advice to players

This was written for AUSTRALIAN MUSICIAN MAGAZINE earlier in 2009. I do a regular collumn. The magazine is a glossy, full colour affair that comes out every three months and is available in music equipment shops.

I don’t think I really have any advice to give musicians. I’ve never been any good at taking any. Basically, I think everybodys in a pretty unique situation. The timing and the perception is all theirs. Or yours. So, its hard to translate.
I know theres lots of books and courses about music. The only voices I trust are other players. The only person who knows what its like to be punched in the face is you. Nothing can really prepare you for it. Being a musician is full of undignified situations. The best thing to do is to embrace the indignity and shame. Is that advice? Looks pretty grim.
The best way I could describe it is if you are a musician and you watch a movie like “spinal tap” you are watching stuff that is real! It is funny, but in a deeply stupid way that outsiders can never know. Those guys are stupid but so are we. And anyway, its a thin line between making a great move and falling flat on your face.
If I was to give any gratuitous advice it would be to lay off the booze. its a downer. I mean its a depressive, and you never play as well as when you are straight. You need to feel the terror and the excitement.
All those stories of heroic drunks and junkies are never told by people who are on them. Its told from parasitic hangers on and people slicing a buck from the corpses. Believe the players. Do your swingin’ at home!
Think about it. Nobody can play any good on dope or booze. Your mind is fogged and you are not in your body right. Its a scam, all the players said so. Look up Charlie Parker or Mingus or Miles Davis. Only the real mean straights and squares peddle that jive about taking stuff and getting straight to the source. Its people who make all that great music you can hear in clubs and on cds and records, lots of times in spite of their best attempts to ruin their best game.
I’m into those turn of the 20th century European poets and artists who were called “futurists”. they rejected the idea that artists had to be like outcasts sleeping in the streets and begging for bread. they thought the artists should be cool and sleek and in control of his world and taking care of the scene. Knock yourself out!

songs of sydney and melbourne

I did a show the other night in Melbourne. It was oranized by the melbourne Fringe and it was a simple idea that really worked. People were asked to sing a song about Melbourne . The venue was the basement of the North Melbourne Town Hall and in the end there were 21 performers. Everybody got up and sang one song.
It was free to get. I think its great when arts funded events have an idea that focusses people on working players. They can have the fresh, different venues to present things ain and the pr reach and all the organizational resources to move along a night like that. It was also great because all the musicians came from the many slightly different cliques of the Melbourne scene , and so did the audience. All this social networking / engineering has led to people seeking out more of the same . People spiral and dig down deeper into their own interests. Interests which seem to stop at a particular time and place. It was good to see everybody in the room together being exposed to different things. Like when you hear something by accident on the radio. When music is public rather than all interior and precious. Its great when something busts out and has the juice to get to lots of strangers.
Here was the line up...
Amaya Laucirica
Biddy Connor
Crystal Thomas
Dave Graney
Desperately Not Yoko
Digger and the Pussycats
Emily Ulman
Hamish MacLeod
Hugh McGinley
James McCann
Jensen Tjhung (Deaf Wish)
Jon Michell (Mum Smokes)
Jordie Lane
Laura Jean
Matt Walker
Ned Collette
Phil Gionfriddo (Jacky Winter)
Richard Fyshwick s.n. (Legends of Motorsport)
Shane Pullen
Sianna Lee
The Bowerbirds
The Swindlers


It had a compere, James Young, who had the difficult job of inevitably trampling over everybodies sensibilities. He did the heavy lifting. It was a sensitive crowd like I said and the room was unforgivingly uncomfortable. ( I mean unfamiliar) to all.
With so many performers, the room had a good crowd in it anyway. I had a great time . I have as many prejudices as the next
musician and I enjoy them so some of the acts weren’t any where near any of “my thing” but I dug the whole rough ride. I did a song very early on. “oakleigh Bowie Blues’. Until the Swindlers and the incredible Matt Walker I played the only rude flattened five / discordant notes in the room.
I applaud any sort of government involvement in popular and especially unpopular music. Good on the fringe for digging in.

Earlier in the year I had also had the opportunity to sing some songs at an event that was a part of Brian Enos "Luminous " festival. A very distant part I guess. Heres what the Creative Sydney people said....

"Hear the likes of Old Man River, Spod, Sui Zhen, Loene Carmen and members of Dappled Cities, Bridezilla, RedSunBand, Tom Ugly along with special guests Simon Day (Ratcat) and Dave Graney reinterpreting old-school hits and indie classics, all backed by a supergroup of a house band featuring Lindsay McDougall (Triple J, Frenzal Rhomb), Cec Condon (The Mess Hall), Sam Worrad (The Holy Soul) and Cameron Bruce (Waikiki, The Beautiful Girls).
The night will open with a set by three generations of Sydney performers all from the one family - Holiday Sidewinder (Bridezilla), her mother Loene Carmen and grandfather Peter Head - performing some of Peter’s classic songs about Sydney such as “King of the Cross” (about Abe Saffron) and “William St Blues”.

It was a very warm event to be invited to be a part of. I was the only Melbourne person. An happy accident I think. A generous and warm Sydney invitation . I really enjoyed seeing Loene carmen performing with her father and her daughter , all of them taking the mic to sing a couple of songs in turn. Simon Day always makes me wonder why he isn't more active musically. One of the dappled City fellows did Eric Bogles "the band played waltzing matilda" to this hall full of up for it 20 somethings. I thought he was mad. They quite liked it, but I always misjudge the current generations sentimentality about WW1. They've been brought up with it as a semi religuous holiday every year.
The band was brilliantly in touch with all the material. it was a much bigger room and the sound was reverberating around the cavernous rooms. Agai, it was great to be shoved into contact and touch with so many people whose names I had only seen written down. Seeing them cope with being exposed to new material and trying different things on with a different band and a room full of partying young adults was wild.

I got up eventually and did my “sydney” songs, "hindu gods of love " by the Lipstick Killers and "smith and wesson blues" by radio Birdman. Two iconic Sydney acts. We drew the end of “Smith and wesson blues” out three or four times longer than the actual song. We couldn’t stop the crescendoes. Well we could have but once you start that stuff, its hard to stop. You don’t wanna. I also did my own "bodysnatcher blues" as its a one note boogie and I thought the band might dig it. The boogie. Its one thing you can have and eat as well.

Competition and ambition are great in music. Its dull if everybodys nice all the time. Still, musicians always have more in common than they care to admit, good times, comrades!

