This appears in the latest TRIP magazine.For subscribers of RRR Melbourne Community Radio
Squelch. Its a form of music. A nano genre at the moment but I am handing it to the public to make it into something enormous. Take that to the bank! Simple as that. Doing BLB with Elizabeth early on I was moaning about pathetic names for genres of music. Like “beats”. That has got to be the worst. What the fuck is that all about then? I never go near anything if its called “beats”. I mean I probably have heard a lot of it and liked it and I probably listened to some very recently. i wouldn’t call it “beats “ though. “Dance” is also piss weak. And that scene is usually full of great pr whizz with great names for tracks that don’t really deserve it. DJs have great names too, and they mostly don’t deserve much. I respect their biz though, their shamelessness is most admirable. I love it. Their view of the world is total SQUELCH.
One night I sat at a club and asked a lady to identify all the sounds that were flying around the room. She did this for me, she was glad for the opportunity to dump this useless offall that was crowding her mind onto me. SQUELCH! Turned out that each song was its own micro genre. Just as I suspected! They know how to squeeze every ounce out of the stuff in that scene. Nothing is left to chance. Flog it!
Reggae is a great name for a form of music. It took a while and then someone heard someone say it and it caught on. Rockabilly too. Actually, while we’re at it, “spoken word” has to be the lamest shingle anybody has ever put out in front of their act doesn’t it? SPOKEN WORD! That is bad. For people who are trading in WORDS, that is very , very lazy and mo poke in the extreme. There is no jizz in that title, no bounce. Jazz is a great name for a form of music. Blues. Punk. Anything with “core” in it is pretty pathetic. Like a dangleberry or clingon on the arse of something bigger, grimly hanging on. Same with “post” or “alt” . Just substitute “not”. Modern shit with good names are GRIME. CRUNK. Shit, thats about it.
Rock Music is hopeless. Whats the best they came up with recently ? Emo! They ran out of puff trying to say a word and we were left with that three letter furball . Paste a message on Friendface and leave us! SQUELCH!
I could go on. On BLB, Elizabeth usually stops me. Ta.
I have to say that she has the capacity to go on too. I am a live and let live guy though. I just put on my earphones and listen to sports radio until it looks like its all over. The loyal BLB listeners text me constantly to keep me in touch with what shes on about this time. What can I say? I’m a man- I give- I bend like a tree in a gale- then I give again.
One day I came into the studio and said I wanted to hear nothing but squelching sounds. I wanted to get my SQUELCH on. I was after a new kind of SQUELCH. I wanted , you know “ dark side of the squelch” or "never mind the squelch “ or “ a hard days squelch”. “The SQUELCH SESSIONS”! “the squelch remains the same!”
“I know what you mean” Elizabeth said. I reached for this disc by “SPOONBILL” called “AIRBORNE”. It was total squelch. See, I’d already slipped into talking about a noun there. i moved from adjectival discourse into naming the sounds. Thats what happened on the show that day. I got so many texts from BLB listeners wanting more SQUELCH! Straight off. We had a movement. People wanted squelch before hey knew what it was. And then , best of all, it was already here. SQUELCH was in the house! Elizabeth and I moved quickly to define the new genre. I wold say it s a form of music with no known boundaries save for the lack of loud guitars. Effected guitars are ok though , bendy, wah and soft fuzz sounds. Octaves especially. That sound on a lot of 70s soul with the trickling waterfall effect. Thats total SQUELCH. SQUELCH is a smooth and viscous sound. Like machines shitting. Horribly organic. Vegetable automatons gurgling to the nth. Taking things to the logical rotting conclusion. Its rooted in machines having wet dreams. Nocturnal funk. Smooth and bubbling. Electro diarrhoea. Non verbal. Know what I squelch?
We tried to reach into the past and we played a song by a person we archly and crassly called “the Godmother of SQUELCH”. This was Sophie Ellis Bextor , mainly because I had her cd in my bag and I think shes a doll. “Murder on the dancefloor”. We heard SQUELCH everywhere. It was a SQUELCH,SQUELCH,SQUELCH,SQUELCH,SQUELCH,SQUELCH world.
Later, I was working in my studio and used a plugin , ( a virtual effect). It was called COSMONAUT and it eq’d the sound to make it vintage and clunky. It also had a setting called , you guessed it- SQUELCH! There is nothing better than making something up that already exists . I’m sure everybody has experienced that heavy, throbbing, thrill. It must be good if its already here! Authentic also. Its just that nobody has identified it yet. Its a fact that you simply cant see things that you don’t recognize. Its not there until you see it! All performers know this conundrum.
So, for the history books, let it be known that SQUELCH - a new microgenre of music was first identified and therefore sighted and named and therefore created and sent out into the world from the studios of RRR fm in Melbourne by Dave Graney and Elizabeth McCarthy from within the sturdy construct that is their show, BANANA LOUNGE BROADCASTING in August 2010.
postscript. The week after we’d invented SQUELCH, when we were all set to deal with POST SQUELCH, Elizabeth had to go away on a course with that guy Anthony Robbins and I had to do the show solo. I was going to have an old friend in on the sow, New York based record producer Victor Van Vugt. I called him and said I was going to be playing some SQUELCH on the show. Without dropping a beat he said, “is that like SQUEE?
dave graney - Moodists-Coral Snakes-mistLY-FEARFUL WIGGINGS
photo by Charlie Kinross. Cds available via links below (or click this picture above). Your support for our music is greatly appreciated.
About Me
- dave graney
- 2024 release of two albums. (strangely)(emotional) and I Passed Through Minor Chord In A Morning. 2023 book THERE HE GOES WITH HIS EYE OUT (lyrics 1980-2023) 2023 reissue Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes Night Of The Wolverine. Double vinyl release. 2023 ROCK album with Clare Moore IN A MISTLY . WORKSHY - 2017 memoir out on Affirm Press. Available at shows or via website. Moodists - Coral Snakes - mistLY. I don’t know what I am and don’t want to know any more than I already know. I aspire, in my music , to 40s B Movie (voice and presence) and wish I could play guitar like Dickey Betts, John Cippolina or Grant Green - but not in this lifetime, I know.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Semaphore-" like the sixties with a hardon!"
AN EDITED VERSION OF THIS STORY APPEARS IN THE CURRENT ADELAIDE REVIEW...
Adelaide has presented many faces to us but we had never experienced the likes of the Semaphore Workers Cub. What a pleasant surprise it was too. Semaphore is some sort of a fading rose of a seaside idyll. In its late bloom. I went there only a couple of years ago and was charmed by the wide streets and the sleepy country town tempo of the place. How such a joint had been allowed to be accessible to anyone but the super rich was a conundrum. It is beautifully down beat and genteel. Old world. (Even though the smart people have obviously already gotten involved and put in a lot of confusing traffic diversions in that beautiful wide main street leading to the beach. It wont be long until this late bloom is over and the harvesting of real estate dreams begins) On this trip we were to discover it had an even richer and stranger inner life.
The Workers Club has no signage outside as they “ don’t want any passing trade”. This alarmed us as we musicians have been bashed and narrowed in our thinking to be completely commercial at all times. We drove the short distance from the delightful hotel to the club. Inside it was all high ceilinged wide ambience just like those old dilapidated former embassies people used to live in in St Kilda.
Walls absolutely festooned with banners from Communist groups the world over. Images of Che and Ho and various Euro Reds looked over the proceedings. We were told that the phone had been ringing hot which sent our hearts low as that usually means no one will bother to actually come. We finished the soundcheck and were enjoying game of pool on the full sized billiard tables as the people started coming in. Apparently there had been a queue around the block . They charged in and lined up at the bar. A totally blue collar, brawny, rough hewn , up for it bunch of party people the likes of which I didn’t think existed anymore. I thought they'd all been domesticated. This was not a crowd from the prissy world of indie rock music or Sunday colour supplement stories of the best bars/coffees in whatever sad city you live in. This was a real underworld crowd. There were music clips being shown on one wall, “howlin wolf” and “sonny boy williamson” and “etta James” all bawling the blues. Mesmerising in its lost worlde class.
Stu Thomas did a set with himself on his orange baritone six string bass/guitar hybrid style of playing along with sunglasses,white jacket and Clare Moore on drums and vocals. They played for about an hour. (They had already played a set the night before at the Grace Emily).
Then we got up and did an hour long set ourselves.Two guitars,bass and drums, all keyed up by the crowd and the blues in the room.
The gates were closed and no one else was being let in.
I always say “hello Comrades” at shows as a fellow once said it to me at Trades Hall in Melbourne and I felt so great I took it on. In Brisbane, opening for Glen Campbell last December I said it and half the audience walked out. They hate “commies“ up there. (Commies being interchangeable with “from melbourne” which I had also informed them was the case) . Here, everybody was addressed as “comrades and fellow workers”. I felt I was at home.
At the break I walked off the stage towards the door and a fellow stopped me to say hello. “You don’t remember me do you?” I said I was having trouble and he told me his name. An old friend from the country. I’m not the hugging type but I felt kind of emotive and we embraced. Probably because I knew him at that time in your life before the retrograde sets in - when your were just a kid. He used to dink me home from footy training. Anyway, something was troubling me, something I was supposed to remember. Then it hit me, this fellow had been involved in a double murder- of his parents. I didn’t know him when that happened, I only knew him from an earlier, untroubled period. Can you shut things like that from your mind? Should you? Sometimes its easy to talk to people you haven’t been in contact with for a while. I said “So, you’ve had an ....interesting life...”. He agreed and alluded to his parents. No smiling at all from either of us here. He introduced me to his girlfriend. Later, I felt I had to ask about the time I had referred to as “interesting”. He just looked at me and said, “madness , Dave- madness” and we talked a little more in that crowded room, touching lightly on very heavy areas. It was a difficult conversation to have and a difficult place to try and have it in. I knew I had to go back on and do another set. Sometimes, being a musician, going onto the stage or taking care of your gear is a good way to take your leave from people and situations that get to be a bit too chaotic. I enjoyed running into him though and wouldn’t go out of my way to avoid talking to him again.
We got up and played for another hour. The joint was jumpin’!
As we walked off “the Internationale” was played at a rousing volume. We sat around and talked to people , those attending the show and then the people from the club. What an amazing place! So connected to history and the local community.
You also get the greatest critiques in places like that. A guy apparently left saying, “Dave Graney! Like the sixties with a hard on!”
The fellow who books it talked of being sent by the PARTY to Cuba to attend a conference. Lost worlds.
The next day we got up at midday and played for an hour on the foreshore at Semaphore. A different crowd and a different sound. Blasting sunlight and strong sea winds. Guitars went out of tune and I couldn’t see the led lights of my pedal.
Then we drove to the Wheatsheaf and played for an hour at 4pm. This set was gonna be soft and conversational. It was , for about two songs. My watch stopped somewhere along the way and the second set stretched out for another one and a half hours. This was Grateful Dead style playing. Clare Moore and Stu Thomas eventually played for seven hours over three days.
After the set a white haired woman bailed me up and bawled at me for not lowering the door price while I was on stage. She flounced off still yelling at me for being up myself. I went to talk with some friends. A tripping barfly came up to give me some shit about my moustache, yabbering about a 60s movie with Shirley Maclaine he had seen. “Jimmy Edwards” I said, referring to the moustachioed British comedian who was in the same film. “Fuck off! How can you know who I’m talking about!” he yelled. I begged off. he came back to talk of an Adelaide musician called Benjamin Hugg. I said I had that album, the one with the cover shot outside of Trims from the late 70s. He shook my hand. He said I should listen to the record. I said I would. He said "Fuck off! I don’t give a fuck what you think!”. I said “sure” and bade my farewells to friends. He followed me yelling about how I should do what he said and every time I agreed he told me to “fuck off”. A difficult character to engage with. I escaped to pack up my gear.
We were still staying in Semaphore. the next day we loaded the van and paid the hotelier. He had been a pretty taciturn character- a busy weekend. Things were a bit quiet now so he spoke more freely. Learning we had been to the workers club he talked of his own father who had been a radical communist and union man. Eventually blackballed from a lot of employment. The publican himself had gone to Moscow to attend a student and workers conference in the 70s. He had enlisted into the armed forces but had had his papers stamped “commie” after a day. He said he didn’t talk about his past to many people as they accused him of being “things like a... traitor”. He laughed, saying he was a “Utopian now”. Whatever the hell that is.
Semaphore was beat. Blue collar. Totally downbeat and beatific. They’ll have to ruin it.
We drove to the bustling wide spot in the road known as Bordertown and engaged an innkeeper for a room for the night. A morbidly obese woman sold us some parcels of indeterminate food material soaked in concentrated animal fats. Bear Grylls would have recoiled at this stuff but we did the right thing by somebody or other and ate a few mouthfuls.
In Melbourne we made camp for a couple of days before blowing town in separate directions. Clare to Hobart and myself to Mt Gambier. I had some personal stuff to take care of.
I stayed with a cousin on his farm about 35ks toward a fishing fleet town. I was wearing leather pants, shirt,waistcoat ,tie and jacket as I was also gonna have my photo taken near one of the mills down there and couldn’t be arsed packing anything more delicate. I was kitted out ‘end of the world” style.
I found myself standing out in a paddock with a herd of shitting, spluttering, pissing cows a couple of times. Being no help but looking cool (in my world). Brando out bush. In spite of the crowd I was hangin’ with. The neighbours will be talking about it for a few years. My cousin was driving across the fields, herding the cows from one field to another, Black Sabbaths “paranoid” album blaring on the cd player. You find out what has endured out in this sort of a map reference. I said , through the noise of the music and the car and the cows, that Ozzie was a bit sad now. My cousin said that he was always a bit of a tool and that Tony Iommi was the brains of the outfit. That is wisdom. In the straight world, people follow along with the idea that Ozzie was a wildman- just like a herd of cows. The man can hardly move , let alone talk!
We sat in his old Cockys farm house, that he has renovated- to make it SMALLER - and listened to the Who on his handmade stereo and ate pasta and chocolate. The sea and the weather happening eternally outside and the cows adding their very ephemeral sounds to the nightly fields .I learned some country wisdom. He has a friend , who has rarely saddled up, though he has a female he is smitten with who “narrows him up a bit”, whose view on marriage or co habitation was , when pressed, “ why give half your tucker away to get the other half cooked”. I guess you could take that to the bank to see what they make of it. As a fellow cheapskate , it made a lick of sense to me.
Adelaide has presented many faces to us but we had never experienced the likes of the Semaphore Workers Cub. What a pleasant surprise it was too. Semaphore is some sort of a fading rose of a seaside idyll. In its late bloom. I went there only a couple of years ago and was charmed by the wide streets and the sleepy country town tempo of the place. How such a joint had been allowed to be accessible to anyone but the super rich was a conundrum. It is beautifully down beat and genteel. Old world. (Even though the smart people have obviously already gotten involved and put in a lot of confusing traffic diversions in that beautiful wide main street leading to the beach. It wont be long until this late bloom is over and the harvesting of real estate dreams begins) On this trip we were to discover it had an even richer and stranger inner life.
The Workers Club has no signage outside as they “ don’t want any passing trade”. This alarmed us as we musicians have been bashed and narrowed in our thinking to be completely commercial at all times. We drove the short distance from the delightful hotel to the club. Inside it was all high ceilinged wide ambience just like those old dilapidated former embassies people used to live in in St Kilda.
Walls absolutely festooned with banners from Communist groups the world over. Images of Che and Ho and various Euro Reds looked over the proceedings. We were told that the phone had been ringing hot which sent our hearts low as that usually means no one will bother to actually come. We finished the soundcheck and were enjoying game of pool on the full sized billiard tables as the people started coming in. Apparently there had been a queue around the block . They charged in and lined up at the bar. A totally blue collar, brawny, rough hewn , up for it bunch of party people the likes of which I didn’t think existed anymore. I thought they'd all been domesticated. This was not a crowd from the prissy world of indie rock music or Sunday colour supplement stories of the best bars/coffees in whatever sad city you live in. This was a real underworld crowd. There were music clips being shown on one wall, “howlin wolf” and “sonny boy williamson” and “etta James” all bawling the blues. Mesmerising in its lost worlde class.
Stu Thomas did a set with himself on his orange baritone six string bass/guitar hybrid style of playing along with sunglasses,white jacket and Clare Moore on drums and vocals. They played for about an hour. (They had already played a set the night before at the Grace Emily).
