here 
Sunday 26th August - Sol bar - Maroochydore, QLD Tickets are currently available at Solbar. Ring us for details: 07 5443 9550
Tickets are also available at: Ebony Rose & Billy Hyde 
Maroochydore
Thursday 30th August - Aararat Live - Vic
Saturday 1st September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sunday 2nd September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
Sat 15th September Westernport Hotel - San Remo
Friday 21st September - Palais- Hepburn Springs
Saturday 22nd September - NEWPORT SUBSTATION - NEWPORT book tickets here

This tour is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria




Monday, August 13, 2012

you've been in my mind hobart-qld-sa-vic tour dates




yeah whats been goin'on? Melbourne people! We will be doing other gigs at proper venues!....
Great to play with Matt Walker and also Adele and Glenn. ....
Liz Martin and Jac Amidy were brilliant to tour Sydney and environs with. Such amazing singers.....
.. ..
Been fucking around with my amp a lot. Hot rodding it. Clare and Stu keep busting my balls about it, saying I should get a proper one.....
I am continuing the solid state campaign!....
.. ..
Changed the pickups on my 12 string. Gretsch Filtertrons have it singing sweetly.....
.. ..
Been working on my book. Some days you're a king, next day a bum! That's writing.....
.. ..
Playing my acoustic 12 string a lot around the studio. I am back in love with that sound and thinking of doing some solo acoustic shows later on.....
.. ..
Also sitting in on occasional gigs with the Dames. Will Hindmarsh is also an honorary Dame. He's on keys and samples.....
.. ..
Otherwise continuing to play dates for this album "You've been in my mind" is the best rock album we've ever made.. My favourite. Well, on par with " We wuz curious" , "hashish and liquor" and "the devil drives". ....
.. ..
Appeared on THE DRUM, talking about the issues of that day.....
.. ..
Continuing "BLB" Tuesdays 12-2pm on RRRfm.....
.. ..
Shot a video for " we need a champion" and planning to have that out in a few weeks.....
.. ..
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
Tickets are currently available at Solbar.....
Ring 07 5443 9550
Tickets are also available at:
Ebony Rose & Billy Hyde Maroochydore
....
Thursday 30th August - Aararat Live - Vic 

Saturday 1st September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA

Sunday 2nd September - Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton SA
 (4pm show)
Sat 15th September Westernport Hotel - San Remo
Friday 21st September - Palais- Hepburn Springs
Saturday 22nd September - NEWPORT SUBSTATION -NEWPORT (near Footscray) Victoria....
04/10/2012 Clancys Fish Pub Dunsborough WA

05/10/2012 Prince of Wales, Bunbury WA

06/10/2012 The Bird - Perth WA
07/10/2012 Mojos- Fremantle WA


This tour is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria


Tuesday, August 7, 2012

reviews in the press for "you've been in my mind"


The self-proclaimed King Of Pop and the newly-crowned King Of The Dudes, Dave Graney inhabits a strange yet strangely alluring world, where The Beatles don’t rate anywhere near Steely Dan and Marcos Valle reigns supreme as the Brazilian Orpheus. The ex-Moodist and Coral Snake charmer has been incredibly prolific throughout his artistic life and remains one of the few songwriters to have maintained a flawless creative streak for over seven years – as 2009’s Knock Yourself Out, 2010’s Supermodified and last year’s re-recorded “greatest hits” Rock & Roll Is Where I Hide attest. Recorded live in the studio with the incorruptible Lurid Yellow Mist (freshly rechristened The mistLY), You’ve Been In My Mind is yet another fantastic addition to the SA-born Melbournian’s catalogue.
Naturally, the songs are superb: ‘Flash In The Pantz’, ‘We Need A Champion’, ‘Cop This, Sweetly”, the weirdly nostalgic ‘Mt Gambier Night’, the aforementioned ‘King Of The Dudes’ and the self-effacing closer ‘I’m Not The Guy I Tried To Be’ are all vintage DG nuggets. As ever, Graney disperses sneering “ooh”s and lascivious “mmm”s between his savage witticisms, all the while playing the jazziest 12-string electric guitar since Roger McGuinn’s ‘Eight Miles High’ Coltrane-isms. The top-notch accompaniment is likewise a familiar delight, with Clare Moore effortlessly switching between rhythm patterns, Stu Thomas – who might just be one of the finest white bass players in this land – maintaining the swing, and Stu Perera taking his left-handed Rickenbacker for a walk in areas Nels Cline has yet to tread.
Never a flash in the pan, Dave Graney again proves he isn’t the kind of an artist who’ll be on your mind after you’ve absorbed his tonne-weighing shtick. Instead, he’ll be in your mind.
Denis Semchenko THE BRAG


You’ve Been in My Mind is the first collection of new songs in three years from Dave Graney, his partner in life and sound Clare Moore, and their recently re-named band, The MistLY (formerly the Lurid Yellow Mist). Not that they’ve been idle though, as that span has seen a whole lot of gigs, the release of Graney’s first book - acclaimed memoir 1001 Australian Nights - as well as a compilation of re-recordings of classic Graney compositions, Rock ‘N’ Roll is Where I Hide.
The lyrical puns still abound but otherwise there’s less novelty on show here than in the past: the Lounge-Lizard-King-of-Pop-Dave-Graney who won ARIAs and charmed the masses in the 1990s, with a theatrical persona like some louche amalgam of Don Lane, Terry Southern and ‘Coney Island Baby’-era Lou Reed, is largely absent. Graney now more comfortably resembles a road-seasoned jazzman, exuding the philosophical gravitas and dark humour of hard-won wisdom. Jazz sensibilities have influenced this new music too, particularly the “blazing left-handed Rickenbacker” lines of lead guitarist Stuart Perera, with structures and chords that shift and twine but not at the expense of melody or focus. According to 1001 Australian Nights, Graney and Moore first met Perera when he was a young student “into jazz players, theory, octaving and Guns N’ Roses”, and the resonances of such remain apparent, fused with the band’s ongoing interests in ’70s West Coast rock and art pop experimentation.