2009-2010

We played a set at the Retreat in Brunswick last week. It is quite a rough, chaotic joint but after being monstered by the geriatrical scene for the few weeks leading up to it I was pretty much ready to take on anybody.
We played with Stu Perera on blazing lead. the four of us. It was a great night, one of those rooms that sounds great. Just don't try and do anything light or delicate or it'll eat you up.
Being a Sunday night, the room was full of locals too, people wanting to hear some music. We played for about an hour, mostly music from "we wuz curious" and " knock yourself out".
Had a great time. Thanks everybody for coming along!

The Dames did an opening set. thats Clare moore on drums , Kaye Louie patterson on piano and Rosie Westbrook on bass. A guitar-less trio , playing songs from Kaye and Clare. they have started a recording project and will continue on that next year. They all come to the Dames from different experiences and directions but it gels. A great West Coast / Jazz / folk pop sound. They do an instrumental by Kaye called "Dudley" , inspired by the music of Dudley moore. i hope that intrigues.

Started thinking about some new recordings for next year, though I still really enjoy playing the music we released over the this year and last year. Theres a lot of songs that I enjoy playing.From Hashish and Liquor and the Brother Who Lived .We've pumped out a lot of stuff. Time to let it breathe a bit.

Playing guitar has given me a real spark as well. I sometimes feel I have the fever to play it like I was with the football when i was a kid. I can't leave it be.The electric and the 12 string acoustic.

Have a whole set of songs ready to go but am taking my time as to how to put it down. Some of the timings are so irregular I could only do them by myself. No click track or drum beats. Others are pretty pop in their arrangements, my kind of pop anyway.
Thinking of of a 12 string acoustic and bass xylophone type sound for the most part, maybe some trumpet from Stu and Nylon sting guitar from Stu Perera.Short songs and short sounds is my game plan. Minimalist. Have been listening to a lot of adult pop from the 69s. That adult folk pop like Harry Belafonte and Jose Feliciano and, of course Sinatra.
I guess they had great rooms o record in, great mics and great skills.I'll be spending a lot of time getting inside the material before I put it down and will be playing some of the songs at any solo shows I'm doing.

In 2009 I have read many novels and short stories by the Australian author Patrick White. A master. I can recommend him highly. Anything with his name as author is guaranteed greatness.

LIVE IN HELL was a high artistic point in my life. That and the first narrative show POINT BLANK have been the shows where I got to pull all my obsessions together.And all the skills. Each one I see as a song that goes for an hour. And they took me a couple of decades to write, distill and decant.

Have been enjoying discovering that late sixties British folk sound. Bert Jansch,Nick Jones, Pentangle, John Renbourn, Sandy Denny.Totally addictive.

Most else has not touched me really. Kept it all pretty close. Enjoyed the playing and the company of our band and close friends.

Hoping for more of that in 2010.

Oh, and Stu Thomas has recorded a brilliant album called "Escape from Algebra" that should see a release in 2010.

Thanks to everybody who came to a show or took an interest.

Shows with Glen Campbell- Dec 2009

Got to the call to do some shows opening for Glen Campbell last week, a few days before they started. Seemed easy to set up and do the shows so off I went. Flew to Brisbane and got a car and drove two hours to Toowoomba. Its a big old reception centre type place off teh main strip. Carpet on the walls. No dressing room, no drama. The band were sound checking, no Glen.I went on in a light blue suit with white shoes, trying for a Hank Williams look! Played for forty minutes, probably too long. A quite elderly audience. About a thousand people. Probably more.Reception was pretty reserved. At the end a couple of people shouted for "more" and more people laughed as someone was, obviously, joking!
Glen came on and opened with "Gentle on my mind,", the "Galveston" , Country Boy""Lovesick blues", "she thinks I still care", "dreams of the everyday housewife", "don't pull your love out one me baby", "by the time I get to Phoenix", and "true grit". His daughter Debbie storms on and kicks the ass out of "silver threads and golden needles" and "crazy". then his youngest daughter Ashley comes on and does a modern op song I don't know and then Stevie Nicks "landslide" with her sister. Glen comes back and all three rip through "rollin in my sweet babys arms. (Ashley plays banjo and keys in the band as well). Glen did a couple of guitar workouts, (as well as ripping out great solos in ALL the songs) "classical gas" and "the william tell overture".
There is not a single amp on the stage, all di'd into the desk and in ear monitoring. The show comes to the end with "southern nights", "wichita lineman" and "rhinestone cowboy". The band are pretty amazing and so is the set list.
I drove back to the hotel and got to bed at 2am.
Brisbane was the enormous Convention centre in Southbank.
I did the Bowie song "sorrow" as its a tune people should know. I then do my own "you put a spell on me" "you're just too hip ,baby" and Elvis's "one night of sin".
I then do a new song of mine called "Mt Gambier night". Around about now the audience turned quite ugly and started to call for me to "get off!" One fellow started a slow hand clap. I had to stop that. I made light and had said at the beginning that they might like one song and not another and thats just as good. "we want glen" was the reply. "we've had enough". "Go away!"
I had to stop the silliness and did a song called "don't mess with the blood", then after the abuse began afresh I introduced a song "about how tough you have to be to be an entertainer", "my schtick weighs a ton". People were getting up in dozens and storming out. It was like I'd walked up and taken a shit in the stage, the way they carried on. Like sulking kids. I ended with "night of the wolverine". All the songs were quite pretty and ballad like in their tone. I was going for guitar picking moments and had put a lot of work into the sound of the 12 string.
I thanked them for listening and hoped they had a good night with Glen and expressed regret that some had taken offence. "Don't call us , we'll call you" came the reply. I walked off and sat with friends.

The next day Clare Moore and Stu D arrived and we did a show of our own at the Brisbane Powerhouse to an audience who were in tune with us and the general flow of a performance. We tore it up.
On the Gold Coast the day after that, I sat and reada book at the beach . I got a call about all the Brisbane gig and the emails and complaints that went to the promoter about me. Apparently I offended some by greeting them ,as I always do, as "comrades". Also, i was from melbourne.
The band and crew and the promoters were very supportive and I said I'd do a shorter set of more tunes by other people. Basically, to keep it nice.
That night I did some Tim Hardin and Fred Neil and Kris Kristofferson and Curtis Mayfield. Also the pop song "seattle" which I introduced as being "by the noted country songwriter Hugo Montenegro". Tumbleweeds blew across the stage.The reception was better than Brisbane. I rode on the crew bus to Tamworth. I was worried about this joint. It was Country Music central in the middle of New South Wales. The gig here was the best received so far, though my judgement was only in that people didn't call for me to be killed or storm out of the room. Success!
This night, the audience started to slow handclap Glen before he started!

Rode on the bus again and we arrived in Sydney, at the State theatre in the middle of town.
I did my own songs here in the theatre. A few of the songs I'd gotten to like playing like Mike Nesmiths "Joanne" and Tim Hardins "Lady came from Baltimore".