Then we got up and did an hour long set ourselves.Two guitars,bass and drums, all keyed up by the crowd and the blues in the room.
The gates were closed and no one else was being let in.
I always say “hello Comrades” at shows as a fellow once said it to me at Trades Hall in Melbourne and I felt so great I took it on. In Brisbane, opening for Glen Campbell last December I said it and half the audience walked out. They hate “commies“ up there. (Commies being interchangeable with “from melbourne” which I had also informed them was the case) . Here, everybody was addressed as “comrades and fellow workers”. I felt I was at home.
At the break I walked off the stage towards the door and a fellow stopped me to say hello. “You don’t remember me do you?” I said I was having trouble and he told me his name. An old friend from the country. I’m not the hugging type but I felt kind of emotive and we embraced. Probably because I knew him at that time in your life before the retrograde sets in - when your were just a kid. He used to dink me home from footy training. Anyway, something was troubling me, something I was supposed to remember. Then it hit me, this fellow had been involved in a double murder- of his parents. I didn’t know him when that happened, I only knew him from an earlier, untroubled period. Can you shut things like that from your mind? Should you? Sometimes its easy to talk to people you haven’t been in contact with for a while. I said “So, you’ve had an ....interesting life...”. He agreed and alluded to his parents. No smiling at all from either of us here. He introduced me to his girlfriend. Later, I felt I had to ask about the time I had referred to as “interesting”. He just looked at me and said, “madness , Dave- madness” and we talked a little more in that crowded room, touching lightly on very heavy areas. It was a difficult conversation to have and a difficult place to try and have it in. I knew I had to go back on and do another set. Sometimes, being a musician, going onto the stage or taking care of your gear is a good way to take your leave from people and situations that get to be a bit too chaotic. I enjoyed running into him though and wouldn’t go out of my way to avoid talking to him again.
We got up and played for another hour. The joint was jumpin’!
As we walked off “the Internationale” was played at a rousing volume. We sat around and talked to people , those attending the show and then the people from the club. What an amazing place! So connected to history and the local community.
You also get the greatest critiques in places like that. A guy apparently left saying, “Dave Graney! Like the sixties with a hard on!”
The fellow who books it talked of being sent by the PARTY to Cuba to attend a conference. Lost worlds.
The next day we got up at midday and played for an hour on the foreshore at Semaphore. A different crowd and a different sound. Blasting sunlight and strong sea winds. Guitars went out of tune and I couldn’t see the led lights of my pedal.
Then we drove to the Wheatsheaf and played for an hour at 4pm. This set was gonna be soft and conversational. It was , for about two songs. My watch stopped somewhere along the way and the second set stretched out for another one and a half hours. This was Grateful Dead style playing. Clare Moore and Stu Thomas eventually played for seven hours over three days.
After the set a white haired woman bailed me up and bawled at me for not lowering the door price while I was on stage. She flounced off still yelling at me for being up myself. I went to talk with some friends. A tripping barfly came up to give me some shit about my moustache, yabbering about a 60s movie with Shirley Maclaine he had seen. “Jimmy Edwards” I said, referring to the moustachioed British comedian who was in the same film. “Fuck off! How can you know who I’m talking about!” he yelled. I begged off. he came back to talk of an Adelaide musician called Benjamin Hugg. I said I had that album, the one with the cover shot outside of Trims from the late 70s. He shook my hand. He said I should listen to the record. I said I would. He said "Fuck off! I don’t give a fuck what you think!”. I said “sure” and bade my farewells to friends. He followed me yelling about how I should do what he said and every time I agreed he told me to “fuck off”. A difficult character to engage with. I escaped to pack up my gear.
We were still staying in Semaphore. the next day we loaded the van and paid the hotelier. He had been a pretty taciturn character- a busy weekend. Things were a bit quiet now so he spoke more freely. Learning we had been to the workers club he talked of his own father who had been a radical communist and union man. Eventually blackballed from a lot of employment. The publican himself had gone to Moscow to attend a student and workers conference in the 70s. He had enlisted into the armed forces but had had his papers stamped “commie” after a day. He said he didn’t talk about his past to many people as they accused him of being “things like a... traitor”. He laughed, saying he was a “Utopian now”. Whatever the hell that is.
Semaphore was beat. Blue collar. Totally downbeat and beatific. They’ll have to ruin it.
We drove to the bustling wide spot in the road known as Bordertown and engaged an innkeeper for a room for the night. A morbidly obese woman sold us some parcels of indeterminate food material soaked in concentrated animal fats. Bear Grylls would have recoiled at this stuff but we did the right thing by somebody or other and ate a few mouthfuls.
In Melbourne we made camp for a couple of days before blowing town in separate directions. Clare to Hobart and myself to Mt Gambier. I had some personal stuff to take care of.
I stayed with a cousin on his farm about 35ks toward a fishing fleet town. I was wearing leather pants, shirt,waistcoat ,tie and jacket as I was also gonna have my photo taken near one of the mills down there and couldn’t be arsed packing anything more delicate. I was kitted out ‘end of the world” style.
I found myself standing out in a paddock with a herd of shitting, spluttering, pissing cows a couple of times. Being no help but looking cool (in my world). Brando out bush. In spite of the crowd I was hangin’ with. The neighbours will be talking about it for a few years. My cousin was driving across the fields, herding the cows from one field to another, Black Sabbaths “paranoid” album blaring on the cd player. You find out what has endured out in this sort of a map reference. I said , through the noise of the music and the car and the cows, that Ozzie was a bit sad now. My cousin said that he was always a bit of a tool and that Tony Iommi was the brains of the outfit. That is wisdom. In the straight world, people follow along with the idea that Ozzie was a wildman- just like a herd of cows. The man can hardly move , let alone talk!
We sat in his old Cockys farm house, that he has renovated- to make it SMALLER - and listened to the Who on his handmade stereo and ate pasta and chocolate. The sea and the weather happening eternally outside and the cows adding their very ephemeral sounds to the nightly fields .I learned some country wisdom. He has a friend , who has rarely saddled up, though he has a female he is smitten with who “narrows him up a bit”, whose view on marriage or co habitation was , when pressed, “ why give half your tucker away to get the other half cooked”. I guess you could take that to the bank to see what they make of it. As a fellow cheapskate , it made a lick of sense to me.
Monday, September 27, 2010
interrogations via the magic box!
well you put out a record and people from the internet send you questions and you asnswer them...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone joins or forms a band to get laid. If your band represents your sex life are you Casanova or spending plenty of time doing the five knuckle shuffle?
I PLAY MUSIC BECAUSE I LIKE THE MUSIC PART OF IT. IF MUSIC IS ANY GOOD , YES, IT HAS SOME SEX IN IT OR ON IT OR AROUND IT.
We don’t want to know about the painfully hip bands your press release says you’re influenced by. Take us back to your bedroom when you were 14. What band posters did you have on the wall?
MUDDY WATERS, HOWLING WOLF, ROLLING STONES, HOUND DOG TAYLOR, JOHHNY WINTER, DEEP PURPLE, ALLMAN BROTEHRS, QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE, JJ CALE, LYNYRD SKYNYRD, IAN HUNTER, LOU REED, WAR.
What’s been your worst gig and why are you glad there’s no footage of it on Youtube … yet?
DEPENDS WHO IS BAD FOR. DO YOU MEAN FOR US OR FOR THE AUDIENCE? AS TO THE LATTER, I DID DO A GIG IN PERTH WHEN PRINCESS DI HAD DIED (sic) AND ATTEMPTED A VERSION OF STREET HASSLE WITH HER BEING MENTIONED IN IT. YOU KNOW THE PART WHERE THERE IS A DEAD PROSTITUTE ON THE FLOOR AND THE DOPE DEALER IS TELLING HER BOYFRIEND TO 'DRAG HER OUT IN THE STREET AN' BY THE MORNING SHES ANOTHER HIT AND RUN..." THE ROOM WAS SLOWLY CLEARING OUT. I WISH THERE WAS SOME YOUTUBE OF THAT....
I ALWAYS ENJOY PLAYING MUSIC AND DOING GIGS.
Tomorrow’s payday, so we’ve only got $20 to get you drunk. Where do we go and what do we buy with it?
I DON'T DRINK. I LIKE TO SIT AND HAVE A COFFEE IN THE CITY. BUT I ONLY LIKE STARBUCKS . BREWED COFFEE ONLY. NOT TOO STRONG AND IN A BIG PAPER CUP.
We’ve been looking in the $2 bin at Dixons Recycled and also bidding on eBay – what releases are we looking for there that your band has put out?
I GUESS THAT WOULD BE THE HIGHEST SELLING ONE AND THAT WOULD BE "THE SOFT AND SEXY SOUND". ITS A GREAT DISC. I WOULD BE HAPPY FOR PEOPLE TO ENJOY ANY OF THE DISCS WE'VE MADE. I DID THE BEST I COULD WITH 'EM ALL. THE LATEST, 'SUPERMODIFIED" , IS A PRETTY GOOD PLACE FOR SOMEONE TO START ACTUALLY. YOU KNOW, IF I WAS INTERROGATED BY THE SECRET POLICE AND THEY WANTED TO KNOW WHAT IT WAS I DID I COULD TELL THEM TO LISTEN TO SUPERMODIFIED AND THAT WOULD BE IT. A LOT OF MY OTHER RECORDS HAVE STRAYED AWAY FROM OUR CENTRAL THEMES BUT THE LAST THREE HAVE BEEN VERY FOCUSSED.
Suppose we put a gun to your head and force you to kiss a member of another Australian band. Who, which band and why?
I THINK THE RAPPER DIRTCHILD MIGHT BE WORTH THE PUNCH YOU'D PROBABLY GET FOR YOUR TROUBLES. THEN YOU MIGHT HAVE AN INTERESTING CHAT AFTER ALL THE VIOLENCE. INTERNATIONALLY, IT WOULD BE SOPHIE ELLIS BEXTOR. BECAUSE SHES AN ABSOLUTE DOLL.
Don’t talk to me about ...clothes. If people talk about what you are wearing it means you've done something wrong.
The secret to success is ...to make up your own prizes and to also keep it a secret when you have won them.
I’m most proud of ....being a musician and playing with my band who are great people and company and are incredible players. The best I have ever been with.
The three people I’d love to invite to dinner are ....Guillaume Apollinaire, Brigitte Bardot and Jim Thompson. A French poet, a French actor and an American pulp writer.
When I was a kid I wanted to be .....a priest, then my sister kicked me under the table and I changed my story to a pop star. The Brothers in skirts were just about to shove me in to the big black van that took little altar boys away....
I laugh every time I .....watch the Big Bang theory, the IT Crowd or IDEAL.
The thing I’d change about me is .......the amount of money in my bank account. Then I would go and live in Paris.
I’m ashamed to say I .....don't drink alcohol. I was a great drinker once. A champion, like all my family.
My favourite word is..... "boom!" I smash my fist on the table as I say it- after dropping a bombshell...
The talent I wish I had is ......to play the guitar like willie nelson or grant green.
My course in life was set when .....I was born.In country south australia.
The person I admire most is ......Patrick White. Australias greatest ever writer.
My greatest extravagance is ......wearing denim or leather. I love denim and am looking for a denim suit. One or two piece. I also never pay more than $300 for any piece of musical equipment. Guitars or amps etc...
My friends think I am ......tight. as a fishers arse. And they know me very well.
My favourite place on earth is ......London,with a lot of money. So I have never really experienced that!
The most useful advice I ever got was ......"theres no retiring n this business! I relaxed after I knew I was a hostage.
As I’ve gotten older ......I’ve got to hate playing slow music. Or listening to it. The whole shithouse is goin' up inflames! Melancholy is or young people.
The thing I hate most is ..... commercial radio not playing any new music and no australian music.
My most treasured possession is .....a guitar a friend lent me.
I last cried when .....my cat of 20 years died. Just a couple of weeks ago. Aughtie. She bit or scratched everybody else who came near.
My last meal would be .....pretty tasteless i reckon. My mind would be fuzzing out or slowing down. I wouldn't be into it.
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Everyone joins or forms a band to get laid. If your band represents your sex life are you Casanova or spending plenty of time doing the five knuckle shuffle?
I PLAY MUSIC BECAUSE I LIKE THE MUSIC PART OF IT. IF MUSIC IS ANY GOOD , YES, IT HAS SOME SEX IN IT OR ON IT OR AROUND IT.
We don’t want to know about the painfully hip bands your press release says you’re influenced by. Take us back to your bedroom when you were 14. What band posters did you have on the wall?
MUDDY WATERS, HOWLING WOLF, ROLLING STONES, HOUND DOG TAYLOR, JOHHNY WINTER, DEEP PURPLE, ALLMAN BROTEHRS, QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE, JJ CALE, LYNYRD SKYNYRD, IAN HUNTER, LOU REED, WAR.
What’s been your worst gig and why are you glad there’s no footage of it on Youtube … yet?
DEPENDS WHO IS BAD FOR. DO YOU MEAN FOR US OR FOR THE AUDIENCE? AS TO THE LATTER, I DID DO A GIG IN PERTH WHEN PRINCESS DI HAD DIED (sic) AND ATTEMPTED A VERSION OF STREET HASSLE WITH HER BEING MENTIONED IN IT. YOU KNOW THE PART WHERE THERE IS A DEAD PROSTITUTE ON THE FLOOR AND THE DOPE DEALER IS TELLING HER BOYFRIEND TO 'DRAG HER OUT IN THE STREET AN' BY THE MORNING SHES ANOTHER HIT AND RUN..." THE ROOM WAS SLOWLY CLEARING OUT. I WISH THERE WAS SOME YOUTUBE OF THAT....
I ALWAYS ENJOY PLAYING MUSIC AND DOING GIGS.
Tomorrow’s payday, so we’ve only got $20 to get you drunk. Where do we go and what do we buy with it?
I DON'T DRINK. I LIKE TO SIT AND HAVE A COFFEE IN THE CITY. BUT I ONLY LIKE STARBUCKS . BREWED COFFEE ONLY. NOT TOO STRONG AND IN A BIG PAPER CUP.
We’ve been looking in the $2 bin at Dixons Recycled and also bidding on eBay – what releases are we looking for there that your band has put out?
I GUESS THAT WOULD BE THE HIGHEST SELLING ONE AND THAT WOULD BE "THE SOFT AND SEXY SOUND". ITS A GREAT DISC. I WOULD BE HAPPY FOR PEOPLE TO ENJOY ANY OF THE DISCS WE'VE MADE. I DID THE BEST I COULD WITH 'EM ALL. THE LATEST, 'SUPERMODIFIED" , IS A PRETTY GOOD PLACE FOR SOMEONE TO START ACTUALLY. YOU KNOW, IF I WAS INTERROGATED BY THE SECRET POLICE AND THEY WANTED TO KNOW WHAT IT WAS I DID I COULD TELL THEM TO LISTEN TO SUPERMODIFIED AND THAT WOULD BE IT. A LOT OF MY OTHER RECORDS HAVE STRAYED AWAY FROM OUR CENTRAL THEMES BUT THE LAST THREE HAVE BEEN VERY FOCUSSED.
Suppose we put a gun to your head and force you to kiss a member of another Australian band. Who, which band and why?
I THINK THE RAPPER DIRTCHILD MIGHT BE WORTH THE PUNCH YOU'D PROBABLY GET FOR YOUR TROUBLES. THEN YOU MIGHT HAVE AN INTERESTING CHAT AFTER ALL THE VIOLENCE. INTERNATIONALLY, IT WOULD BE SOPHIE ELLIS BEXTOR. BECAUSE SHES AN ABSOLUTE DOLL.
Don’t talk to me about ...clothes. If people talk about what you are wearing it means you've done something wrong.
The secret to success is ...to make up your own prizes and to also keep it a secret when you have won them.
I’m most proud of ....being a musician and playing with my band who are great people and company and are incredible players. The best I have ever been with.
The three people I’d love to invite to dinner are ....Guillaume Apollinaire, Brigitte Bardot and Jim Thompson. A French poet, a French actor and an American pulp writer.
When I was a kid I wanted to be .....a priest, then my sister kicked me under the table and I changed my story to a pop star. The Brothers in skirts were just about to shove me in to the big black van that took little altar boys away....
I laugh every time I .....watch the Big Bang theory, the IT Crowd or IDEAL.