Self-recorded and mixed, with help from engineer Andrew “Idge” Hehir, the performances are mostly live, not overdubbed, reassuringly-immediate and seemingly in thrall to ’70s production values, as if Tony Visconti was at the desk in their Brunswick studio. The piercing sustain of the guitars is thin and trebly, while the choruses of ‘I’m Not the Guy I Try To Be’, ‘Field Record Me’ and ‘Cop This Sweetly’ - great titles, as usual - flow in a wash of harmonies that could have come from Bowie and Osterburg’s own throats in Hansa Studios in 1976; the latter track even ending with desperate yelps like The Idiot’s ‘Funtime’.
While the first half is upbeat and mid-paced, the second drops to a slower, dreamier cadence. Songs like ‘Playing Chicken’, ‘I’m Not the Guy I Try to Be’ and ‘Midnight Cats’ are made for the early hours. The spoken-word ‘Mt Gambier Nights’ is autobiography melded with dry observation, quoting William Blake to an evocative backdrop of staccato guitar reverb.
This is a seductive and comfortably re-playable collection of dependable material, boding well for an extensive national tour this month.
by Aaron Curran - Mess and Noise 


The Walter Mitty of Oz rock issues his umpteenth album; his shtick still weighs a ton and rock'n'roll remains his hideout.
Dave Graney still lays his idiosyncratic hipster lingo over post-rock, blues pop and jazz chords aplenty, aided and abetted by drumming partner Clare Moore and long-term comrades, guitarist Stuart Perera and bassist Stu Thomas.
And the erstwhile Australian king of pop still sounds like he's having a ball, whether meowing on Midnight Cats or yelping "come on! owwww!" over the descending riffs of Field Record Me.
Flash in the Pantz lampoons masculinity to a dirty rock groove, while Cop This, Sweetly noodles around and then, right when you're not paying attention, rocks out.
I Don't Want to Know Myself and Mt Gambier Nights recall the hero's Coral Snakes era. Recorded quickly in Melbourne and then mixed by the main man himself, You've Been in My Mind is a wonderfully unpolished affair full of familiar themes for Graney aficionados as well as some unexpected dimensions.

SIMON COLLINS, The West Australian

The Graney has never been beholden to any fashion, bar his own. But as the circles of style turn, there are times he gets some of the respect he deserves. He’s again become the go-to guy when the world needs an opinion or explanation – with a slightly-arched eyebrow – of how the business of show is or isn’t working these days.
His music finds a fit here, too. You’ve Been In My Mind grabs a range of moods and attitudes, for his half-spoken/half-sung words to present the observations and mission statements. Points of reference for the music reach back. There’s ‘60s and ‘70s soul in here, and occasional outbreaks of blues shouting and yelping dating further than that. There’s just enough rough edges among the smoother grooves.
It’s not just the external he’s considering. Flash In The Pantz is the nature of the old-style man blustering and questioning at once. The urgent strut of that, and indeed most all the album, comes from the necessary female element of Clare Moore’s drumming. She is the heart and balancing conscience of it. But go to the rattling rush of the opening Blues Negative, and she’s obviously got muscle as well.
In We Need A Champion Graney informs at one point, over a dirty funk of Stuart Perera’s wah-wah guitar and Stu Thomas’ bubbling bass, seemingly lifted direct from a porn soundtrack – in a good way. Dave’s probably not even putting himself up for the title job, but he realises one is needed. His 30 years experience means Dave Graney has become the man who knows. And knows more than most. Yeah.
Ross Clelland - DRUM MEDIA

The band name may have changed – the Lurid Yellow Mist has evolved into the mistLY – but the song remains the same, as Dave Graney continues to shrug his shoulders at the indifference of the industry.

One song is called We Need a Champion, but Graney and his cohorts are content to go it alone. “If that fails, that fails,” he accepts in the stunning single, Flash in the Pantz.

Graney remains a sonic explorer, boldly going where no other Australian artist dares. Younger artists would kill to have the energy that’s on display here.

-       Jeff Jenkin - JB HiFi STACK


You've Been in My Mind Dave Graney and the MistLY (Cockaigne/Fuse)  ★★★★
IN HIS recent memoir, 1001 Australian Nights, Dave Graney, post-punk iconoclast, velvet-clad king of pop and sardonic cultural critic, explored his pre-history as a working-class exile from country South Australia. On his latest record, You've Been in My Mind, Graney delves further into semi-biographical territory. There's Graney the existentialist, contemplating identity (I'm Not the Guy I Tried to Be), the critic of the vapid world of popular fame (Flash in the Pantz) and the adult musing on the myopic bravado of youth (Midnight Cats). While the name of Graney's backing band has changed, the elements remain largely the same: Clare Moore's elegant drum fills, Stu Thomas' factory-strength bass, Stuart Perera's wiry Rickenbacker licks, and Graney's collage of croons and James-Brown shrieks. Graney's narrative wanders in and out of focus like a rambling front-bar anecdote. Mojo Nixon said there was no Elvis in Michael J Fox; there's only Dave Graney in Dave Graney. He plays Northcote's Regal Ballroom next Friday, July 27.
PATRICK EMERY - The Age

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