People dug it. I left the theatre and went across town to a gig I'd organized. There were about seven people there. All being musicians. I knew. I played for two hours, doing anything I liked and any requests that were called out. Then I took a cab to the inner west, where I was staying.

I did another show in Sydney . A dinner and show type room. I don't really like those kinds of rooms, they are toffy and beige. I like rock n roll clubs where people who have a shared interest in getting blitzed and / or listening to music go. Places they know how to find.
I gave them my best and they kept chewing. I was opening. I left the joint and headed out.
Next day I caught a Greyhound bus to Canberra. Just like a Jimmy Webb song. the bus was full of teabags. Limeys. All trying it on with the nearest gullible sheila.

The theatre in Canberra is nice. The audience is almost totally men who look like country party senators on a casual friday. Constantly getting up to go and strain the potatoes. I am getting my mojo back and do a few more of my own songs. I stray over 30 minutes and nobody dies.

I ride in the crew bus to Melbourne. We watch "step brothers". I have seen it twice and still laugh. We arrive in melbourne at 7am and I catch a bus and a train home for the day.

Later, Clare and I drive in to the Palais. I am doing tonights show with Clare on percussion and vocals and Stu on bass and vocals.
We crowd around the two vocal monitors in the middle of the stage. (there are no other monitors on the stage as the band all have in ear foldback sound.
We play for about 35 minutes, mostly my songs. People know who we are and know what we are reputed to be able to do.
Playing acoustic guitar and singing in a theatre is a delight. The sound in the room rise and swells and has a long delay and decay. We triumph.

Glenn comes on to a standing, cheering crowd. Of all kinds of ages. There has been no reception like this anywhere else.People are into the nuance and the icon and the amazing set list. Glen rips out all these solos from nowhere and clearly is on his best game. He fumbles for words in between songs here and there, as usual , but the performance is amazing. the band all step up to the plate too. this crowd have given them some bounce. They had played well everywhere but tonight they know that people are catching all the notes and the moves. It is going somewhere. that thrills a player.
My favourites are many. "Dreams of the everyday housewife" with the 3/4 skipping time and the beautiful melody. "Southern nights" with the great funk beat and the funny 30s cha cha timing. "Wichita lineman" which swoons out like a great film. Glen does "the HIghway man" tonight and its so funny when he puts the guitar behind his head a la Hendrix for "the william tell overture". There is a standing ovation.

Backstage the band is all abuzz at the reception and wish theyd been staying in Melbourne for a week as opposed to Brisbane. I say my goodbyes to all and we drive home. Thats it!

Cadillac Records

Cadillac Records

This is a movie from 2008 that it took me until last night to watch. It is a feckin' great music film. there haven't been many of those , of course but this is up there with "Ray" , The girl can't help it" , "walk hard", "Spinal Tap" and "the mighty wind".
Its the story of Chess records in Chicago from the late 40s to the mid sixties. Its the perspective that makes it great. These people, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Little Walter , Chuck Berry and Etta James are seen as artists. You also see them looking at these effette young Limeys, The Rolling Stnes, as they make a pilgrimiage to the house of their idols at the Chess studios in 1965. Its like the Aztecs seeing the Spanish coming or the indigeneous Australians seeing the white sails coming into the harbour. Its the perspective.
All the actors are great but the man who plays Howlin Wolf is spectacular. You want them to do a movie just on him. And Mos Def as Chuck berry is also superb.
The movie ends in 1967 and Muddy is on a plane to the UK with Willie Dixon . he is nervous as he doesn't know "what the fuck these people want".

These are the IMDB details on the film. I note some people dipute the historical accuracy. Hey its a Hollywood film! Also, there is that old newspaper mans line about myth and the truth and "lets print the myth".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1042877/

mall thoughts

Yeah its that time of year. So I was in the Myer perfume area of Knox, dodging and weaving all the hired help. There was a constant flow of dazed, unshaven blokes in their work gear getting attacked by the make up queens. They left with molten credit cards in their pockets.
I laughed at how cheap the Christina Aguilera scent was. Then I saw the row of Britney Spears Juice, then a cabinet of Beckham water, then a small room of Sarah Jessica Parker liquid, then the Kylie "INVERSE - for men" drops. What were they thinking?
I turned a corner and saw the P Diddy section. I mean SEAN JOHN. His bottle is called "I am KING". I tried it. Citrus. it was next to Ushers. Its bigger than the cd store!
I wondered what celebrity stuff I'd like. Some "eau de ODB "? You couldn't put that on of course. It'd be cool to have as a threat though. To yourself.
I would like a dash of Muddy Waters though. Or some Howlin Wolf for a night out alone. For a night in, some Miles. Or a short sprint through a cloud of Isaac Hayes.

Back in '95 I used to go to $2 shops when we finished soundcheck, to kill some time. I'd buy some aftershave and mix it in a garden spray thing I also had. As we did our slowest and sexiest tunes I liked to spray the ront row so people would go home stinking of our music.
We also put out a single called "I'm gonna live in my own big world" which had a scented card in it. Ralph Laurens "SAFARI" . the lyrid of the song came mostly from an advert on the back of a bottle of that stuff. It was all about scientists going to the desert to isolate its smell.
Before my time.

So we went to Target and got some Shane Warne underpants for our nephews. They're called SPINNERS.

Managers- story for australian musician magazine

article for australian musician magazine

THIS IS AN ARTICLE I WROTE FOR THE CURRENT ISSUE OF AUSTRALIAN MUSICIAN MAGAZINE WHICH CAN BE FOUND IN ALL MUSIC GEAR STORES AND ELSEWHERE. IT'S THE ISSUE EDITED BY POWDERFINGER.