The thing I’d change about me is .......the amount of money in my bank account. Then I would go and live in Paris.
I’m ashamed to say I .....don't drink alcohol. I was a great drinker once. A champion, like all my family.
My favourite word is..... "boom!" I smash my fist on the table as I say it- after dropping a bombshell...
The talent I wish I had is ......to play the guitar like willie nelson or grant green.
My course in life was set when .....I was born.In country south australia.
The person I admire most is ......Patrick White. Australias greatest ever writer.
My greatest extravagance is ......wearing denim or leather. I love denim and am looking for a denim suit. One or two piece. I also never pay more than $300 for any piece of musical equipment. Guitars or amps etc...
My friends think I am ......tight. as a fishers arse. And they know me very well.
My favourite place on earth is ......London,with a lot of money. So I have never really experienced that!
The most useful advice I ever got was ......"theres no retiring n this business! I relaxed after I knew I was a hostage.
As I’ve gotten older ......I’ve got to hate playing slow music. Or listening to it. The whole shithouse is goin' up inflames! Melancholy is or young people.
The thing I hate most is ..... commercial radio not playing any new music and no australian music.
My most treasured possession is .....a guitar a friend lent me.
I last cried when .....my cat of 20 years died. Just a couple of weeks ago. Aughtie. She bit or scratched everybody else who came near.
My last meal would be .....pretty tasteless i reckon. My mind would be fuzzing out or slowing down. I wouldn't be into it.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
bass- a story I wrote for Australian Musician Magazine
Bass . Think of words like Monolithic.Megalithic.Prehistoric. Primitive.Mystic. Then try to place it in the mix.
When I first started playing music, in the late seventies, everybody seemed to covet Rickenbacker basses. I don’t know why. They had a very hollow type of a sound. Trebly and lots of string in it. Was it the after effects of an influence by Chris Squire from Yes? Bruce Foxton from the Jam played one. Tracey Pew played one in the Boys Next Door.
Otherwise , in the post punk scene the bass guitar was present only occasionally as a deep , driving distorted engine of funk. Jah Wobble in PIL had a great tone and image and their sound, along with the Pop Group ( from Bristol) really brought your attention to that dub influenced spectrum of the sound. The music was open and full of space. Time and space is what the bass players control.
Youth, in Killing Joke had the same sort of goofy, primal aesthetic happening. A big sound with lots of smoke in the players hair. Jean Jacques Burnel in the Stranglers had already brought a lot of focus to the bass with his sound and his lines. He stood right at the front of the stage too, not hiding his lights back with the drums. The Stranglers had that spooky organ with four to the floor drums and spare, fender guitar touches not unlike the MGs. Plenty of room for the bass to step up and play a central role. Peter Hook in Joy Division really anchored that band with his earthy, distorted lines. Crude slabs of sound, pulverising beats.
Hook also had that melodic side which ran through a lot of post punk music and which still pops up as a kind of indie signifying mode. The bass line plays a third note and brings in a melody underneath a scratchy, thin guitar line. The Go Betweens early singes had this down perfectly. Orange Juice with “simply thrilled honey”. Sonic Youth used it a lot.
The bass player in our first band, the Moodists was Chris Walsh. he grew up running around with Tracey Pew out in that hotbed of Melbourne punk, Glen Waverley. Chris played a fretless bass through a Peavey amp with metal pick. His sound was the centre of our band. All the songs swung around the bass and the vocals. the guitars were off to the sides , wigging out.
He is a great player. We got back together fro some reunion shows. No one asked us or was really waiting for us. It was more of a case of some unfinished business. We were soundchecking at the gig. Chris and our guitarist Steve had not done a real lot of playing recently. Their sounds were perfectly preserved from the time our band was playing. Back in the old days. The young front of house guy was from the early 2000s new rock revival scene. He told our guitarist to “dial some mids in”. The guitar was plugged into a Fender twin and every dial was on 10. I told the kid to back off because we weren’t really looking for an Aerosmith type of sound. Steve and Chris were rocking sounds you couldn’t dial up from a pod or a digital amp.
After Chris left the Moodists we played with David McClymont , who had been in the aforementioned Orange Juice. He had had an experience in music from total indie label POSTCARD to pop stardom and recording in the Bahamas and back again. He was very intuitive about music. I mean he didn’t know what each note was called. he had great groove though and we learned a lot from him about arrangements and dynamics.
In the Coral Snakes we had Gordy Blair on the bass. He was a very melodic player. His first instrument was the sax. He was from Belfast , and then London but also from that post punk scene which was like a kind of a school. A lot of shared attitudes.
Adele Pickvance came to us via Robert Forsters band. She later went back to play with the Go Betweens MK111. She had learned to play the bass as a kid, in Queensland clubs with her father. He played the keys and guitar and got more dosh if it was a duo! She stood there for a while and eventually started to play. I mean over a long period. She was never scared of being on stage or in different situations. She came into music by a really natural way, not from a music school or a careers officers suggestion. Such a melodic sense. She could swing and groove too. Outstanding player!
After she left we had the luck to play with Stu Thomas. He started out on the trumpet. He plays a Fender bass , when we are rocking and then when we play a more minimalist setup, he drags out his 6 string Burns baritone which he plays as a bass. It gets that great “plunky” sound you hear on 60s soundtracks. We toured for a year with that sound. It was up against Clare on the vibes and me on acoustic 12 string. A great trio sound. Room for the lyrics to come out.
Bass players listen to the music and songs from a different perspective. I often think of dark, earthy types standing still at the back, while the lead singer and guitarist throw all kinds of mad shapes. John Entwistle from the Who, Bill Wyman grimacing a s well, John Paul Jones escaping all the cameras completely.
There were those others like Chas Chandler from the Animals and Glenn Wheatley from the Masters Apprentices who were actually standing up the back, thinking about the number of payers and how the business could be tightened up.
There have been bands like the 70s prog blues band “Back Door” which was just bass , sax and drums . I once saw a German band with SIX bass players and a poor girl on drums. God it was horrible! I hope she wasn’t a hostage.
Then there are the jazz and funk masters like Bootsy Collins and Larry Graham. Forces of nature. That bit in Sly Stones “Dance to the Music “ where the fuzz bass comes in! OOOOH thats good! Charles Mingus, Barry Adamson, that green devil with the big thumb in the Mighty Boosh....
Recent developments have seen bands like the Dirty three, the White Stripes and the Black keys do without a bass. I mean , the Cramps did it, although Bryan Gregory had an amazing bottom end of low fuzz on his guitar. And in the Doors, its still a baffling mystery how Ray Manzarek did what he did to make the bass seem to happen as well as the right hand handfulls on the organ. (I think they had an actual bass player sometime in the studio).
All these bass less acts know what they’re missing eventually. A joke is a joke , really! You got to have that low end drive in the end.
I did see a great film on the county singer Buck Owens though. He was famous for getting this sound , the “Bakersfield sound”. An area then on the outskirts of LA. He explained that he asked the engineer “how much does that goddam bass take up in the sound?” “About 80%” said the engineer. “Well get rid of it then!” said Buck and thats how he got his sound. He wanted more room for the guitars and the voice. He must have stuck with it for a while though I bet he moved some back in after a while, after he got the hang of that Bakersfield sound.
All the bass players I’ve played with have had amazing skills and chops. I learned so much from all of them.
Stu Thomas, who I play with now, has his own band, THE STU THOMAS PARADOX. Its the band where he drops all the science hes picked up into. they have a great album out called “ESCAPE FROM ALGEBRA”
I love to play the bass too. On records and when I get to play with friends like Harry Howard. Last show I did with him , I borrowed the bass amp of the other act, Ron Penos RSVP. It was a sansamp into a Galleon Kruger head into a 4 by 10 bass cab. Then the other bass player , from Black Cab, brought his cabinet of the same size up and I had a massive tower to plug into. I've always complained about bass players amps, usually when helping them lift the things. Now I understand. You NEED that power under you to really get the oomph required for the true bottom end!
Had such a great time. Like driving a steam train. All that power at your touch. Dampening it and pumping it. Riding it! Not having to smile. Brooding up the back. Thinking about the dosh. It was , no I was monolithic. Megalithic. Primitive. Godlike. I had the total package.
When I first started playing music, in the late seventies, everybody seemed to covet Rickenbacker basses. I don’t know why. They had a very hollow type of a sound. Trebly and lots of string in it. Was it the after effects of an influence by Chris Squire from Yes? Bruce Foxton from the Jam played one. Tracey Pew played one in the Boys Next Door.
Otherwise , in the post punk scene the bass guitar was present only occasionally as a deep , driving distorted engine of funk. Jah Wobble in PIL had a great tone and image and their sound, along with the Pop Group ( from Bristol) really brought your attention to that dub influenced spectrum of the sound. The music was open and full of space. Time and space is what the bass players control.
Youth, in Killing Joke had the same sort of goofy, primal aesthetic happening. A big sound with lots of smoke in the players hair. Jean Jacques Burnel in the Stranglers had already brought a lot of focus to the bass with his sound and his lines. He stood right at the front of the stage too, not hiding his lights back with the drums. The Stranglers had that spooky organ with four to the floor drums and spare, fender guitar touches not unlike the MGs. Plenty of room for the bass to step up and play a central role. Peter Hook in Joy Division really anchored that band with his earthy, distorted lines. Crude slabs of sound, pulverising beats.
Hook also had that melodic side which ran through a lot of post punk music and which still pops up as a kind of indie signifying mode. The bass line plays a third note and brings in a melody underneath a scratchy, thin guitar line. The Go Betweens early singes had this down perfectly. Orange Juice with “simply thrilled honey”. Sonic Youth used it a lot.
The bass player in our first band, the Moodists was Chris Walsh. he grew up running around with Tracey Pew out in that hotbed of Melbourne punk, Glen Waverley. Chris played a fretless bass through a Peavey amp with metal pick. His sound was the centre of our band. All the songs swung around the bass and the vocals. the guitars were off to the sides , wigging out.
He is a great player. We got back together fro some reunion shows. No one asked us or was really waiting for us. It was more of a case of some unfinished business. We were soundchecking at the gig. Chris and our guitarist Steve had not done a real lot of playing recently. Their sounds were perfectly preserved from the time our band was playing. Back in the old days. The young front of house guy was from the early 2000s new rock revival scene. He told our guitarist to “dial some mids in”. The guitar was plugged into a Fender twin and every dial was on 10. I told the kid to back off because we weren’t really looking for an Aerosmith type of sound. Steve and Chris were rocking sounds you couldn’t dial up from a pod or a digital amp.
After Chris left the Moodists we played with David McClymont , who had been in the aforementioned Orange Juice. He had had an experience in music from total indie label POSTCARD to pop stardom and recording in the Bahamas and back again. He was very intuitive about music. I mean he didn’t know what each note was called. he had great groove though and we learned a lot from him about arrangements and dynamics.
In the Coral Snakes we had Gordy Blair on the bass. He was a very melodic player. His first instrument was the sax. He was from Belfast , and then London but also from that post punk scene which was like a kind of a school. A lot of shared attitudes.
Adele Pickvance came to us via Robert Forsters band. She later went back to play with the Go Betweens MK111. She had learned to play the bass as a kid, in Queensland clubs with her father. He played the keys and guitar and got more dosh if it was a duo! She stood there for a while and eventually started to play. I mean over a long period. She was never scared of being on stage or in different situations. She came into music by a really natural way, not from a music school or a careers officers suggestion. Such a melodic sense. She could swing and groove too. Outstanding player!
After she left we had the luck to play with Stu Thomas. He started out on the trumpet. He plays a Fender bass , when we are rocking and then when we play a more minimalist setup, he drags out his 6 string Burns baritone which he plays as a bass. It gets that great “plunky” sound you hear on 60s soundtracks. We toured for a year with that sound. It was up against Clare on the vibes and me on acoustic 12 string. A great trio sound. Room for the lyrics to come out.
Bass players listen to the music and songs from a different perspective. I often think of dark, earthy types standing still at the back, while the lead singer and guitarist throw all kinds of mad shapes. John Entwistle from the Who, Bill Wyman grimacing a s well, John Paul Jones escaping all the cameras completely.
There were those others like Chas Chandler from the Animals and Glenn Wheatley from the Masters Apprentices who were actually standing up the back, thinking about the number of payers and how the business could be tightened up.
There have been bands like the 70s prog blues band “Back Door” which was just bass , sax and drums . I once saw a German band with SIX bass players and a poor girl on drums. God it was horrible! I hope she wasn’t a hostage.
Then there are the jazz and funk masters like Bootsy Collins and Larry Graham. Forces of nature. That bit in Sly Stones “Dance to the Music “ where the fuzz bass comes in! OOOOH thats good! Charles Mingus, Barry Adamson, that green devil with the big thumb in the Mighty Boosh....
Recent developments have seen bands like the Dirty three, the White Stripes and the Black keys do without a bass. I mean , the Cramps did it, although Bryan Gregory had an amazing bottom end of low fuzz on his guitar. And in the Doors, its still a baffling mystery how Ray Manzarek did what he did to make the bass seem to happen as well as the right hand handfulls on the organ. (I think they had an actual bass player sometime in the studio).
All these bass less acts know what they’re missing eventually. A joke is a joke , really! You got to have that low end drive in the end.
I did see a great film on the county singer Buck Owens though. He was famous for getting this sound , the “Bakersfield sound”. An area then on the outskirts of LA. He explained that he asked the engineer “how much does that goddam bass take up in the sound?” “About 80%” said the engineer. “Well get rid of it then!” said Buck and thats how he got his sound. He wanted more room for the guitars and the voice. He must have stuck with it for a while though I bet he moved some back in after a while, after he got the hang of that Bakersfield sound.
All the bass players I’ve played with have had amazing skills and chops. I learned so much from all of them.
Stu Thomas, who I play with now, has his own band, THE STU THOMAS PARADOX. Its the band where he drops all the science hes picked up into. they have a great album out called “ESCAPE FROM ALGEBRA”
I love to play the bass too. On records and when I get to play with friends like Harry Howard. Last show I did with him , I borrowed the bass amp of the other act, Ron Penos RSVP. It was a sansamp into a Galleon Kruger head into a 4 by 10 bass cab. Then the other bass player , from Black Cab, brought his cabinet of the same size up and I had a massive tower to plug into. I've always complained about bass players amps, usually when helping them lift the things. Now I understand. You NEED that power under you to really get the oomph required for the true bottom end!
Had such a great time. Like driving a steam train. All that power at your touch. Dampening it and pumping it. Riding it! Not having to smile. Brooding up the back. Thinking about the dosh. It was , no I was monolithic. Megalithic. Primitive. Godlike. I had the total package.
Friday, September 10, 2010
SUPERMODIFIED- EMERGING- ETC- REVIEWS PLUS
SORRY IF THESE BLOGS SEEM TO BE QUITE COMMERCIAL IN NATURE BUT THEY ARE ALL AROUND MY LIFE AND MY LIFE IS A MUSICAL LIFE. I am not really interested in much else, except for books , poetry and dumb tv so its not really commercial. Other people blog about the colour and consistency of their snot. I beg off on inviting people to share that kind of intimacy. Ditto the qualities of my farts. I keep that jive ass stuff outta my music too. My music is actually often about music! I like to descend/ ascend in spirals. While I wait for you know who...
I have actually written a book which is about my music life and its gonna be called "1001 Australian nights" and it'll be out in March 2011.On Affirm press.
I have this remix/remastered/re-sung/re-played/re-strung collection out at the moment. Been doing a lot of shows and will be doing a lot more. I like to play live. Sue me! I like rock clubs and people who go out and be social. Melbourne is a great place for that kinda stuff.
Otherwise, been reading some books. Discovered a character called AE Coppard who wrote in the UK in the 20s. Astoundingly tight and condensed sentences. Other people would take whole chapters - or books- to drop what he does in a single line.
Continuing to do a weekly radio show on RRR with Elizabeth McCarthy which has been great. We interviewed Jacki Weaver who is in town for a David Williamson play. I blushed when she said she and her boyfriend "kissed" to the SOFT 'n' SEXY SOUND.
A lot of other artists and writers and comedians have come in. And I hear a lot of great music. I play all the Australian stuff I like - which is a lot of it- and a lot of jazz and hip hop. I recommend the newish cd by Chuck Prophet called "let freedom ring". Otherwise I toss any cds by hipster yanks in the bin. Everybody else scrambles for that shit. They're all old enough to know better but they act like they're still being bullied. Except for Josh Homme and Bonnie Prince Billy. The rest? Toss their skinny white asses in the river!
The winter has been dark and long and cold and its been difficult to move around outdoors. In the middle of it, our little cat who has been with us for 20 years went downhill due to kidney failure and died. I found her on the floor one cold morning. Stiff as a board. She bit and scratched and hissed at anybody who came into our house for years . A real presence. I called her "aughtie" which was what Tom Custer used to called George when they were kids. She was a Port Melbourne street cat. Padded around us for every cd we've made since 1990. Whenever we moved gear in and out of the house we had to first open the door a little to see if she was waiting there to make her escape. (She never went outside except onto the deck). She was always there on the other side of the door, doing what came naturally and attempting to head for freedom. She had a bell on her to warn native birds for a while. Its all over the cd "heroic blues" , ringing softly as as she walked around the studio. Always scurrying around your feet as you struggled with a big amp or piano. She had all that imponderable, wilful, unknowable, unpredictable stuff that cats have intrigued and amused and bedevilled people with over the years. Funny that an animal can let you know so much, about yourself and the world.
That was very upsetting and I let you in on it. Now I will back off and request you assume the formal position of all strangers on the island. As you were!
Even his staunchest fans would admit that Dave Graney is something of a queer bird. With his penchant for archaic fashions and mannerisms, he seems quixotically at odds with the modern world. Despite this, his artistic persona also neatly encapsulates some of the key strategies of postmodernism, such as a playful artifice and ironic distance from his own creativity. Graney holds the real world at arm’s length, yet he is fascinated with current and historical pop culture.
His recorded work reflects this magpie approach in a way that can render it confusing to casual listeners, who find it hard to distinguish between the actor and the real person beneath the dandyish swagger. The way Graney has positioned himself as an anachronistic enigma has come at the expense of commercial success – even within the sphere of so-called “alternative” music. This is a shame, as Graney has produced a formidable body of work over the last three decades, his career punctuated by many highpoints from all his different incarnations.
From the thundering onslaught of The Moodists’ album Thirsty’s Calling (1984), to the widescreen epic of Night Of The Wolverine (1993), to last year’s critically feted Knock Yourself Out, it’s clear that Graney’s power as a writer has remained consistent over the years. This is by no means an easy feat. One only needs to look at Graney’s celebrated peer Nick Cave, whose increasingly hapless and desperate fumblings for relevance have sent his credibility plummeting in recent years. In contrast, the last decade has seen Graney’s muse in overdrive, releasing a steady stream of strong material. The formation of his own record label, Cockaigne, surely precipitated this artistic renaissance, allowing Graney the freedom to do as he pleases, regardless of commercial considerations.
Holed up in his suburban recording studio with his longtime partner and musical foil Clare Moore and a host of regular musical collaborators, Graney created the dark and moody masterpieces Heroic Blues (2001) and The Brother Who Lived (2003) in the early years of this decade. Both albums were perfectly crafted collections, so it comes as a bit of a surprise at first that he’d want to revisit them on Supermodified. The album contains four songs from Heroic Blues and a whopping 10 from Brother. In addition there are four previously unreleased tracks from the same era.
It’s a risk for any artist to re-interpret their own back catalogue, since most fans are inclined to view the original versions as definitive. On the other hand, by shifting the focus away from the content of the songs, Graney and Moore have been able to explore the subtleties of their arrangements more effectively. For years, the pair have been fascinated with creating something they dubbed the “smooth and sexy” sound – basically a mélange of different easy listing styles, such as smooth cocktail lounge funk, ’70s West Coast rock and adult contemporary pop sheen. What previously seemed like a playful subversion of degraded musical styles – those generally shunned by rock purists – has been warped into a muscular and super-charged 18 tracks that work seamlessly as a whole.
Remixing and re-recording vocals and instrumental backings means that songs like ‘All Our Friends Were Stars’ and ‘Midnight To Dawn’ bear very little resemblance to their original restrained settings. Structurally, many numbers are extended with instrumental passages or repeated refrains. In each case, it’s not merely the kind of remix a clever engineer might do, but a complete re-arrangement of a song’s constituent parts to imbue it with a whole new mood.
Ultimately, it is unlikely that Supermodified will be regarded as more than a footnote to the albums it draws upon, but as a stop-gap before Graney’s next batch of musical missives it’s more satisfying by far than that old stand-by: the live album.
by René Schaefer- MESS AND NOISE
David Graney has released an abundance of records in his time on planet Earth, and with the release of Supermodified, it's time to add another feather to his bound-to-be flamboyant hat. Supermodified is Graney pimped out, re-worked and custom-build, its sort of like that Bonnie “Prince” Billy Sings Palace Music record. Old songs newly recorded and freshly worked. Some people tell me, “hey, some of the Graney records have strange production values, but when I see and hear him live the songs are a billion times better”. Well, if that’s the case for you, then this album will be right up your alley.
It’s an accurate portrait of the live sound, and its shit hot funky. Taking ten tracks from the 2004 album The Brother Who Lived , four from Heroic Blues , and four unreleased ones means this record isn’t just for Graney enthusiasts or diehard fans, but its also a good starting place for beginners. Everything is sounding crisp and top-notch, which is something you’d hope to expect for a band that plays nearly everyday of the week. “The Brother Who Lived” and “All Our Friends Were Stars” should be hit singles, “The Royal Troll” has thick distorted riffing and pounding drums with the typically laid-back Graney croon. “Midnight to Dawn” is another rocking number with wife Claire Moore crashing about in the rhythm section. The whole album sounds like glam rock from a boom box at a gay parade in Melbourne. But sung by the straightest man on earth who is for some reason leading the rally. Think Roxy Music but with the Australian equivalent of Jonathan Richman on vocals. “Clinging To The Coast”, has some interesting compression on the drums, but it works. “Anchors aweigh” are the sounds you’d be hearing if you walked past a sleazy neon-lit cocktail night bar, in fact the lounge-esque themes are pretty common throughout the whole record. I never heard the original to begin with, but this one is well recommended.
Review Score: 7.5/10
nathan roche- au review
Talking of Dave, and being cool, then it’s great to report that Mr Graney is back – along with Clare Moore of course – and the Lurid Yellow Mist band, with his latest album “Supermodified” – and the clue is in the title as this is a re-working of a whole load of songs from the “Brother Who Lived” album and a smaller selection from “Heroic Blues” release. This is altogether a more relaxed, and relaxing effort, than its predecessor the excellent “Knock Yourself Out” album, with the volume turned down and the atmosphere turned up a notch or two. Graney is the ultimate 21st century crooner – reflecting back to the sultry funk of the Coral Snakes at their very best – but also using a selection of “modern” recording techniques and band styles that make it all very relevant today. And the trick, I think, is that Mr Graney can lure the listener in with his laid back style and then drop either a beautiful melody, or a stunning arrangement to create a sensuous listening experience. “Like a Millionaire” is a case in point with its extended coda which builds up the tension but retains a relaxed an open feel. That’s not to say its all “cocktail bar latino cool funk”. “The Royal Troll” for example has a definite driven feel, and the re-working of “Clinging to the Coast” is superb more or less completely revisiting the song from its original stripped down version on “Heroic Blues” – it turns out in hindsight that Dave had a pretty bad lung infection at the time of that album which would explain the contrasting styles and delivery. ”Midnight to Dawn” has a great rock feel with Clare channeling John Bonham under riffing guitars. If I was going to pick out a memorable track then “Are we going to fast for love” is just simply beautiful, however it would be remiss of me to single out one song on what is, simply put, a wonderful album.
rob salford - aural delights blog -salford city radio
LIVE DATES
Saturday 11th September at the Tote w/ Telecom + Brainrust + Money for rope.
Friday 17th September - Esplanade hotel, St Kilda- Victoria
Saturday 18th September - Westernport Hotel - San Remo Victoria.
Saturday 25th Sept- (GRAND FINAL NIGHT) - The Old Bar- Smith st Fitzroy.
Saturday 2nd October- Semaphore Workers Club
Sunday 3rd October (afternoon) Semaphore Music Festival- Adelaide
Sunday 3rd October (evening) Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton- Adelaide
Friday November 5th - Coogee Diggers.NSW (w/Conway Savage)
Saturday November 6th - MORPETH BITTER AND TWISTED BEER FESTIVAL.
Sunday November 7th - Sandringham Hotel Newtown - w/Conway Savage.
I have actually written a book which is about my music life and its gonna be called "1001 Australian nights" and it'll be out in March 2011.On Affirm press.
I have this remix/remastered/re-sung/re-played/re-strung collection out at the moment. Been doing a lot of shows and will be doing a lot more. I like to play live. Sue me! I like rock clubs and people who go out and be social. Melbourne is a great place for that kinda stuff.
Otherwise, been reading some books. Discovered a character called AE Coppard who wrote in the UK in the 20s. Astoundingly tight and condensed sentences. Other people would take whole chapters - or books- to drop what he does in a single line.
Continuing to do a weekly radio show on RRR with Elizabeth McCarthy which has been great. We interviewed Jacki Weaver who is in town for a David Williamson play. I blushed when she said she and her boyfriend "kissed" to the SOFT 'n' SEXY SOUND.
A lot of other artists and writers and comedians have come in. And I hear a lot of great music. I play all the Australian stuff I like - which is a lot of it- and a lot of jazz and hip hop. I recommend the newish cd by Chuck Prophet called "let freedom ring". Otherwise I toss any cds by hipster yanks in the bin. Everybody else scrambles for that shit. They're all old enough to know better but they act like they're still being bullied. Except for Josh Homme and Bonnie Prince Billy. The rest? Toss their skinny white asses in the river!
The winter has been dark and long and cold and its been difficult to move around outdoors. In the middle of it, our little cat who has been with us for 20 years went downhill due to kidney failure and died. I found her on the floor one cold morning. Stiff as a board. She bit and scratched and hissed at anybody who came into our house for years . A real presence. I called her "aughtie" which was what Tom Custer used to called George when they were kids. She was a Port Melbourne street cat. Padded around us for every cd we've made since 1990. Whenever we moved gear in and out of the house we had to first open the door a little to see if she was waiting there to make her escape. (She never went outside except onto the deck). She was always there on the other side of the door, doing what came naturally and attempting to head for freedom. She had a bell on her to warn native birds for a while. Its all over the cd "heroic blues" , ringing softly as as she walked around the studio. Always scurrying around your feet as you struggled with a big amp or piano. She had all that imponderable, wilful, unknowable, unpredictable stuff that cats have intrigued and amused and bedevilled people with over the years. Funny that an animal can let you know so much, about yourself and the world.
That was very upsetting and I let you in on it. Now I will back off and request you assume the formal position of all strangers on the island. As you were!
Even his staunchest fans would admit that Dave Graney is something of a queer bird. With his penchant for archaic fashions and mannerisms, he seems quixotically at odds with the modern world. Despite this, his artistic persona also neatly encapsulates some of the key strategies of postmodernism, such as a playful artifice and ironic distance from his own creativity. Graney holds the real world at arm’s length, yet he is fascinated with current and historical pop culture.
His recorded work reflects this magpie approach in a way that can render it confusing to casual listeners, who find it hard to distinguish between the actor and the real person beneath the dandyish swagger. The way Graney has positioned himself as an anachronistic enigma has come at the expense of commercial success – even within the sphere of so-called “alternative” music. This is a shame, as Graney has produced a formidable body of work over the last three decades, his career punctuated by many highpoints from all his different incarnations.
From the thundering onslaught of The Moodists’ album Thirsty’s Calling (1984), to the widescreen epic of Night Of The Wolverine (1993), to last year’s critically feted Knock Yourself Out, it’s clear that Graney’s power as a writer has remained consistent over the years. This is by no means an easy feat. One only needs to look at Graney’s celebrated peer Nick Cave, whose increasingly hapless and desperate fumblings for relevance have sent his credibility plummeting in recent years. In contrast, the last decade has seen Graney’s muse in overdrive, releasing a steady stream of strong material. The formation of his own record label, Cockaigne, surely precipitated this artistic renaissance, allowing Graney the freedom to do as he pleases, regardless of commercial considerations.
Holed up in his suburban recording studio with his longtime partner and musical foil Clare Moore and a host of regular musical collaborators, Graney created the dark and moody masterpieces Heroic Blues (2001) and The Brother Who Lived (2003) in the early years of this decade. Both albums were perfectly crafted collections, so it comes as a bit of a surprise at first that he’d want to revisit them on Supermodified. The album contains four songs from Heroic Blues and a whopping 10 from Brother. In addition there are four previously unreleased tracks from the same era.
It’s a risk for any artist to re-interpret their own back catalogue, since most fans are inclined to view the original versions as definitive. On the other hand, by shifting the focus away from the content of the songs, Graney and Moore have been able to explore the subtleties of their arrangements more effectively. For years, the pair have been fascinated with creating something they dubbed the “smooth and sexy” sound – basically a mélange of different easy listing styles, such as smooth cocktail lounge funk, ’70s West Coast rock and adult contemporary pop sheen. What previously seemed like a playful subversion of degraded musical styles – those generally shunned by rock purists – has been warped into a muscular and super-charged 18 tracks that work seamlessly as a whole.
Remixing and re-recording vocals and instrumental backings means that songs like ‘All Our Friends Were Stars’ and ‘Midnight To Dawn’ bear very little resemblance to their original restrained settings. Structurally, many numbers are extended with instrumental passages or repeated refrains. In each case, it’s not merely the kind of remix a clever engineer might do, but a complete re-arrangement of a song’s constituent parts to imbue it with a whole new mood.
Ultimately, it is unlikely that Supermodified will be regarded as more than a footnote to the albums it draws upon, but as a stop-gap before Graney’s next batch of musical missives it’s more satisfying by far than that old stand-by: the live album.
by René Schaefer- MESS AND NOISE
David Graney has released an abundance of records in his time on planet Earth, and with the release of Supermodified, it's time to add another feather to his bound-to-be flamboyant hat. Supermodified is Graney pimped out, re-worked and custom-build, its sort of like that Bonnie “Prince” Billy Sings Palace Music record. Old songs newly recorded and freshly worked. Some people tell me, “hey, some of the Graney records have strange production values, but when I see and hear him live the songs are a billion times better”. Well, if that’s the case for you, then this album will be right up your alley.
It’s an accurate portrait of the live sound, and its shit hot funky. Taking ten tracks from the 2004 album The Brother Who Lived , four from Heroic Blues , and four unreleased ones means this record isn’t just for Graney enthusiasts or diehard fans, but its also a good starting place for beginners. Everything is sounding crisp and top-notch, which is something you’d hope to expect for a band that plays nearly everyday of the week. “The Brother Who Lived” and “All Our Friends Were Stars” should be hit singles, “The Royal Troll” has thick distorted riffing and pounding drums with the typically laid-back Graney croon. “Midnight to Dawn” is another rocking number with wife Claire Moore crashing about in the rhythm section. The whole album sounds like glam rock from a boom box at a gay parade in Melbourne. But sung by the straightest man on earth who is for some reason leading the rally. Think Roxy Music but with the Australian equivalent of Jonathan Richman on vocals. “Clinging To The Coast”, has some interesting compression on the drums, but it works. “Anchors aweigh” are the sounds you’d be hearing if you walked past a sleazy neon-lit cocktail night bar, in fact the lounge-esque themes are pretty common throughout the whole record. I never heard the original to begin with, but this one is well recommended.
Review Score: 7.5/10
nathan roche- au review
Talking of Dave, and being cool, then it’s great to report that Mr Graney is back – along with Clare Moore of course – and the Lurid Yellow Mist band, with his latest album “Supermodified” – and the clue is in the title as this is a re-working of a whole load of songs from the “Brother Who Lived” album and a smaller selection from “Heroic Blues” release. This is altogether a more relaxed, and relaxing effort, than its predecessor the excellent “Knock Yourself Out” album, with the volume turned down and the atmosphere turned up a notch or two. Graney is the ultimate 21st century crooner – reflecting back to the sultry funk of the Coral Snakes at their very best – but also using a selection of “modern” recording techniques and band styles that make it all very relevant today. And the trick, I think, is that Mr Graney can lure the listener in with his laid back style and then drop either a beautiful melody, or a stunning arrangement to create a sensuous listening experience. “Like a Millionaire” is a case in point with its extended coda which builds up the tension but retains a relaxed an open feel. That’s not to say its all “cocktail bar latino cool funk”. “The Royal Troll” for example has a definite driven feel, and the re-working of “Clinging to the Coast” is superb more or less completely revisiting the song from its original stripped down version on “Heroic Blues” – it turns out in hindsight that Dave had a pretty bad lung infection at the time of that album which would explain the contrasting styles and delivery. ”Midnight to Dawn” has a great rock feel with Clare channeling John Bonham under riffing guitars. If I was going to pick out a memorable track then “Are we going to fast for love” is just simply beautiful, however it would be remiss of me to single out one song on what is, simply put, a wonderful album.
rob salford - aural delights blog -salford city radio
LIVE DATES
Saturday 11th September at the Tote w/ Telecom + Brainrust + Money for rope.