We’re amongst friends here so I feel I should speak my mind. I mean you must be some kind of a musician to be here among these pages. All the ads for equipment and the reviews of them as well. If a civilian is in here, you must have taken a wrong turn! Fuck off!
So my language is not tempered here for people who dont know anything. I don’t mean to go back to the beginning and hold anybodys hand. I don’t have to explain that its mainly rock n roll music here and that pretty much began with Black American musicians in the late 1940s. Around the time that Leo Fender and Les Paul started fooling around in their garages and made some foxy looking banjos that let amphetamine fuelled ex GI's and hooch puffing ,shade tree mechanics , pill popping delinquents and horned prison escapees make loud , brutish sounds on the guitar, as opposed to people having to go to music school etc.. Etc... We all know that shit!
I would expect no favours if my eyes wandered into a magazine concerning houseplants or computer games. I would expect to toss the mag aside pretty quickly as it was written ina foreign tongue!
So here is some straight talk.
Managers are never there when you most need them. When you are cold are just starting to push your little canoe out into the river.
When you least need them, they appear like flies on sherbet. Alright, shit! When you are hot and everything is going your way and all doors are opening for you.When you are reeking of spondoolix!
My advice , if you have a manager, is to sack them. Immediately. You can hire them back at your leisure and convenience. Its good just to give them a flash of reality that you are the dog and they are the tail. I mean that you are doing the wagging around here.
If they are any good there will be s oft knocking on the door in a while.
Actually, at that starting point, its good for you to learn how to front your music. I mean you have to be committed to what you're doing. No one else is gonna get in there. The business is not really a business. Its got a little bit of social cachet. Truth be told, the straight world mocks the music scene. It thinks it knows the score. All those ads with references to “trashing hotel rooms” and politicians getting the “rock star treatment”. Most people would faint of they got a whiff of “musicians treatment”. They couldn’t hack it for a day.
Let them think what they like. Its best if people think you’re dumb.
Its not 1963 anymore anyway. Everybody has to front themselves. Whats the matter with that? Carry your amp and make sure you get paid.
Sack that manager though.
Also, never give anything near 100% to the audience or a writer or a tv camera . Give it to your bandmates or to a recording. The audience is lazy , stupid and fickle. They dont know shit from Adam. Keep yourself and your music under your control. I mean the core of it. the source, At a certain point, if it gets to be a crowd situation and everybody wants a piece of it and are pushing even you aside, well, thats the sort of situation that everybody is thinking of. That is a happening, a car crash, thats what you want isn’t it? Then everybodys gonna take what they want and you’ll never get any of it back.
In the meantime, get rid of that goddam manager and keep it all cold. Straight from the fridge, you with me?

GODZONE! MAX GILLIES AND GUY RUNDLE

GODZONE by Max Gillies and Guy Rundle

December 10th

Went to see this new one man show at the new MTC last night. This is the Melbourne Theatre Company in its new multi million premises across from the ABC. Right next to the spectacular multi million dollar RECITAL Hall.

GODZONE is a one man how. Max Gillies, as PM Kevin Rudd hosts a talkfest on the county and the future. A lot of it to do with GOD as Rudd is such a christian and so is his new opponent. With large screens we get to see him interact with the former opposition leader ( until just last week) Malcolm Turnbull, the British PM Gordon Brown, Country Party idiot Barnaby Joyce, Liberal would be leader Joe Hockey and a few others. In personae he appears as Rudd, Julia Gillard , Herald Sun right wing columnist Andrew Bolt , televisual drunken writer Christopher Hitchen and , hilariously new liberal leader Tony Abbott.
The latter is the only one to have the spark of madness in him . (In the characterization and perhaps in real life).
Elsewhere there is a great video element where we see another right wing commentator bring some madness to the house. Gerard Henderson. He deals with voluminous correspondence and is great! I was sitting behind "public intellectual" Robert Manne and he cracked up during the Henderson part.

Something about K Rudd. he is elusively boring . John Howard was violently boring.

tour dates late 2010- Darl-Tissues!

"Live in Hell" ended up being bigger, faster and more power packed. Hopefully we'll be expanding it into bigger rooms. it could take it. the show is designed right and it is waiting to be bigger.

We went to Adelaide to play with You AM I and No Through Road at the Governor Hindmarsh which is a large rock venue. We played in front of people who, for one reason or another, perhaps they only go to this place, haven't see us perform in a decade.
We blew their heads clean off.

No Though Road are a band you really should experience. Two guitars, bass and drums. A total unit. then a totally shameless HAM of a singer. Pop. Emo post punk drama. Genius. Thrills and spills. Matt, the singer, in a world first rock move, did star jumps and ate chips (with dipping sauce) at the same time.

You Am I have skills and chops and drama as well. Tim locks in on the mob and doesn't let go for an hour and a half. You have to be mad to do that. I do it too. Indie people don't. They shuffle awkwardly, though thats a move as well.

Friday, September 18, 2009

The Cross. Home!

It was cool to be pulling up to a gig in Kings Cross, famed bohemian area of Sydney. Nobody knows where this place which is more a state of mind than a suburb begins and ends. Well this gig was right underneath the giant Coke sign at the top of Victoria street. An old jazz cellar. In the basement. Under the ground IN HELL! Cool. I felt at home there. Away from the seachange/suburban joints. Another lost world.I was told Sinatra played here. Place might hold 60 people at a pinch. Sounded great. All the wailing has sealed the walls over the years.
The venue operator asked us what time the people were arriving. We said it was his club. A problem of communication. People came anyway. Hipsters flipping us their lobes. Old friends who only come to cool places like Dave Wray and Matt Sigley.
Clare Moore, Greg Thorsby and myself did two sets.
Had a cool time. I felt odd walking around the Cross all dressed in leather.Perhaps I was from a lost world.
Today it is warm and sunny in western Sydney. We have driven miles and done a longish run of shows.
We are watching the football with friends tonight.St Kilda Vs Footscray.For a chance to play in the Grand Final. The Sts last won in 1966, their only flag. The Bulldogs in 1954, their only flag.

Thanks to everybody who came to the shows ....

Thursday, September 17, 2009

the kuchar brothers films at mumeson archives

So we've been enjoying a few days in Sydney - civilian style,. No rushing in and out of town and friends lives with shows to do and then "goodbye". Catching up with some people for the first time in a long while. Aimless drives around inner western sydney.
Visited Fuse yesterday, our distributor on top of their amazing "title" store in Crown street. Box sets of Chaplin and Keaton and Harold Lloyd films. Box sets of Charlie Parker cds."The Many Moods of Murry Wilson" on cd. Too much stuff in one place!
We went to a few junk shops today. I got a pair of blue velvet dacks and some suede boots and a Charles Atlas spring muscle developer thing. You put the stirrup end under your foot and do arm curls.I never thought I needed one of those but for $2.00 I found myself walking away with it. Also got a video with the incredible pairing of my fave movie oddball singer Eddie Cantor with Ethel Merman. Those two would have had enough energy to power a trip to Saturn.
Tonight we went to the Mumeson archives which is a film night/ archive run by Jamie Leonardev and Aspasier in their compound just up from the Annandale. Nothing official about this operation. they set uip the screen and the chairs and you get a glass of wine and some soup at half time. Its all completely underground. I mean underworld. WE watched all these rough independent movies by George and Michael Kuchar. The movie critics would hate them. The longest was the last one, "sins of the fleshapoids" which ran for 45 minutes. An inspiring night.