Friday 17th September - Esplanade hotel, St Kilda- Victoria
Saturday 18th September - Westernport Hotel - San Remo Victoria.
Saturday 25th Sept- (GRAND FINAL NIGHT) - The Old Bar- Smith st Fitzroy.
Saturday 2nd October- Semaphore Workers Club
Sunday 3rd October (afternoon) Semaphore Music Festival- Adelaide
Sunday 3rd October (evening) Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton- Adelaide
Friday November 5th - Coogee Diggers.NSW (w/Conway Savage)
Saturday November 6th - MORPETH BITTER AND TWISTED BEER FESTIVAL.
Sunday November 7th - Sandringham Hotel Newtown - w/Conway Savage.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
SUPERMODIFIED - what went down- get it now
dave graney and the lurid yellow mist - super modified
We recorded and released Heroic Blues in 2001 and the Brother who Lived in 2003. Prior to and between each I was either incubating a vicious and tenacious lung infection that finally broke out of me on a Paris metro in 2001 - much blood and a stay in hospital - or getting over it and working out how to stop it happening again and living while the inflammation slowly died down. Both these records were real documents of the time . Recently we were going to release “the brother who lived “ digitally and I listened to it and then opened up the files. I started to tinker and couldn’t stop and this album is the result.
“SUPERMODIFIED”.
Its like a souped up hot rodded version of the original songs, with some extra tracks that got lost along the way. We put the songs up on the blocks and re-tuned them, re-sang them, re-strung them , put more drums and percussion and vocals and keys and remixed all of them. Inserted ,bussed , sent, returned, compressed , tweaked, eq’d and coloured all the reverbs and delays and remastered it at the end. Its a new thing. Adam Rhodes was the recording engineer for the original album sessions and the raw material was pristine.
the brother who lived
Recorded this for the album of the same name in 2003 with Greg Walker from Machine Translations. I played the bass and the guitar (The weird , off beat clean guitar licks) .Stu Perera comes in with the overdriven power notes on guitar and the clean r&b bends and sings as well. Clare Moore played all the keys and the drums. Though Greg recorded each hi hat , rim shot and snare tap individually and put them back together. Its her trademark latin kinda feel. The real drums sounds were mixed with those from our old drum machine. (I took this rhythm track and used it to build “throwin’ one into the world” on “Knock yourself out” in 2009 ). I sang this one again in 2010 as my voice was in better shape. On the original session, I couldn’t make it through a verse without a violent, out of control coughing fit. Greg was set to call an ambulance at first but he got used to it. The song is about two musicians, one lives and one dies. Though as it seems to happen, the one who dies , lives and the one who lives, dies. Kind of.
all our friends were stars
Again with Greg Walker. Used a rhythm from our old organ/drum machine and put it through a sansamp. I play the bass and the guitar. Clare played all the euro vibing keys. I sang this again too. We thought both of these tunes were “pop” . For what its worth.
Our kind of pop. R&B/Euro/disco in the sensibilities. We loved going to see Greg play at the time and the sounds of his records with Machine Translations. We felt he was some kind of a fellow traveler. An outsider who was sure he made his own kind of sense.
The lyric is about a time in our lives when everybody seemed to manifest huge personas they were either flying or running with. Vivid chracters and masks and modes of being. Young street life.
like a millionaire
We recorded a bunch of tracks in one day at Woodstock studios in East St Kilda. This was half of “the brother who lived” album. All in the room together, including me, singing. A lot of bleed in the vocal mic. Adele Pickvance plays such a great bass line here. Bill Miller comes in with all these mad country-ish licks on his old green Strat. Both are masters of feel and time. The song is about an artist being so on his game that his life is singing. He can see it all happen just as he dreams it up. He’s playing loose and wide, because he knows whats going to happen and so he can afford it.
I added some more guitar, 12 string, wah and fuzz, buried way back in the mix the way I like it. Stirring the funk from the lower depths. This sounds much more pop to me. Brought out the funk and didn't fade the song like it had been done before. The backing vocals were meant to be 60’s moderne. Phillip Glass-like. Mock epic and grand. Speaking of Epic.
a boy named epic
A song about Epic Soundtracks. A friend from the 80s London scenes. He started out in the Swell Maps with his equally exotically auto-named brother, Nikki Sudden and was also in These Immortal Souls with Rowland and Harry Howard and Genevive McGuckin. Bill Miller plays out of himself again. Stu Perera adds the rhythm. I added some 12 string electric guitar and keys and backing vocals to this. I love the chords. Suspended major sevenths. I brought them out more with the keys in the chorus. Loose jazz/r&b in its touch,voicings and tone. We swung out of stuff like this to “Hashish and Liquor” in 2005 and, especially, “we wuz curious” in 2008. I don’t think Epic would have liked any of the musical setting -too much jazz in the voicings- but then he was into reading his own story.
the royal troll
This has Stu and Bill blazing from the get go. I added some electric 12 string and backing vocals to this track. This could have been a song by the Moodists in some ways, but in other ways, maybe not.This has got the oomph and the swing but also clarity and punch in the dynamics. I play the blazing harmonica solo. The way Adele and Clare swing on the chorus is amazing.
The songs is about a very fiercely hedonistic old friend. A fiend. A demon! I saw him one day , in his civvies - shat, showered and shaved- transformed and on his way to his day gig. I knew the Royal troll.
clingin’ to the coast
Orginally on “Heroic Blues”. Added some real drums to this as well as singing it again and adding some more guitar. In 2001 I wanted to write a song like the Stranglers “strange little girl”. An ingenue in a boho, retro, vintage , mod, finessed inner city world. Totally impressed, of course, a la Candide. Bill Miller plays amazing licks on his beautifully recorded 1920’s Gibson acoustic guitar. Clare played the keys and the drums and drum machine.
I am your humble servant
A political election type song. I thought the old style of corpulent, diseased, corrupt ,branch stacking type politician was preferrable as you saw where all the money went. Into him. As opposed to the grey ghosts who front for who knows what today. This is me running for office. I am your humble servant! The last song from that one day session at Woodstock. Bill Miller blazing on that old acoustic again. Stu Perera was asleep in the van by the time we cut this. Exhausted. I was on my acoustic and singing at the same time. Lots of bleed into each mic. I added drums (played ‘em too) , electric guitars , percussion and keys to this track. I also fuzzed the bass in parts to get some extra votes in the marginals.I love this track, its smoking now.
are we goin’ too fast for love?
From “Heroic Blues”. Always thought more could have been done with it. Kind of a Euro r&b pop track. An adult swingers song. Kind of COUNTRYPOLITAN in the lyrical style. Adele on acoustic bass. Clare on piano . Originally it had a lonely bongo rhythm track. I sang it again , through a mic in a guitar amplifier , and we added some proper drums.
anchors aweigh
This is from “Heroic Blues”. I wrote the song when David McComb and another friend died around the same period. I sang this again and added guitars and worked on the drums sounds and added some backing vocals. The vibes are huge and I pushed them out further. Whenever we worked with rock producers in the 90s they always kept them at a very orderly and barely audible level. Often you only heard a small part of the sound. The out of tune, decaying part. We liked them as they were heard on Martin Denny or Arthur Lyman discs, enveloping the whole sound. Everything existing within the reverberant , towering waves. In the green room.
I’m seein’ demons
A song from the Howard Years of divisiveness , queue jumpers, spooks, backwardness, separation and demonizing. Those guys were in your face , pimping the old myths every day. The verse about “hamhocks and hog jowels” comes from an interview I read with country singer Chad Morgan where he talked about performing while sufferering with the DT’s and looking out to see the audience in a Leagues club complete with pigs heads and trotters, looking back at him.
Recorded all together at Woodstock with me in the middle of the room playing acoustic and singing. A lot of bleed into the mic. (So I didn't sing it again) Added 12 string electric guitar , harmonica , vibes and spooked up the backing vocals and brought the drums up - more into the foreground of the mix. This is boomin'! Demonized.
midnight to dawn
I thought this song was great but in 2003 I’d been too wacked in the lungs to give it the right vocal kicks. I sang this again in 2010 and also added some backing vocals and guitar. A country kinda song given the post Moodists jolt of power treatment. Stu Perera and Bill Miller played it up supersized and Adele Pickvance channels John McVie. Clare Moore pounds the hell outta those toms. Its a classic rock epic.
twilight of a villain
Recorded at the Ponderosa for “the Brother Who lived”. I played bass and guitars . Clare played keys. Added some drums and did the vocal again in 2010. Played with the reverbs and the delays on the vocals , just for the hell of it. Bringing the focus to the groove and the music rather than the text. Villains,crims, musicians are all the same to me. Night life types. Working the angles and watching their backs. Wise guys, living by their wits. I love this track too. Its come up so well with the jazz chordings and the hip hop drum attack and dub styled delays on the vocal.
I ain’t natural
Another unreleased track from the Heroic Blues sessions. Adele Pickvance on acoustic bass again. Stu Perera and Bill Miller on electric guitars. I played acoustic guitars and added the keys. Also added some percussion. I sang it again in 2010. I like to have lyrics with opposing , contradictory lines like “I ain’t natural - its just the way I am”.
she looked at me from out of her eyes
Recorded at the Ponderos for “the brother who lived”. I played bass, acoustic, electric guitars and keys. From “the brother who lived”. I wanted it to be more evil and sinister. The title came from a late period Raymond Chandler story. I loaded it with some more fuzz , octave and wah to get the sleaze cooking down below. Plenty of delays and gated, reversed reverbs on the vocal. I gave it the creeps.
my old gloves
From a session in 2004. I was gonna make a bluesy album. Recorded this and “oakleigh bowie blues” and “I don’t wanna go bush” and “easy blues” which appeared on “knock yourself out” in 2009. I liked the groove on this track so we added some drums in 2010. Its about a pair of gloves that were sitting on a box. A plastic box. Just after this, a street bum broke into my car and stole one of them. Thats why I never sing about myself! This would be the most STONER track I've ever put down. I was stuck on those gloves. Which were sitting on a plastic box. But I still got to record my thought.
While you dream,I live
This came out on a promo single - very, very limited edition- in 2003. Recorded two years earlier, at the “Heroic Blues” sessions in 2001. I sang it again and worked on the mix in 2010. I was going for an ‘evil and sinister sound” . I play most of the guitars, Stu Perera hits the wah notes, Also the prog lines. Adele Pickvance on acoustic bass. I’m hitting all the wrong notes on the keys. Putting it out of kilter. As if in a dream. Grabbing handfulls of the shit.
I don’t know anything
From “Heroic Blues”. I sang this again in 2010 and added some drums and 12 string electric guitar. Also whomped the backing vocals. Shjizzed ‘em with some coloured and phased studio dust. Inspired by an interview I read with Richard Hell, as an older man, talking of the power and concentration he had as a young man.
commercial street east (starry)
A track from “the brother who lived “ session. This was an extension of the song “all our friends were stars”. It has a part of that song but with the keys pushed way forward and no chorus change. Looped to the descending euro verse changes. We added some drums and bass in 2010. Commercial street is the main street in Mt Gambier, SA where I grew up. Its more of a direct take on the song as far as the kids who used to lap that street back in those Arcadian days. When we were in a tight spot and bored to death but hungry for life.
We recorded and released Heroic Blues in 2001 and the Brother who Lived in 2003. Prior to and between each I was either incubating a vicious and tenacious lung infection that finally broke out of me on a Paris metro in 2001 - much blood and a stay in hospital - or getting over it and working out how to stop it happening again and living while the inflammation slowly died down. Both these records were real documents of the time . Recently we were going to release “the brother who lived “ digitally and I listened to it and then opened up the files. I started to tinker and couldn’t stop and this album is the result.
“SUPERMODIFIED”.
Its like a souped up hot rodded version of the original songs, with some extra tracks that got lost along the way. We put the songs up on the blocks and re-tuned them, re-sang them, re-strung them , put more drums and percussion and vocals and keys and remixed all of them. Inserted ,bussed , sent, returned, compressed , tweaked, eq’d and coloured all the reverbs and delays and remastered it at the end. Its a new thing. Adam Rhodes was the recording engineer for the original album sessions and the raw material was pristine.
the brother who lived
Recorded this for the album of the same name in 2003 with Greg Walker from Machine Translations. I played the bass and the guitar (The weird , off beat clean guitar licks) .Stu Perera comes in with the overdriven power notes on guitar and the clean r&b bends and sings as well. Clare Moore played all the keys and the drums. Though Greg recorded each hi hat , rim shot and snare tap individually and put them back together. Its her trademark latin kinda feel. The real drums sounds were mixed with those from our old drum machine. (I took this rhythm track and used it to build “throwin’ one into the world” on “Knock yourself out” in 2009 ). I sang this one again in 2010 as my voice was in better shape. On the original session, I couldn’t make it through a verse without a violent, out of control coughing fit. Greg was set to call an ambulance at first but he got used to it. The song is about two musicians, one lives and one dies. Though as it seems to happen, the one who dies , lives and the one who lives, dies. Kind of.
all our friends were stars
Again with Greg Walker. Used a rhythm from our old organ/drum machine and put it through a sansamp. I play the bass and the guitar. Clare played all the euro vibing keys. I sang this again too. We thought both of these tunes were “pop” . For what its worth.
Our kind of pop. R&B/Euro/disco in the sensibilities. We loved going to see Greg play at the time and the sounds of his records with Machine Translations. We felt he was some kind of a fellow traveler. An outsider who was sure he made his own kind of sense.
The lyric is about a time in our lives when everybody seemed to manifest huge personas they were either flying or running with. Vivid chracters and masks and modes of being. Young street life.
like a millionaire
We recorded a bunch of tracks in one day at Woodstock studios in East St Kilda. This was half of “the brother who lived” album. All in the room together, including me, singing. A lot of bleed in the vocal mic. Adele Pickvance plays such a great bass line here. Bill Miller comes in with all these mad country-ish licks on his old green Strat. Both are masters of feel and time. The song is about an artist being so on his game that his life is singing. He can see it all happen just as he dreams it up. He’s playing loose and wide, because he knows whats going to happen and so he can afford it.
I added some more guitar, 12 string, wah and fuzz, buried way back in the mix the way I like it. Stirring the funk from the lower depths. This sounds much more pop to me. Brought out the funk and didn't fade the song like it had been done before. The backing vocals were meant to be 60’s moderne. Phillip Glass-like. Mock epic and grand. Speaking of Epic.
a boy named epic
A song about Epic Soundtracks. A friend from the 80s London scenes. He started out in the Swell Maps with his equally exotically auto-named brother, Nikki Sudden and was also in These Immortal Souls with Rowland and Harry Howard and Genevive McGuckin. Bill Miller plays out of himself again. Stu Perera adds the rhythm. I added some 12 string electric guitar and keys and backing vocals to this. I love the chords. Suspended major sevenths. I brought them out more with the keys in the chorus. Loose jazz/r&b in its touch,voicings and tone. We swung out of stuff like this to “Hashish and Liquor” in 2005 and, especially, “we wuz curious” in 2008. I don’t think Epic would have liked any of the musical setting -too much jazz in the voicings- but then he was into reading his own story.
the royal troll
This has Stu and Bill blazing from the get go. I added some electric 12 string and backing vocals to this track. This could have been a song by the Moodists in some ways, but in other ways, maybe not.This has got the oomph and the swing but also clarity and punch in the dynamics. I play the blazing harmonica solo. The way Adele and Clare swing on the chorus is amazing.