Sunday, September 13, 2009

Katoomba- semi acoustic show

This was me on acoustic 12 string and electric guitar, Clare Moore on drums ( minimal setup) and old friend from Sydney Greg Thorsby on electric guitar. A Maton Ibis in fact.
Greg used to be in a band called the Atlas Strings which is where we met him. Also the Tenants after that and makes "stings" for TV1.
I was gonna do these shows as a solo set but I find that a bit boring to do and my songs always have a few counterpoint type rhythmic or melodic things. Or maybe I like the other textures. Anyway, I find it much less enjoyable to play and to travel by myself. Seeing as we were in Sydney for a week or two we thought we'd do them with Greg.Young Greg.
The music sounded great. More of a vocal and lyrical type sound as you get all those low notes coming through with your voice.

A small crowd at this lovely small theatre type cabaret room. The hospitality was generous as usual.
The walls are covered with posters of the 'roots " type music. I hate that shit, there are no songs, only forms and types and grooves. Its all too "real" for me. Humble fake troubadors and guitar slingers. If they dont have the cojones to walk into the middle of the stage and declare something by themselves they should not be in the room! That dick who juggles 3 didgeridoos was nowhere on the wall. he plays to theatres and rock palaces now. God help us all. I blame scientology.

We played two sets. Many different tunes than we have been doing. We'll be doing a similar approach at El Roccos on Thursday 17th. This Thursday.

Sydney is delightfully warm and there is a soft breeze blowing.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

sandringham hotel

We blasted out two sets at this venue in King street Newtown last night. Stu Perera was blazing on the guitar. Stu Thomas is a stellar bass player and singer and Clare Moore is an amazing drummer and performer.
We had a great bunch of people come along who were right into our music and my songs . they just go with us. What more could you ask?
Sydney is so different to Melbourne, you could fire a rifle down King street after midnight and not be in any danger of hitting anybody. And thats supposed to be a happening road.
The Sydney Morning Herald had two pages of music coverage this morning. Two pages of esoteric lame brained yankee roots and indie people. I get this shit at RRR and I throw it in the bin! The writers are so lazy. As bad as the radio people. They must feel dirty if they ever have to handle anything Australian.

I digress, we had a great time.

A young fellow who has been coming to our shows since he was in high school in the mid 90s told me how he went to a second hand store back then and the Vietnamese proprieter, who served while laying on a bed, asked him loudly, "you want sex?" Our young friend thought it was a proposition and ran away. he said he went back three years later ,when he was more confident, and the same thing happened. he waited a beat and the old man opened a curtain to a stack of porno dvds and stroke mags. His summation? "I got "wet Latinas #14"! It was amazing!"

Gold!!!!

Friday, September 11, 2009

sydney! how great is it?

Ridng bikes along the Cooks River in Spring. People laying on the grass and sleeping in the middle of the day. Junk shops and double decker trains. Having a great time.


Wednesday, September 09, 2009

byron and down to sydney

Byron Bay was windy and almost cold. We watched a Jim Carrey flick, walked along the beach, checked out the town and caught up with our valued comrade James Cruikshank.
Drove Stu to the airport and then carried on to Sydney.Back through Newcastle and a few seachange type towns.


Sunday, September 06, 2009

Gold Coast-I apologize!

That was the best experience we ever had on that Golden coast. The venue was great. Previously all the rooms had 12 tv screens blaring rugby on every side of the stage. This one was lovely. Cool crowd of people. Great sound, had a ball.
The young guy running the PA played the Mothers "freakout" after we had finished!

Drove to Lismore, stopping off at "tropical fruit world to load up on star fruit and custard apple fruits. The tropics!

Lismore was a show in a theatre to the true believers. Another swell night.

We are actually DRIVING to all these joints. The first show was roughly 1300 k's away from home base. thats keen.

Tonight in Byron we played two one hour sets. the audience the usual funny mix of mad locals and millionaire blow ins. I love the locals.
A samoan girl called me "brother" many times. I was honoured.

Staying here for an extra days swimming and r&r. Then on to Sydney



ps, in the Gold Coast I went to the supermarket. An old man , trailing his wife in t he aisle, was glumly saying " I think I can handle an egg slide!" A younger couple came around the corner. The woman said " You always get stressed when we shop! " and then walked off at a fast pace. the man, looking pathetic and harassed but with an annoyingly knowing smirk said , "Darl! Tissues! " to the wind.
I can't stop saying this. "Darl! Tissues!"

takin' the slack back-real worlds-dark matters

Putting out a cd is a leap into the void that gets tougher and tougher. Eventually artists get shy of it and stay home with their mouths shut. They get to a point and cain't go no further.
I have been quite impatient with "Knock yourself out" I always want more than is possible. I think thats the only approach you should take, the most impossible one. The Australian music scene is rather like the country itself. A closed, gated community, fearful and home alone, looking offshore to the real world. Where real things come from. Critics, programmers, HANDICAPPERS!They think they own the track. Conjurers ! Mediocrity from Gold!
I try to keep my mouth shut and smile and wave. You get tired of the saps though and have to lash out occasionally. Was lucky to do a spot on radio with a large audience. Adult. Talk. They played "Martha and the Vandellas " before talking to me. Impossible to air my stuff of course. . I had to fashion an acoustic version of a track from my very very studio constructed set of songs. I pulled it off. I said I come from a "post punk" background. So funny after all these years to be still explaining myself. The interrogator , who had a default mocking attitude to all music and artistic pursuits, gasped and said "you weren't a punk!" It was useless to argue. I did my best though. He let his angst out totally on the next guest who was a young guy whod written a book about graffitti. He copped it. I thought he was gonna vault the desk and snap the dj as hed threatened to do earlier, off air. That wouldve been a first.

I sucked it in and continued my rounds. A writer mockingly responded to us lamenting that we didn't sound like Bon Iver. I asked who the fuck that was. Sad pricks everywhere.
Bearded yanks in demand still.
Saw Jay Z on tv with "DOA" (the death of autotune) Jeez, thats the real world!

Found myself in a radio studio waiting room again. A show about "songs that changed your life". Some jiveass shit that civilians moan about, who gives a fuck? A young girl was sitting, stroking her iphone. I made conversation as I read a paper. She asked what kind of music I made. I said I'd made 22 albums and left lt it at that. I asked her about her work. She said she'd studied jazz and had a jazz band with a very well known jazz impressario/composer and also an indie pop band. I was filled with inertia. How could you balance these two? One is an application of technique and skills and the other hangs around waiting for an accident to happen. I asked what her life changing song was. She said "rufus Wainright". I was tired and couldn't help myself. I said, "I can't stand him, or his sister or his father." She looked up briefly and inquired could I really not like the fathers work, I said "Motel Blues" is alright but only if Alex Chilton is singing it.
She indied away to the studio . An extremely bright and pretty girl sat down. I asked her where she'd come from. She said she was in a production of "wicked " and had been doing 8 shows a week for a year in the city and had moved from Perth to Melbourne to do so. Her smile beamed. This was another real world to me.