The songs is about a very fiercely hedonistic old friend. A fiend. A demon! I saw him one day , in his civvies - shat, showered and shaved- transformed and on his way to his day gig. I knew the Royal troll.
clingin’ to the coast
Orginally on “Heroic Blues”. Added some real drums to this as well as singing it again and adding some more guitar. In 2001 I wanted to write a song like the Stranglers “strange little girl”. An ingenue in a boho, retro, vintage , mod, finessed inner city world. Totally impressed, of course, a la Candide. Bill Miller plays amazing licks on his beautifully recorded 1920’s Gibson acoustic guitar. Clare played the keys and the drums and drum machine.
I am your humble servant
A political election type song. I thought the old style of corpulent, diseased, corrupt ,branch stacking type politician was preferrable as you saw where all the money went. Into him. As opposed to the grey ghosts who front for who knows what today. This is me running for office. I am your humble servant! The last song from that one day session at Woodstock. Bill Miller blazing on that old acoustic again. Stu Perera was asleep in the van by the time we cut this. Exhausted. I was on my acoustic and singing at the same time. Lots of bleed into each mic. I added drums (played ‘em too) , electric guitars , percussion and keys to this track. I also fuzzed the bass in parts to get some extra votes in the marginals.I love this track, its smoking now.
are we goin’ too fast for love?
From “Heroic Blues”. Always thought more could have been done with it. Kind of a Euro r&b pop track. An adult swingers song. Kind of COUNTRYPOLITAN in the lyrical style. Adele on acoustic bass. Clare on piano . Originally it had a lonely bongo rhythm track. I sang it again , through a mic in a guitar amplifier , and we added some proper drums.
anchors aweigh
This is from “Heroic Blues”. I wrote the song when David McComb and another friend died around the same period. I sang this again and added guitars and worked on the drums sounds and added some backing vocals. The vibes are huge and I pushed them out further. Whenever we worked with rock producers in the 90s they always kept them at a very orderly and barely audible level. Often you only heard a small part of the sound. The out of tune, decaying part. We liked them as they were heard on Martin Denny or Arthur Lyman discs, enveloping the whole sound. Everything existing within the reverberant , towering waves. In the green room.
I’m seein’ demons
A song from the Howard Years of divisiveness , queue jumpers, spooks, backwardness, separation and demonizing. Those guys were in your face , pimping the old myths every day. The verse about “hamhocks and hog jowels” comes from an interview I read with country singer Chad Morgan where he talked about performing while sufferering with the DT’s and looking out to see the audience in a Leagues club complete with pigs heads and trotters, looking back at him.
Recorded all together at Woodstock with me in the middle of the room playing acoustic and singing. A lot of bleed into the mic. (So I didn't sing it again) Added 12 string electric guitar , harmonica , vibes and spooked up the backing vocals and brought the drums up - more into the foreground of the mix. This is boomin'! Demonized.
midnight to dawn
I thought this song was great but in 2003 I’d been too wacked in the lungs to give it the right vocal kicks. I sang this again in 2010 and also added some backing vocals and guitar. A country kinda song given the post Moodists jolt of power treatment. Stu Perera and Bill Miller played it up supersized and Adele Pickvance channels John McVie. Clare Moore pounds the hell outta those toms. Its a classic rock epic.
twilight of a villain
Recorded at the Ponderosa for “the Brother Who lived”. I played bass and guitars . Clare played keys. Added some drums and did the vocal again in 2010. Played with the reverbs and the delays on the vocals , just for the hell of it. Bringing the focus to the groove and the music rather than the text. Villains,crims, musicians are all the same to me. Night life types. Working the angles and watching their backs. Wise guys, living by their wits. I love this track too. Its come up so well with the jazz chordings and the hip hop drum attack and dub styled delays on the vocal.
I ain’t natural
Another unreleased track from the Heroic Blues sessions. Adele Pickvance on acoustic bass again. Stu Perera and Bill Miller on electric guitars. I played acoustic guitars and added the keys. Also added some percussion. I sang it again in 2010. I like to have lyrics with opposing , contradictory lines like “I ain’t natural - its just the way I am”.
she looked at me from out of her eyes
Recorded at the Ponderos for “the brother who lived”. I played bass, acoustic, electric guitars and keys. From “the brother who lived”. I wanted it to be more evil and sinister. The title came from a late period Raymond Chandler story. I loaded it with some more fuzz , octave and wah to get the sleaze cooking down below. Plenty of delays and gated, reversed reverbs on the vocal. I gave it the creeps.
my old gloves
From a session in 2004. I was gonna make a bluesy album. Recorded this and “oakleigh bowie blues” and “I don’t wanna go bush” and “easy blues” which appeared on “knock yourself out” in 2009. I liked the groove on this track so we added some drums in 2010. Its about a pair of gloves that were sitting on a box. A plastic box. Just after this, a street bum broke into my car and stole one of them. Thats why I never sing about myself! This would be the most STONER track I've ever put down. I was stuck on those gloves. Which were sitting on a plastic box. But I still got to record my thought.
While you dream,I live
This came out on a promo single - very, very limited edition- in 2003. Recorded two years earlier, at the “Heroic Blues” sessions in 2001. I sang it again and worked on the mix in 2010. I was going for an ‘evil and sinister sound” . I play most of the guitars, Stu Perera hits the wah notes, Also the prog lines. Adele Pickvance on acoustic bass. I’m hitting all the wrong notes on the keys. Putting it out of kilter. As if in a dream. Grabbing handfulls of the shit.
I don’t know anything
From “Heroic Blues”. I sang this again in 2010 and added some drums and 12 string electric guitar. Also whomped the backing vocals. Shjizzed ‘em with some coloured and phased studio dust. Inspired by an interview I read with Richard Hell, as an older man, talking of the power and concentration he had as a young man.
commercial street east (starry)
A track from “the brother who lived “ session. This was an extension of the song “all our friends were stars”. It has a part of that song but with the keys pushed way forward and no chorus change. Looped to the descending euro verse changes. We added some drums and bass in 2010. Commercial street is the main street in Mt Gambier, SA where I grew up. Its more of a direct take on the song as far as the kids who used to lap that street back in those Arcadian days. When we were in a tight spot and bored to death but hungry for life.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
supermodified - why not!
We put out an album called “the brother who lived” in 2003. It was, in many ways a new beginning for us and you don’t get many of those. Well, its hard to spot them. Clare Moore and myself prepared the songs for it just after we had done some gigs with the Moodists for the first time in 18 years or so. We were still fizzing from the experience. The previous record “heroic blues” had been billed as a “folk soul” set and it was. Acoustic strums and bouncing, light rhythms. I had a bunch of songs ready that I’d written in the same style, with some tight little licks played on an acoustic and the vocal staying down , tightly boxed in by the chords . After the Moodists we took the same songs and played them in a more supersized manner, Flying V guitar amped up and Clare smashing the drums on songs like “Midnight to dawn” , “like a millionaire” and “the royal troll”. It felt great to be opening up the chest again and singing out.
There were also two ultra pop songs ( for us) that we cooked up with J Walker from Machine Translations. “The brother who lived” and “all our friends were stars”. We were re-engaging with our own past and also the present, feeling comradeship with people around us in the music scene.
Then , last year, we realized we hadn’t made the album available again digitally. Via the internets. I started to listen to it and then went to open up the original recording sessions again. I heard my own voice trying to leap out of both albums. Back then, I wasn’t hitting it like I wanted to. Around the time of “Heroic Blues” I was harbouring a tenacious lung infection that would burst out between the time it was recorded and mixed. I was in poor shape and pretty shocked. It took a while for me to get a hold of my health again. That kind of total inner inflammation gets up a head of steam and takes time to power down. A couple of years later, while doing “the brother who lived” I was still coughing like a coal miner between takes of the songs we did with J Walker. I was firing on half cylinders but trying like crazy to bust into the moment. When I listened to the tracks I wanted to sing them again, now that I’ve got my body back in shape. So I did. And I added some drums and guitars and percussion and other textures. Just for the hell of it. Theres the whole album from “the brother who lived” as well as four tracks we recorded at the time but never released. There are also four tracks from “Heroic Blues” that I wanted to have another pass at with my now, better functioning pipes. Drums and guitars were added and remixing and remastering done. Its a new album, remastered, re-played, re-sung, re-strung, remixed and remastered. . I’m calling it “super modified” . Its
a hot rod of an album.
Out on AUGUST 7th on COCKAIGNE. Distributed via FUSE.
Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play the following NSW July dates w/Tiffany Eckhardt opening.
Thursday 29th July.- Lizottes, Central Coast NSW
Friday 30th July. - Lizottes- Newcastle
Saturday 31st July. - Notes- Newtown
Sunday 1st August. - Brass Monkey ,Cronulla
Friday 17th September - Wellers ,Kangaroo Ground- Victoria
Saturday 2nd October- Semaphore Workers Club
Sunday 3rd October (afternoon) Semaphore Music Festival - Adelaide
Sunday 3rd October (evening) Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton- Adelaide
There were also two ultra pop songs ( for us) that we cooked up with J Walker from Machine Translations. “The brother who lived” and “all our friends were stars”. We were re-engaging with our own past and also the present, feeling comradeship with people around us in the music scene.
Then , last year, we realized we hadn’t made the album available again digitally. Via the internets. I started to listen to it and then went to open up the original recording sessions again. I heard my own voice trying to leap out of both albums. Back then, I wasn’t hitting it like I wanted to. Around the time of “Heroic Blues” I was harbouring a tenacious lung infection that would burst out between the time it was recorded and mixed. I was in poor shape and pretty shocked. It took a while for me to get a hold of my health again. That kind of total inner inflammation gets up a head of steam and takes time to power down. A couple of years later, while doing “the brother who lived” I was still coughing like a coal miner between takes of the songs we did with J Walker. I was firing on half cylinders but trying like crazy to bust into the moment. When I listened to the tracks I wanted to sing them again, now that I’ve got my body back in shape. So I did. And I added some drums and guitars and percussion and other textures. Just for the hell of it. Theres the whole album from “the brother who lived” as well as four tracks we recorded at the time but never released. There are also four tracks from “Heroic Blues” that I wanted to have another pass at with my now, better functioning pipes. Drums and guitars were added and remixing and remastering done. Its a new album, remastered, re-played, re-sung, re-strung, remixed and remastered. . I’m calling it “super modified” . Its
a hot rod of an album.
Out on AUGUST 7th on COCKAIGNE. Distributed via FUSE.
Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play the following NSW July dates w/Tiffany Eckhardt opening.
Thursday 29th July.- Lizottes, Central Coast NSW
Friday 30th July. - Lizottes- Newcastle
Saturday 31st July. - Notes- Newtown
Sunday 1st August. - Brass Monkey ,Cronulla
Friday 17th September - Wellers ,Kangaroo Ground- Victoria
Saturday 2nd October- Semaphore Workers Club
Sunday 3rd October (afternoon) Semaphore Music Festival - Adelaide
Sunday 3rd October (evening) Wheatsheaf Hotel - Thebarton- Adelaide
Thursday, July 15, 2010
supermodified-the wild bunch
Stuart Perera plays guitar in our band, the Lurid Yellow Mist . He was born in '77, the year I pretty much thought about playing music. We had another guitar player Bill Miller (who hasn’t played with us for five years but may be coming back for some shows) had a number one record with his band , the Ferrets in the same year. We had no trouble talking about musical ideas because we all like playing music. Its like solving a series of problems, or walking across some abstract plane that keeps changing as you set each foot down. Some times its like a 3 dimensional field and you can see where the notes and the beats fall before it happens. Other times its like a fogged battlefield. Does that make us diggers! Cripes!
Bill went off for a walk a while ago. He was “gonna be some time”. Actually I started to play more guitar and there wasn’t the room or the moolah.
Stuart has played with us since 1998, the year that broke on us after we finished playing with the Coral Snakes. It was my idea to finish that scene and start again. I needed to do it. Stuart was playing at a VCA jazz youth concert and I asked him to play for us. I was lucky.
Clare Moore and I have played music together the whole way. Since 1978. We have shared our terrestrial life as well. Nae probs. We get to run out on that abstract field and we are fully manifest there. We know that. We don't talk about it much , we just know it. The band is completed by our bass player Stuart Thomas and , sometimes , our jazz fellow traveller. Mark Fitzgibbon. (He is full of talk, spending so much of his time in a completely abstract, instrumental world. He loves to talk of the indignities that come your way as you live a musical life. Each outrage is documented and recast to his new audience, us, in even grizzler detail.)
Stuart Thomas plays in the Surrealists with Kim Salmon. He also plays his own music with the Stu Thomas Paradox.
Anyway, we all meet up, like the Wild Bunch and deal with whatever spotfire or situation I have gotten us into. Its not like a band where the experience has all been shared. We all came by a different route. We've all been up and we've all been down. We like to play in this field, this area we know how to operate in. Its like being a pro gambler or a fighter I guess, only the stoned will know. Memory doesn't have much to do with it. We've had to make up some other way to speak with each other. We can't just refer to past battle plans and victories or defeats. Its always been new. We have to go over the top together.
Stu Perera has played on every album since “the Dave Graney Show” in 1998. He also plays around Melbourne clubs very regularly in a funk outfit. He is highly match fit. Not at all indie either. Adele Pickvance played bass on that Dave Graney Show cd and several that followed. She left to rejoin the Go Betweens. Stu Thomas has played with us since 2004 and made his recorded debut on “keepin’ it unreal” in 2006.
Most albums we have made have include about 40% of material recorded and played completely at our Ponderosa studio by Clare Moore and myself. The rest we have gone into a bigger room/ studio and laid down tracks with our band. Its always been a thing with us to have a band. The music sounds best with a collective feel and energy. A unit that is locked in together. Someone could write a book about holding a band together. It might be a bit tedious for some but you consider say, Duke Ellington who had 16 of the greatest, (and they all knew it) players in the world of jazz . They rode trains and buses and planes and reassembled on stages together for 40 years! He apparently never sacked anybody. He just sat someone down next to them playing the same instrument. At the beginning of a show they would do a fanfare, a blast of notes. Everybody had to have their own note. Players would call out , “get off my fuckin’ note!”
We also like to have a band because our songs need instrumentation and dynamics. We don’t really believe that everything can be boiled down to a single element of an acoustic guitar. I once saw Prince do an acoustic set on cable tv. It was so throwaway as he knew it was NOT what it was supposed to sound like. Nothing else was revealed. Its the same with songs by August Darnell ( Kid Creole). The tunes are simple but the rhythms and melodies are nuanced and sophisticated and need the voices and voicings of a couple of keys players, guitar and percussion as well as drums and bass and vocals to bring it to life.
Occasionally we play a show with a keyboard player. Mark Fitzgibbon, a jazz powerhouse, played with us on “HASHISH and LIQUOR” in 2005 and then on “WE WUZ CRURIOUS” in 2008. Hes’s been involved in the narrative shows, “POINT BLANK” AND ‘LIVE IN HELL”.
Mark was living in Perth for 2009. That year we had the pleasure of playing with ADAM RUDEGEAIR who plays with his own jazz trio as well as with HENRY MANETTA AND THE TRIP.
Clare Moore has recorded and played with the latter as well as with JANE DUST AND THE GIANT HOOPOES (who also feature Stu Thomas on bass) and THE DAMES ( with Kaye Louise Patterson and Rosie Westbrook).
Dave Graney and Clare Moore also play with SALMON very occasionally and also as bass and drums with HARRY HOWARDS N.D.E.
Stu Thomas has his band THE STU THOMAS PARADOX.
We like to play a pretty upbeat set when we appear. Not much room for ballads.Its too late for that!
Our new cd is called “SUPERMODIFIED”. Its 18 tracks recorded mostly in the years 2001-2004, remixed in 2010. Re-sung,re strung, replayed, remixed and remastered . Its out on August 7th. On Cockaigne through Fuse.
Played a show last night and Bill Miller got up to play some guitar. I think we’ll be pulling his talents back in as I got to bust some old schol moves and liked it a lot. Stay tuned.
Thursday 22nd (w/Go Go Sapien) July Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play at the Grace Darling Hotel, Smith st Collingwood.
Saturday 17th July. Dave Graney -- OSCARS Alehouse in Belgrave.
Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play the following NSW July dates w/Tiffany Eckhardt and Dave Steel opening.
Thursday 29th July.- Lizottes, Central Coast NSW
Friday 30th July. - Lizottes- Newcastle
Saturday 31st July. - Notes- Newtown
Sunday 1st August. - Brass Monkey ,Cronulla
Bill went off for a walk a while ago. He was “gonna be some time”. Actually I started to play more guitar and there wasn’t the room or the moolah.