She left and the indie jazz girl came out and said, as she consulted her iphone, "have a great day". Not very convincingly. I nodded.No conviction there either.
She was identifiably an artist. She had studied . In a school, and exhibited a self absorption that was total. I've met those types before. They got no stamina. They end up in hick towns like New York.

Eventually I went on air, full of gas and energy from all this swirling miasma I had been diving through. It was the rough surf I had come in on. The two hosts were pinned against the wall as I threw bomb after bomb and took as much of the airwaves as I could. My fave song was "down on the killing floor" by Howling Wolf. A song from Chicago, the abatoirs of Chicago where all the black workers got actual jobs as they took trains from the Southern states of the USA to the Northern industrial and transport hubs that needed tough bodies to toss all that meat around.A song from the real world, in fact.
I qualified it by talking of the time I heard it. I was a teenager and rock music, like it must feel to young people today, was dead. Deader than the papal penis as Nick Tosches would have it. I tried to explain how depressing it was to endure a tv show like "Happy Days". The inane Fonzy and the mediocrity of all the dames in that show. Horrible melancholy music like Neil Young and Gallagher and Lyle. Ridiculously anachronistic acts like AC/DC! I talked of hearing the Rolling Stones , (with Brian Jones already dead!) playing their version of "Little red rooster" and how they always credited their influences and how I looked up some Howlin Wolf and got to meet the monster! His gargantuan voice and presence and the brilliant guitar sound of Hubert Sumlin.
Sad people kept texting their melancholy ideas about music in and it was all duly reported.
I only care what artists think, its so hard to hear them nowadays, the goddam audience is yammering so much!

This kind of stuff I'm writing about. It isn't cynicism or bitterness, its a reaction to life. People can be so goddam soft nowadays, an opinion is ascribed to darkness and bruised , pained injury when its just an opinion. Give it some air!

The launch show at the arts centre in melbourne show is on sale now. Here....

http://www.theartscentre.com.au/whats-on/event.aspx?id=1750

putting the music up on the blocks

We played a set in the new performance space at RRR last Wednesday night. It was the first time we'd played all the material from "Knock Yourself Out" . Either Clare Moore had built and played all the tracks on the album or I had. We had to pull it all apart over the last couple of months at our Yarraville rehearsal place and play it as a band. Put it up on the blocks as they say in the extremely scientific world of commercial radio. We'd never had to do that before. It was like doing cover versions of my songs. They are sounding full of bounce and grit. Its another kind of energy and level of intensity in the dynamics.
Thanks to everybody for coming along, it was a great night. It went out live from 6:30 to 7:00 on Richard Moffatts "incoming" show. Afterwards we went across to the Lomond pub for a drink, well I had a lemonade. There was a duo playing, two fellows , one on drums and another on electric guitar. They play every Wednesday night and are called "Stackfull". The drummer had a real, old jazz kit with a big bass drum which had the front skin still on. He kept talking to us and telling us who they were. Their poster, he told us, was designed by Ian McCausland. This fellow has a lot of work out there. Have a look...
http://www.ianmccausland.com.au/

I looked up the drummer , Harold Frith ,on the magic box and he is now 73 and has been playing since that mythic time before the Beatles screwed the whole scene up, in a Melbourne band called the Thunderbirds.
http://www.thethunderbirds.com.au/pictures.html

The guitarist, Les Stackpool, had played in many bands from the late 60s on. Including Levi Smiths Clefs and Doug Parkinson In Focus.
I always love to see players keeping on playing.

The next day I flew to Sydney to catch up with the people at Fuse and then to sing some songs at an event that was a part of Brian Enos "Luminous " festival. A very distant part I guess. Heres what the Creative Sydney people said....

"Hear the likes of Old Man River, Spod, Sui Zhen, Loene Carmen and members of Dappled Cities, Bridezilla, RedSunBand, Tom Ugly along with special guests Simon Day (Ratcat) and Dave Graney reinterpreting old-school hits and indie classics, all backed by a supergroup of a house band featuring Lindsay McDougall (Triple J, Frenzal Rhomb), Cec Condon (The Mess Hall), Sam Worrad (The Holy Soul) and Cameron Bruce (Waikiki, The Beautiful Girls).
The night will open with a set by three generations of Sydney performers all from the one family - Holiday Sidewinder (Bridezilla), her mother Loene Carmen and grandfather Peter Head - performing some of Peter’s classic songs about Sydney such as “King of the Cross” (about Abe Saffron) and “William St Blues”.

It was a very warm event to be invited to be a part of. I was the only Melbourne person. An accident I think. I really enjoyed seeing Loene carmen pefroming with her father and her daughter , all of them taking the mic to sing a couple of songs in turn. Simon Day always makes me wonder why he isn't more active musically. One of the Dappled City fellows did Eric Bogles "the band played waltzing matilda" to this hall full of up for it 20 somethings. I thought he was mad. they quite liked it, but I always misjudge the current generations sentimentality about WW1. They've been brought up with it as a semi religuous holiday every year.

I got up eventually and did "hindu gods of love " by the Lipstick Killers and "smith and wesson blues" by radio Birdman. Two iconic Sydney acts. I also did "bodysnatcher blues" as its a one note boogie and I thought the band might dig it.

I went back to my hotel room, which had a view of the lights and vido art being thrown all over the Sydney Opera House. I turned the tv on and watched the entire game of St Kilda vs Carlton. It was a very exciting match.

proximity

The British writer, Nik Cohn, (who wrote "awopbopaloobopalopbamboom", an early reappraisal of pop music, as well as the story which inspired Saturday Night Fever" and more recently a book on Broadway as well as much great writing on New Orleans hip hop) used to, hilariously , bag Bob Dylan, because he saw him as a fake and a ham. He must have been able to see who Bob Dylan was channelling . The originals must have been fresh in his mind. Now those original figures, ( who Bob Dylan always attempts to draw people s attention to) are all but invisible and Bob Dylan is seen in splendid isolation, it is hard to see what Nik was getting at. The last time anybody cared to ask him as to whether he had changed his mind, Nik said something along the lines that he though Bob Dylan was hokey but he hadn't seen Bruce Springsteen coming. That's funny.
It.'s the same with a lot of popular music though. Things come and go and disappear like fuckin.. snow. I saw that character Devendra Banhard, ,whose initial pr encapsulated everything that I thought bogus and dim about indie music, on tv and was shocked at the outageous hamminess of his act. I'd heard his songs and the only thing I could detect of interest in his music was that little warble in his voice that was pure Marc Bolan.If you didn't know Marc Bolan you would be charmed, I am sure. If you did know Marc Bolan and T Rex, you would , of course, know where Marc took that great vocal effect and how he dressed it up in glam clothes and traded his acoustic for a Les Paul and spent years listening to nothing but Ricky Nelson records with that great LA rockabilly sound and all those cool James Burton licks. You would know that. That was in the future, in a funny way. You would also know it was , hopelessly, in the past.
Anyway, I'd heard the songs and had some hilariously hyped emails from his Australian promoter. Talking of this tramps genius and how he recorded his albums like a cat ,coughing up furballs in his sleep - and how none of it was tainted by artistry or craft, just unconscious luck and shit.. It was "ultra whatever,,,acoustic.." I'd even emailed back to the agent, saying , "this prick sounds like Forrest fuckin.. Gump!" ( In my world, an indictment of a recent modern scene but in reality, an affirmation of the innocence of idiots, loved by dolts the world over). And then I caught him on Jools Hollands show "later". He was sittng cross legged , with candles all around him , dressed in some sort of wizards cap and cloak, playing an acoustic guitar. Of course, all I could see was Marc Bolan in his pre electric Tyrannosaurus Rex days. I thought it was cute. It was a show a couple of years out of date. I remember that time. The national youth boadcaster radio network, had 9 songs of Devendra Banhards on their very tight and rare NATIONAL playlist at the time.
I guess its proximity. I was at high school when Queen actually had that horrible single out, "bohemian Rhapsody". The only kids who were into Queen were ones that would grow up to be Alan Partridge type characters. Guys who would wear driving gloves and play golf and actually BE swinging voters. That is where my mind has stayed with them.
AC/DC were funny. Now they are blown up hugely and what matter was there in the beginning just can't take the strain of so much interest. And they used to be a place for outcasts to go to and find like minded bedraggled headbanging types and be far from the trendified shit that was out there in the world. Now everybodys in on it! Leave AC/DC alone!
There is an act from Melbourne who make a music that is informed by the sounds of 1975. No punk rock and no mucking around. ( well there are lots of young acts like this, reactionary types). Anyway, they have been so enormously successful that its not worth talking about. They are in their early twenties and the singer was talking of his battles with Cocaine and writing their second album. Now , really, that is so scripted and lame that you would be ashamed to say it. Cocaine, the businessmans drug. What problem could you have? I am old school, you should only talk about drugs and problems, to the press, as you are COMING OUT OF GAOL AFTER BEING BUSTED!". Wouldn't it be boring to follow a script so closely? Why bother continuing? We have all seen Spinal Tap. Theres some girlfriends and some managers and some touring and a break up.
Speaking of Spinal Tap. We went to see it when it came out in London at a cinema in Notting Hill. 1984.I was wearing a leather coat ( brand new, like the Black Panthers) and leather pants and leather boots. Clare was dressed up like Annie Oakley in fine Western shirt and dress. There was hardly anybody there and it was so true to any musicians experience that we sat in a foetal position for the entire time. We tried to sneak out, feeling ashamed to be so overtly parading our Rockitudeness. I read somewhere of the singer of Silverchair talking of watching it with his dance nusic buddy and how they "cacked themselves". I was not surprsied to hear this . To us it was no laughing matter! We had the same experience watching "the Mighty Wind" People, who were not musicians, had told us how fun it was. This was even sadder than Spinal Tap. We knew people like that! It was very affecting. Again, it..s the proximity. This tinted drama into slapstick, the further away you got.

talkin' about my kinda art the other night

We were asked to perform at the NGVA , which is in the Ian Potter centre. Not the national gallery which is just over the other side of the river but the national gallery of Victoria. Its at Federation Square across from the Forum theatre. Part of the performance was for me to give an "art chat". All this was to happen at 6pm .

I started my talk by saying I was pretty much educated by tv. Old films and tv series. Sounds bad but I got exposed to the greatest of early Hollywood films from the silents to film noir to all kinds of B movies and comic events like "F Troop" and "Get Smart" . Also "The Invaders" and the Australian scifi aboriginal series, "Wandjina". Lots of crap too but I watched it all and saw things by accident that you would have to get a degree to know of their existence nowadays. Everything might be available now but you have to know about something to look for it, in a way, and the chances of being exposed to all that cultural swamp, by accident, are very slim now. Only in some kind of "festival" would you get to see a movie like "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" or "amateur night at the Dixie Bar and Grill".I added that I never went to higher education so I really was schooled by popular culture and it was pretty good.

I talked about my love of mythology and especially self mythology and read a poem I'd written many years ago about my favourite mythic rock band, the Charlatans from San Francisco. The poem is called "the Charlatans playing silver city 1965". They were pretty much the frst of the SF freak bands and played their first gigs ina wild west replica saloon in Silver City.

I read from the fake "Benny Goodmans tour diaries" from teh fake GI music mag "Nuts to you". I read the first page of Ricahard Starks' "Point Blank" (Richard Stark was really Donald E Westlake) and talked of my love for 30s pulp writers like Paul Cain. ( he wrote the great "fast one" and one other collection of stories "seven slayers")
I read from Iceberg Slims "pimp" and talked of how you had to go into the erotic paperback section section of a secondhand bookshop in Kings Cross to find a book ilike that as it was not recognized by respectable book shops.

I read the first two words from Mayakovskys "my discovery of America. Written in 1925 by this young recolutionary poet and playwrite, the first two words are , "TWO WORDS!".I like his declamatory style and droll humour. And I discovered America again, reading him.

I also read some James M Cain. i was going to read a poem by Guillaume Appollinaire called "the pretty redhead" but I had left it home. I really love that poem and identify with lines very strongly.

I ended the talk with a reading of "lament" by Jim Morrison from the classic posthumous Doors album "an American Prayer".

The area we were playing in was a foyer just outside the John Bracks exhibition at the gallery. People were walking in and out. We were joined bya great turnout of people who I had never seen at any club gigs before. It was a fantatsic experience. Playing at such an early evening hour is sensational. Why dont more venue do this?

Basically I was trying to say that I found my kind of art by accident and , in that peculiar australian way, it took me a long time to consider myself an artist, to don the cloak, without smirking.

We began our set with "the birds and the goats and ended with "crime and underwear" and "lets kill god again".

On August 14th we are doinga release for our album "knock yourself out" at the Studio in the George Fairfax Centre in the Victorian Arts Centre. It is a deluxe theatre. Please put it in your diary.

In the meantime we are playing a lot of dates around Australia.