Stuart has played with us since 1998, the year that broke on us after we finished playing with the Coral Snakes. It was my idea to finish that scene and start again. I needed to do it. Stuart was playing at a VCA jazz youth concert and I asked him to play for us. I was lucky.
Clare Moore and I have played music together the whole way. Since 1978. We have shared our terrestrial life as well. Nae probs. We get to run out on that abstract field and we are fully manifest there. We know that. We don't talk about it much , we just know it. The band is completed by our bass player Stuart Thomas and , sometimes , our jazz fellow traveller. Mark Fitzgibbon. (He is full of talk, spending so much of his time in a completely abstract, instrumental world. He loves to talk of the indignities that come your way as you live a musical life. Each outrage is documented and recast to his new audience, us, in even grizzler detail.)
Stuart Thomas plays in the Surrealists with Kim Salmon. He also plays his own music with the Stu Thomas Paradox.
Anyway, we all meet up, like the Wild Bunch and deal with whatever spotfire or situation I have gotten us into. Its not like a band where the experience has all been shared. We all came by a different route. We've all been up and we've all been down. We like to play in this field, this area we know how to operate in. Its like being a pro gambler or a fighter I guess, only the stoned will know. Memory doesn't have much to do with it. We've had to make up some other way to speak with each other. We can't just refer to past battle plans and victories or defeats. Its always been new. We have to go over the top together.
Stu Perera has played on every album since “the Dave Graney Show” in 1998. He also plays around Melbourne clubs very regularly in a funk outfit. He is highly match fit. Not at all indie either. Adele Pickvance played bass on that Dave Graney Show cd and several that followed. She left to rejoin the Go Betweens. Stu Thomas has played with us since 2004 and made his recorded debut on “keepin’ it unreal” in 2006.
Most albums we have made have include about 40% of material recorded and played completely at our Ponderosa studio by Clare Moore and myself. The rest we have gone into a bigger room/ studio and laid down tracks with our band. Its always been a thing with us to have a band. The music sounds best with a collective feel and energy. A unit that is locked in together. Someone could write a book about holding a band together. It might be a bit tedious for some but you consider say, Duke Ellington who had 16 of the greatest, (and they all knew it) players in the world of jazz . They rode trains and buses and planes and reassembled on stages together for 40 years! He apparently never sacked anybody. He just sat someone down next to them playing the same instrument. At the beginning of a show they would do a fanfare, a blast of notes. Everybody had to have their own note. Players would call out , “get off my fuckin’ note!”
We also like to have a band because our songs need instrumentation and dynamics. We don’t really believe that everything can be boiled down to a single element of an acoustic guitar. I once saw Prince do an acoustic set on cable tv. It was so throwaway as he knew it was NOT what it was supposed to sound like. Nothing else was revealed. Its the same with songs by August Darnell ( Kid Creole). The tunes are simple but the rhythms and melodies are nuanced and sophisticated and need the voices and voicings of a couple of keys players, guitar and percussion as well as drums and bass and vocals to bring it to life.
Occasionally we play a show with a keyboard player. Mark Fitzgibbon, a jazz powerhouse, played with us on “HASHISH and LIQUOR” in 2005 and then on “WE WUZ CRURIOUS” in 2008. Hes’s been involved in the narrative shows, “POINT BLANK” AND ‘LIVE IN HELL”.
Mark was living in Perth for 2009. That year we had the pleasure of playing with ADAM RUDEGEAIR who plays with his own jazz trio as well as with HENRY MANETTA AND THE TRIP.
Clare Moore has recorded and played with the latter as well as with JANE DUST AND THE GIANT HOOPOES (who also feature Stu Thomas on bass) and THE DAMES ( with Kaye Louise Patterson and Rosie Westbrook).
Dave Graney and Clare Moore also play with SALMON very occasionally and also as bass and drums with HARRY HOWARDS N.D.E.
Stu Thomas has his band THE STU THOMAS PARADOX.
We like to play a pretty upbeat set when we appear. Not much room for ballads.Its too late for that!
Our new cd is called “SUPERMODIFIED”. Its 18 tracks recorded mostly in the years 2001-2004, remixed in 2010. Re-sung,re strung, replayed, remixed and remastered . Its out on August 7th. On Cockaigne through Fuse.
Played a show last night and Bill Miller got up to play some guitar. I think we’ll be pulling his talents back in as I got to bust some old schol moves and liked it a lot. Stay tuned.
Thursday 22nd (w/Go Go Sapien) July Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play at the Grace Darling Hotel, Smith st Collingwood.
Saturday 17th July. Dave Graney -- OSCARS Alehouse in Belgrave.
Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play the following NSW July dates w/Tiffany Eckhardt and Dave Steel opening.
Thursday 29th July.- Lizottes, Central Coast NSW
Friday 30th July. - Lizottes- Newcastle
Saturday 31st July. - Notes- Newtown
Sunday 1st August. - Brass Monkey ,Cronulla
Sunday, July 11, 2010
grateful dead- winners
I write a column which appears in the Australian Musician magazine which is available for free in every music instrument shop in Australia. This is the latest.
Nostalgia in music is quite a large part of whats left of the business. Its a charge , a weak spark, a lead that people seek to follow , into the audient chaos, hoping a crowd will join them . Yeah! Nostalgia happens on a large scale when things are allowed to happen big in public, open areas. I really love things that happen BIG and nobody in the media or the business seems to notice. Theres no one sniffin’ round , workin’ out how to “monetize” the situation.
Sometimes I hear a snatch of a song and its a powerful shock, all of a sudden I get a glimpse of something like a parallel dimension. Usually a brightly lit kitchen with the radio on and my mother cooking something . Its just there for an instant. I know the songs that have triggered that flash. It doesn’t happen if you seek to possess the music and own it and pout it on again. Its not like having the keys to that other dimension, it just happens , when things are a bit out of phase, when you’re open to it. I have a lot of vinyl and cds. Sometimes I think it’d be great to have such and such a disc that I so enjoyed many years ago and I go and get it. It rarely has the same charge as hearing something new for me. And something new doesn’t have to be something made in 2010, though that is good too. I mean its new to me. I’ve been chasing down the music of Bert Jansch, the genius folk guitar player. Its all new to me. I’ve heard pieces here and there, but he has so much more to reveal I’m sure.
I had the Grateful Deads “American Beauty” when I was kid. It was already about seven years since it had been made and that seemed like a long time. The general feeling I had about music then was that it was all over. I’m sure a lot of young people feel like that now!
So I listened to it as an artefact and , because I was young, quite seriously and with a piercing but narrow gaze. I dug it.
Recently my brother in law got rid of all his vinyl. I rescuedit and gave it a home. . A large part of it was an amazing collection of Grateful Dead discs. Bootleg vinyl with beautiful handmade sleeves. And all the records are from a particular era. Up to 1972, when the original keyboard player , Ron “Pigpen” McKernan died. (He died, strangely for the time, from Cirrhosis of the liver.A juicehead among the trippers).
You can get a great dvd about the Dead. Its called “Anthem to Beauty”. One of the “classic album” shows. But the Dead were not like any other act and really couldn’t be reduced to one emblematic album.
Basically , the two “acoustic “ albums “workingman's dead” and “American beauty” were the most “song based” recordings. Short, vocal based tunes with mostly acoustic instruments. the band had two guitarists, a bass player, two drummers and a keyboard player. Actually they went through keyboard players like drummers in Spinal Tap. It was a death sentence to get that gig! Four or Five in all and only one survivor.
So I want you to know I’m not talking about the Dead as a nostalgic thing. they never came to Australia. Like Elvis (who never left the states) they hard ever went to Europe. Perhaps a handful of times. They did , however , play at the Great pyramid of Cheops. BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO!
They gave up recording from ‘79 to ‘89 because they didn’t like it and told their fans to tape them. They set up a special platform at every gig for the bootleggers.
These discs I have come from an earlier period, when they were still recording. The band were just too much for the business and the formats ! Its strange, they are hard to like. Bits and pieces here and there are great but it rarely holds together for a whole song, let alone for a whole album. My favourite piece of music, for Jerry Garcias guitar tone ( which had a lot to do with Tom Verlaines) is “Dark Star”. Its on almost every one of my bootlegs and is best heard on the double live “LIVE DEAD” which was their third album release. They were rootsy at times. And very bad at those times, but they were also trippers, and went further than most, taking a huge crowd with them.
The lyrics are always very obtuse and poetic. And I mean in a good way. Robert Hunter, a Dead fellow traveller with links , like the whole band, back to Ken Keseys Acid Trips and Kerouac and Cassidy from that earlier generation of beat hipsters, wrote most of the good ones. The band were very street level and drove CBS records and their staff producers nuts with requests to record “thick air” or “coloured silence” for certain parts of a song.
When they gave up recording, for a decade, they continued to tour, and became the biggest live act in America. Eventually, they made an album , recording on a live sound stage and had a late period hit with “touch of grey” in 1989.
Their live sound system was something out of the box. Owsley Stanley III who was an early proselytiser of the then legal LSD , had a hand in designing the double, out of phase vocal mics which allowed them to stand in front of the massive wall of speakers (using no foldback monitors) and have no spill into them, only the singers voices. (Owsley now lives in Queensland. )
Vocals, lead guitar and rhythm guitar and keys each had their own channel and set of speaker, as did each tring of Phil Lesh's bass Each drum also had its own channel and speaker.
The band stood in front of the “wall of sound”.Theoretically hearing the same music as their audience!
If you followed that, the Dead were not only experimental, they had clout, financial power. And they belonged to no one!
In the 90s, they operated their own travel agency for their fans and before coming to a town , would contact police to tell them to not bust people as they were bringing so much into the local economy! I repeat, WINNERS!
Like I say, in my journeys within the ouvre of the Dead I have found them to be so big and unwieldy that I can only make sense of them at points here and there. Like a planet with a strange surface you can never find a place to land on. I enjoy listening though. I have found parts of their post ‘72 albums to be my favourites, notably 1975s, “Blues for Allah”. They also always had such great imagery. Look up Jerry Garcia on youtube, he is such a great talker. The Grateful dead really did it their way. Winners.
Theres this attack on live music happening at the moment by the squares. I hate it when they talk about musicians being victims or losers. And its a bummer when musicians act that way too, getting wasted and moaning how nobody lets them do their popcorn. Musicians are tough and hardy like cockroaches! They also live in the present and the future like no one else. Think of all the ways that people are learning to live nowadays, flitting from precarious job to precarious job in flimsy cardboard set up hole in the wall shopfronts. They have to live by their wits and blow hard. Cutting through the blues and living right anyway. Thats the way musicians have been twitching it for years. Winners.
Thursdays 15th (w/ Stu Thomas Paradox) and 22nd (w/Go Go Sapien) July Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play at the Grace Darling Hotel, Smith st Collingwood.
Saturday 17th July. Dave Graney -- OSCARS Alehouse in Belgrave. Dave Graney solo...
Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play the following NSW July dates w/Tiffany Eckhardt opening.
Thursday 29th July.- Lizottes, Central Coast NSW
Friday 30th July. - Lizottes- Newcastle
Saturday 31st July. - Notes- Newtown
Sunday 1st August. - Brass Monkey ,Cronulla
Nostalgia in music is quite a large part of whats left of the business. Its a charge , a weak spark, a lead that people seek to follow , into the audient chaos, hoping a crowd will join them . Yeah! Nostalgia happens on a large scale when things are allowed to happen big in public, open areas. I really love things that happen BIG and nobody in the media or the business seems to notice. Theres no one sniffin’ round , workin’ out how to “monetize” the situation.
Sometimes I hear a snatch of a song and its a powerful shock, all of a sudden I get a glimpse of something like a parallel dimension. Usually a brightly lit kitchen with the radio on and my mother cooking something . Its just there for an instant. I know the songs that have triggered that flash. It doesn’t happen if you seek to possess the music and own it and pout it on again. Its not like having the keys to that other dimension, it just happens , when things are a bit out of phase, when you’re open to it. I have a lot of vinyl and cds. Sometimes I think it’d be great to have such and such a disc that I so enjoyed many years ago and I go and get it. It rarely has the same charge as hearing something new for me. And something new doesn’t have to be something made in 2010, though that is good too. I mean its new to me. I’ve been chasing down the music of Bert Jansch, the genius folk guitar player. Its all new to me. I’ve heard pieces here and there, but he has so much more to reveal I’m sure.
I had the Grateful Deads “American Beauty” when I was kid. It was already about seven years since it had been made and that seemed like a long time. The general feeling I had about music then was that it was all over. I’m sure a lot of young people feel like that now!
So I listened to it as an artefact and , because I was young, quite seriously and with a piercing but narrow gaze. I dug it.
Recently my brother in law got rid of all his vinyl. I rescuedit and gave it a home. . A large part of it was an amazing collection of Grateful Dead discs. Bootleg vinyl with beautiful handmade sleeves. And all the records are from a particular era. Up to 1972, when the original keyboard player , Ron “Pigpen” McKernan died. (He died, strangely for the time, from Cirrhosis of the liver.A juicehead among the trippers).
You can get a great dvd about the Dead. Its called “Anthem to Beauty”. One of the “classic album” shows. But the Dead were not like any other act and really couldn’t be reduced to one emblematic album.
Basically , the two “acoustic “ albums “workingman's dead” and “American beauty” were the most “song based” recordings. Short, vocal based tunes with mostly acoustic instruments. the band had two guitarists, a bass player, two drummers and a keyboard player. Actually they went through keyboard players like drummers in Spinal Tap. It was a death sentence to get that gig! Four or Five in all and only one survivor.
So I want you to know I’m not talking about the Dead as a nostalgic thing. they never came to Australia. Like Elvis (who never left the states) they hard ever went to Europe. Perhaps a handful of times. They did , however , play at the Great pyramid of Cheops. BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO!
They gave up recording from ‘79 to ‘89 because they didn’t like it and told their fans to tape them. They set up a special platform at every gig for the bootleggers.
These discs I have come from an earlier period, when they were still recording. The band were just too much for the business and the formats ! Its strange, they are hard to like. Bits and pieces here and there are great but it rarely holds together for a whole song, let alone for a whole album. My favourite piece of music, for Jerry Garcias guitar tone ( which had a lot to do with Tom Verlaines) is “Dark Star”. Its on almost every one of my bootlegs and is best heard on the double live “LIVE DEAD” which was their third album release. They were rootsy at times. And very bad at those times, but they were also trippers, and went further than most, taking a huge crowd with them.
The lyrics are always very obtuse and poetic. And I mean in a good way. Robert Hunter, a Dead fellow traveller with links , like the whole band, back to Ken Keseys Acid Trips and Kerouac and Cassidy from that earlier generation of beat hipsters, wrote most of the good ones. The band were very street level and drove CBS records and their staff producers nuts with requests to record “thick air” or “coloured silence” for certain parts of a song.
When they gave up recording, for a decade, they continued to tour, and became the biggest live act in America. Eventually, they made an album , recording on a live sound stage and had a late period hit with “touch of grey” in 1989.
Their live sound system was something out of the box. Owsley Stanley III who was an early proselytiser of the then legal LSD , had a hand in designing the double, out of phase vocal mics which allowed them to stand in front of the massive wall of speakers (using no foldback monitors) and have no spill into them, only the singers voices. (Owsley now lives in Queensland. )
Vocals, lead guitar and rhythm guitar and keys each had their own channel and set of speaker, as did each tring of Phil Lesh's bass Each drum also had its own channel and speaker.
The band stood in front of the “wall of sound”.Theoretically hearing the same music as their audience!
If you followed that, the Dead were not only experimental, they had clout, financial power. And they belonged to no one!
In the 90s, they operated their own travel agency for their fans and before coming to a town , would contact police to tell them to not bust people as they were bringing so much into the local economy! I repeat, WINNERS!
Like I say, in my journeys within the ouvre of the Dead I have found them to be so big and unwieldy that I can only make sense of them at points here and there. Like a planet with a strange surface you can never find a place to land on. I enjoy listening though. I have found parts of their post ‘72 albums to be my favourites, notably 1975s, “Blues for Allah”. They also always had such great imagery. Look up Jerry Garcia on youtube, he is such a great talker. The Grateful dead really did it their way. Winners.