La Jolie Rousse

Guillaume Apollinaire, "La Jolie Rousse [The Pretty Redhead]":

Here I am before you all a sensible man
Who knows life and what a living man can know of death
Having experienced love's sorrows and joys
Having sometimes known how to impose my ideas
Adept at several languages
Having traveled quite a bit
Having seen war in the Artillery and the Infantry
Wounded in the head trepanned under chloroform
Having lost my best friends in the frightful conflict
I know of old and new as much as one man can know of the two
And without worrying today about that war
Between us and for us my friends
I am here to judge the long debate between tradition and invention
Between Order and Adventure

You whose mouth is made in the image of God's
Mouth that is order itself
Be indulgent when you compare us
To those who were the perfection of order
We who look for adventure everywhere

We're not your enemies
We want to give you vast and strange domains
Where mystery in flower spreads out for those who would pluck it
There you may find new fires colors you have never seen before
A thousand imponderable phantasms
Still awaiting reality
We want to explore kindness enormous country where all is still
There is also time which can be banished or recalled
Pity us who fight always at the boundaries
Of infinity and the future
Pity our errors pity our sins

Now it's summer the violent season
And my youth is dead like the springtime
Oh Sun it's the time of ardent Reason
And I am waiting
So I may follow always the noble and gentle shape
That she assumes so I will love her only
She draws near and lures me as a magnet does iron
She has the charming appearance
Of a darling redhead

Her hair is golden you'd say
A lovely flash of lightning that lingers on
Or the flame that glows
In fading tea roses

But laugh at me
Men from everywhere especially men from here
For there are so many things I dare not tell you
So many things you would never let me say
Have pity on me

-- From Calligrammes, 1918

parnassian pass- headin' you off

I still ain't gettin' the hang of this blogging business. i get the feeling its supposed to be more inclusive and conversational. Welcoming even. But I'm stuck in these tracks and thats the way I'm rolling. Too late for everything I'm afraid. Guilty!
Being a musician, its tough when the audience thinks they can run the show. Look at the mess such thinkin' has gotten us into!

Upon reflection, after watching football downstairs whilst reading some stories aboiut the late comic genius Peter Cook, (By the by, there were several moments during the game which could have given the commentators the opportunity to portray the events on the field in an Anzac-iacal light. These opportunities being left begging , I must question the patriotic fervour and spirit of said sporting pundits. they are not putting in! Was all that useless slaughter for nothing?) I have come to the conclusion that my vibe, my general thing, is Parnassian. But perhaps that early and late Parnassian the crossed over into Symbolism. Thus allowing the great respect for formal arrangements that characterized the Parnassian as well as the striving for the opaque objectivism and repulsion for their precursors, the Romantics, who loved to wallow in dank emotion and feeling and free verse. The crossing over into Symbolism could explain the demands and tension my very expressionistic and determinedly individual mythologising places on the classic forms and structures I like to inhabit. I like to hang loose and play wide within a set of boundaries I know and range like the back of my hand. I like to lair and I am a lair and I inhabit a lair. The 2009 Worlds Lair!

Everybody else ? Stuck in a Romantic phase, or is that a neo classical loop? Hopelessly generic for the most part. Rooted in alkaline, sterile water. Hydroponically suspended in a bowl. Smooth between the legs. Stoppered with dried plaster. With no memory of being able to move.

dave graney- LIVE IN HELL- review by la MASCARA

LIVE IN HELL, like its predecessor, "POINT BLANK" is a show we did at the Butterfly Club in Melbourne. the most distinctive thing about performing in the club is that there is ni microphone or PA system or amplification used at all. This is pretty exciting for a performer and singer . Whenever I had to talk up the show to a radio or press person they would always refer to it as "unplugged" or "laidback" when its completely the opposite. With a microphone you cane be intimate and breathy and whispery but without one you have to belt things out , 19th century style.
We used a mic plugged into a small guitar amp for a couple of songs in LIVE IN HELL to give it a little sonic variation. POINT BLANBK was presented with vibes, piano and voice, LIVE IN HELL had Clare Moore on a tiny drum kit (Snare case as a bass drum etc) , Stu Thomas on fuzz Baritone guitar through a tiny amp and Stu Perera on a , luckily, very lou nylon string guitar. We hope to expand the show into a bigger room. POINT BLANK was all my onw songs, LIVE IN HELL was mainly my songs wth some songs by fellow travellers.


This review is about as good a representation/review of Live in Hell as you could get...

"The few fortunate enough to see one of Dave Graney's "Live in Hell" shows at the Butterfly club came away both entertained and enlightened.[I certainly overcame an ennui caused by the sea of banality that we currently swim in.] Neither just a pop hits package nor a lecture from a lectern, the performances were carried by Graney's eloquence and humour, not to mention the considerable contributions by his musical comrades :- the two Stu's (Perera and Thomas) on guitar strings, and the multitalented Moore on glockenspiel,cymbals,snare,melodica,and road case!
A continuation of his earlier cabaret "Point Blank" wherein Graney delved into the nature of performing, "Live in Hell" is purgatory from a performer's perspective. Graney begins by clearing up delusions about deities with a track from his recent album "We Wuz Curious" . "Let's Kill God Again" is not so much an irreligious rant as an appeal to reason. And though the Blues, Rock'n'Roll, and even Jazz have long been labelled "the Devil's music", Graney rejects the very notion of Satan. He chooses Roxy Music's "Bogus Man" to denounce the Devil as just another God-Man construct to frighten us. Later he brings Hell back to the surface with another cover -this time the Fall's "New Face in Hell". The point being that our Hell is here and now not some fanciful fire and brimstone netherworld. He goes on to argue the Devil we fear is other people -using a twisted cover of the Presley hit "One Night with You" which becomes "One Night of sin".
Finally Graney draws on one of his confessed favourite performers- Jim Morrison - reading the Lizard King's "Lament". Though I'm not a fan of this pseudo shaman, Graney uses him to perfectly illustrate a point.ie. By name and nature Rock'n'Roll is about fucking, so Morrison's paean to his penis and the death thereof, expresses the performer's Hell. even Morrison's detractors like his former manager Danny Fields who denounce his poetry as "sophomoric bullshit babble" recognized that pound for pound Jimbo had more cockmeat than most. "He was sexier than his poetry" conceding "he had a big dick". And Morrison's penchant for flopping it out onstage left nothing to the imagination. But to be effective it requires more
than just a willingness to wave your wiener. As evidenced by the success of some eg. Iggy and Lux, and the failure of others eg. GG and Fred - the latter just look pathetic. Morrison combined his cock with a look copped from whip-dancing Warhol/VU sidekick Gerard Malanga to create a wet dream for his hippie fans. So maybe in a flash of peyote-induced clarity, Morrison imagined his own impotence [performance anxiety?] and saw his own Hell ? When it became a reality for the fat and flaccid Door-man, it wasn't long before his corpulent corpse was found bobbing in the bathtub. For a Rock'n'Roll performer onanism isn't an option - though many succumb. Pop music is a veritable magnet for masturbators. Dave Graney knows this and paints his Hell as a sea of wasted "guz" [which we're told is a combination of jiz and diz]. But he needn't worry - his potent performance tonight proves it! "

La Mascara