Theres this attack on live music happening at the moment by the squares. I hate it when they talk about musicians being victims or losers. And its a bummer when musicians act that way too, getting wasted and moaning how nobody lets them do their popcorn. Musicians are tough and hardy like cockroaches! They also live in the present and the future like no one else. Think of all the ways that people are learning to live nowadays, flitting from precarious job to precarious job in flimsy cardboard set up hole in the wall shopfronts. They have to live by their wits and blow hard. Cutting through the blues and living right anyway. Thats the way musicians have been twitching it for years. Winners.
Thursdays 15th (w/ Stu Thomas Paradox) and 22nd (w/Go Go Sapien) July Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play at the Grace Darling Hotel, Smith st Collingwood.
Saturday 17th July. Dave Graney -- OSCARS Alehouse in Belgrave. Dave Graney solo...
Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play the following NSW July dates w/Tiffany Eckhardt opening.
Thursday 29th July.- Lizottes, Central Coast NSW
Friday 30th July. - Lizottes- Newcastle
Saturday 31st July. - Notes- Newtown
Sunday 1st August. - Brass Monkey ,Cronulla
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
crowbots- tiges etc
I've been writing columns for the Adelaide Review. This was written for the start of the season. For one reason or another, space and timing, it was held up for a few issues. At one point, it could've made a serendipitous issue that coincided with an Adelaide vs Richmond game. But alas, not to have been. Things change a lot during the season. Those two teams have been written off and have gotten up off the mat several times now. It will grind on, the players being shoved into the dirt during the coldest months which are upon us now.Carrying the hopes of the loyal marks, I mean punters with them...This is the unedited piece, with all sorts of collateral junk kept in....
I feel bad kicking the Adelaide Crows – but - I write this from Melbourne. So i feel a sense of detachment and and the security of several hundred miles between myself and anybody who might get upset. I also wrote this a few weeks ago now and football changes fortunes pretty quickly. The pundits are all supremely unequivocal in the demolition of careers and personalities but they also change like the wind. They flip flop! The archmchair brigade!
So here goes. the Crows. Has there ever been a more desperately humourless team? (Until they lost so many in a row.Now, like a departing politician, they assume human form and sensibility again) Their coach, what’s his name? Dentures! All the science and technology, the relentless drilling down into statistics - where’s the simple joy of playing? Such a brittle construct to begin with. Scott Hodges, he failed in the big room. Same as that blonde headed wingman with the viking mullett. (Which one?) Then there was Andrew Jarman, we already have Rex Hunt as he’s as phony as a three dollar bill. Ken Cunningham was odd but it got confusing trying to translate his garbled vowels and messed up consonants. (Could have been the noise of my chillum as well though.) The inside of the screen was covered in spittle. Graham Cornes climbed out of his coffin to bite the inviting neck of a passing virgin every once in a while. That was good, he was a player. He tried it on for North Melbourne in the seventies but he had no flesh on his bones cos he lived only on fluid - blood. He could fly for a mark but the treacherous Victorian winds blew him out to sea. It got to be embarrassing trudging back through the gates, with his boots on, all drenched and hair messed up.
A couple of players transcended the constraints of the uptight panto story they had to follow. The amazing Tony Modra, the premiership winning Darren Jarman and current marquee star Andrew Macleod. The rest? They’ve earned the nickname my nephews in Sydney have for them: “Crowbots”.(And in Sydney they only heard about AFL recently, when they were given a premiership for a stir).
Both Adelaide teams need to go right down to the bottom of the ladder and to see what’s there. The fans need to get a grip, a sense of humour. It’s hopeless! You’ll never win anything! That’s where you start and everything else is a bonus. Like life, really.
All that hopeless drama was there in the SANFL. These synthetic teams have to live and love a little. I know Richmond fans, and if that team ever gets a few wins on the board, there are many tens of thousands of them, who endure each season with such a grim, dark and damaged outlook. A power team of the 70s, their last premiership was in 1980. The club beheads presidents and coaches every other season. Like a tiny African republic, it has been said. Kevin Bartlett refuses to go back to the club which sacked him as coach in the mid 80s. He is forever dirty on them, but smiles and waves when asked. Their president of the glory years, Graeme Richmond, used to run the Seaview Ballroom, which was the home of punk rock in Melbourne in the late seventies. Champion wingman Francis Bourke ran the Tiger Lounge which was another post punk venue. Champion centreman Ian Stewart (who they had swapped with St. Kilda for Billy Barrott) ran another music venue. My Tiger friend said to me the other day, “At least it’s not like this time last year. Then we had hope! At least we don’t have that this year!” (Last year Richmond rode a wave of Ben Cousins inspired euphoria which crashed early in the first quarter of the first game, as Ben’s hamstring pinged and the crowd gasped, went all floppy and left the stadium in single filed silent misery.) Bens back in favour with the pundits now. Taking one for the team. They stare at him and ask what drugs are like. Their bellies spill out as the buttons pop on their shirts , reaching for a pie and opining that he has ruined his health. Ben smiles and winks at his private film crew.
St Kilda fans can’t bear being in the finals, they don’t know what to do. Hope is not an option. The Crows , well Darren Jarman, destroyed them in 1997 and ever since the Saints dread being put in that position. Daring to hope!
The late JG Ballard wrote in one of his later novels that the hysteria around sport is a guide to how terrifically bored the population is. Melbourne is top of the ladder I think. World class. How is Adelaide doing in that Dream Team comp?
Henry Wagons barracks for the Tigers. He always asks about Dale “Flea” Weightman. The Flea stopped playing in the late 80s. Stu Perera and Mark Fitzgibbon , who play in my band, also go for the Tiges, they have to be told when the season is on. Mick Molloy is a big fan too. He is emblematic of Richmond fans. Comic Pain!Heres some other emblematic barrackers.
St Kilda= Mollly Meldrum, Clare Moore, Johnny Depp.
Essendon = Peter Costello, Aldo Ray.
North Melbourne = Tim Rogers.Simon Crean, Karl malden.
Melbourne = David Bridie, Andrew Duffield.
Carlton = Robert Menzies, Bob Santamaria, Martin Scorcese.
Geelong = John Brumby, Felicity kennett, Dennis Walter.
Western Bulldogs = Ernie Sigley.
Brisbane Lions = Bert Newton, Ben Michaels from the Sand Pebbles, Ernest Borgnine.
West Coke Eagles = Ashley Davies, Tab Hunter.
Fremantle Dockers = The Remaining Triffids, Donald O’Connor.
Collingwood = Kim Salmon and Paul Keating, neither of whom care a damn about football. Political cachet only. Mick harvey is a true believer, Norman Wisdom.
Sydney Swans = Conway savage from the Bad Seeds , Abe Saffron, Karl Stefanovic, Bob Skilton!
Hawthorn = Jeff Kennett.
Port Power = Bubbles Obst ?
Adelaide Crows = Graham Cornes ?
Gold Coast = Barnaby Joyce ?
Western Sydney = Dave Graney
As to the latter, I am taking the rare opportunity to barrack for a team with no players or colours or name . Its peaceful over here.
The Grace Darling - Smith Street Collingwood- Thursday 8th July w/ Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes.
Thursday 15th July w/ the Stu Thomas Paradox
Thursday 22nd July w/ Go Go Sapien.
Oscars Alehouse- 7 Bayview rd Belgrave Saturday 10th and 17th July.
Then we head to Sydney
Thursday 29th July at Lizottes on the Central Coast.
Friday 30th July at Lizottes in newcastle
Saturday 31st July at Notes Live in Newtown
Sunday 1st August the Brass Monkey in Cronulla.
I feel bad kicking the Adelaide Crows – but - I write this from Melbourne. So i feel a sense of detachment and and the security of several hundred miles between myself and anybody who might get upset. I also wrote this a few weeks ago now and football changes fortunes pretty quickly. The pundits are all supremely unequivocal in the demolition of careers and personalities but they also change like the wind. They flip flop! The archmchair brigade!
So here goes. the Crows. Has there ever been a more desperately humourless team? (Until they lost so many in a row.Now, like a departing politician, they assume human form and sensibility again) Their coach, what’s his name? Dentures! All the science and technology, the relentless drilling down into statistics - where’s the simple joy of playing? Such a brittle construct to begin with. Scott Hodges, he failed in the big room. Same as that blonde headed wingman with the viking mullett. (Which one?) Then there was Andrew Jarman, we already have Rex Hunt as he’s as phony as a three dollar bill. Ken Cunningham was odd but it got confusing trying to translate his garbled vowels and messed up consonants. (Could have been the noise of my chillum as well though.) The inside of the screen was covered in spittle. Graham Cornes climbed out of his coffin to bite the inviting neck of a passing virgin every once in a while. That was good, he was a player. He tried it on for North Melbourne in the seventies but he had no flesh on his bones cos he lived only on fluid - blood. He could fly for a mark but the treacherous Victorian winds blew him out to sea. It got to be embarrassing trudging back through the gates, with his boots on, all drenched and hair messed up.
A couple of players transcended the constraints of the uptight panto story they had to follow. The amazing Tony Modra, the premiership winning Darren Jarman and current marquee star Andrew Macleod. The rest? They’ve earned the nickname my nephews in Sydney have for them: “Crowbots”.(And in Sydney they only heard about AFL recently, when they were given a premiership for a stir).
Both Adelaide teams need to go right down to the bottom of the ladder and to see what’s there. The fans need to get a grip, a sense of humour. It’s hopeless! You’ll never win anything! That’s where you start and everything else is a bonus. Like life, really.
All that hopeless drama was there in the SANFL. These synthetic teams have to live and love a little. I know Richmond fans, and if that team ever gets a few wins on the board, there are many tens of thousands of them, who endure each season with such a grim, dark and damaged outlook. A power team of the 70s, their last premiership was in 1980. The club beheads presidents and coaches every other season. Like a tiny African republic, it has been said. Kevin Bartlett refuses to go back to the club which sacked him as coach in the mid 80s. He is forever dirty on them, but smiles and waves when asked. Their president of the glory years, Graeme Richmond, used to run the Seaview Ballroom, which was the home of punk rock in Melbourne in the late seventies. Champion wingman Francis Bourke ran the Tiger Lounge which was another post punk venue. Champion centreman Ian Stewart (who they had swapped with St. Kilda for Billy Barrott) ran another music venue. My Tiger friend said to me the other day, “At least it’s not like this time last year. Then we had hope! At least we don’t have that this year!” (Last year Richmond rode a wave of Ben Cousins inspired euphoria which crashed early in the first quarter of the first game, as Ben’s hamstring pinged and the crowd gasped, went all floppy and left the stadium in single filed silent misery.) Bens back in favour with the pundits now. Taking one for the team. They stare at him and ask what drugs are like. Their bellies spill out as the buttons pop on their shirts , reaching for a pie and opining that he has ruined his health. Ben smiles and winks at his private film crew.
St Kilda fans can’t bear being in the finals, they don’t know what to do. Hope is not an option. The Crows , well Darren Jarman, destroyed them in 1997 and ever since the Saints dread being put in that position. Daring to hope!
The late JG Ballard wrote in one of his later novels that the hysteria around sport is a guide to how terrifically bored the population is. Melbourne is top of the ladder I think. World class. How is Adelaide doing in that Dream Team comp?
Henry Wagons barracks for the Tigers. He always asks about Dale “Flea” Weightman. The Flea stopped playing in the late 80s. Stu Perera and Mark Fitzgibbon , who play in my band, also go for the Tiges, they have to be told when the season is on. Mick Molloy is a big fan too. He is emblematic of Richmond fans. Comic Pain!Heres some other emblematic barrackers.
St Kilda= Mollly Meldrum, Clare Moore, Johnny Depp.
Essendon = Peter Costello, Aldo Ray.
North Melbourne = Tim Rogers.Simon Crean, Karl malden.
Melbourne = David Bridie, Andrew Duffield.
Carlton = Robert Menzies, Bob Santamaria, Martin Scorcese.
Geelong = John Brumby, Felicity kennett, Dennis Walter.
Western Bulldogs = Ernie Sigley.
Brisbane Lions = Bert Newton, Ben Michaels from the Sand Pebbles, Ernest Borgnine.
West Coke Eagles = Ashley Davies, Tab Hunter.
Fremantle Dockers = The Remaining Triffids, Donald O’Connor.
Collingwood = Kim Salmon and Paul Keating, neither of whom care a damn about football. Political cachet only. Mick harvey is a true believer, Norman Wisdom.
Sydney Swans = Conway savage from the Bad Seeds , Abe Saffron, Karl Stefanovic, Bob Skilton!
Hawthorn = Jeff Kennett.
Port Power = Bubbles Obst ?
Adelaide Crows = Graham Cornes ?
Gold Coast = Barnaby Joyce ?
Western Sydney = Dave Graney
As to the latter, I am taking the rare opportunity to barrack for a team with no players or colours or name . Its peaceful over here.
The Grace Darling - Smith Street Collingwood- Thursday 8th July w/ Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes.
Thursday 15th July w/ the Stu Thomas Paradox
Thursday 22nd July w/ Go Go Sapien.
Oscars Alehouse- 7 Bayview rd Belgrave Saturday 10th and 17th July.
Then we head to Sydney
Thursday 29th July at Lizottes on the Central Coast.
Friday 30th July at Lizottes in newcastle
Saturday 31st July at Notes Live in Newtown
Sunday 1st August the Brass Monkey in Cronulla.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
cold cold cold nights- need blood
Played a gig on an icy , windy Thursday night at the Grace Darling Hotel in Smith street. The Dames opened the show. Its hard to get people out on nights like these. The cold is a shock. People will get used to it. Thats me being positive. Musicians are generally negative types but they can fan flames from the smallest spark to keep themselves alive when they are deep in the forest. Of a cold, windy, icy , wet night.
Two days later I played a couple of sets at a cute boutique beer bar called Oscars Alehouse in Belgrave. This is a gig I could walk to. If it wasn’t so damn icy and windy and wet and uphill all the way. Maybe in the summer. But people in the hills are more used to the elements. They turned out. At first the place is full of twenty somethings , who are generally oblivious to music being performed. We come from different dimensions , it seems, though I can see them. Its like an episode of TRUE BLOOD. Astoundingly tall and lean , glamourous , beautiful young girls with their boyfriends, who dress in t shirts no matter what time of year.
Slowly, the music crowd come in and sit around the bars and the tables. Its me and Stu Thomas. Its cute. They sell mulled wine as well as all these exotic, strong beers. I stick to chewing gum and lemonade.
We visit these joints again this month.
The Grace Darling - Smith Street Collingwood- Thursday 8th July w/ Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes.
Thursday 15th July w/ the Stu Thomas Paradox
Thursday 22nd July w/ Go Go Sapien.
Oscars Alehouse- 7 Bayview rd Belgrave Saturday 10th and 17th July.
Then we head to Sydney
Thursday 29th July at Lizottes on the Central Coast.
Friday 30th July at Lizottes in newcastle
Saturday 31st July at Notes Live in Newtown
Sunday 1st August the Brass Monkey in Cronulla.
Come along.We need your blood.
Two days later I played a couple of sets at a cute boutique beer bar called Oscars Alehouse in Belgrave. This is a gig I could walk to. If it wasn’t so damn icy and windy and wet and uphill all the way. Maybe in the summer. But people in the hills are more used to the elements. They turned out. At first the place is full of twenty somethings , who are generally oblivious to music being performed. We come from different dimensions , it seems, though I can see them. Its like an episode of TRUE BLOOD. Astoundingly tall and lean , glamourous , beautiful young girls with their boyfriends, who dress in t shirts no matter what time of year.
Slowly, the music crowd come in and sit around the bars and the tables. Its me and Stu Thomas. Its cute. They sell mulled wine as well as all these exotic, strong beers. I stick to chewing gum and lemonade.
We visit these joints again this month.
The Grace Darling - Smith Street Collingwood- Thursday 8th July w/ Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes.
Thursday 15th July w/ the Stu Thomas Paradox
Thursday 22nd July w/ Go Go Sapien.
Oscars Alehouse- 7 Bayview rd Belgrave Saturday 10th and 17th July.
Then we head to Sydney
Thursday 29th July at Lizottes on the Central Coast.
Friday 30th July at Lizottes in newcastle
Saturday 31st July at Notes Live in Newtown
Sunday 1st August the Brass Monkey in Cronulla.
Come along.We need your blood.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
live dates in July
Played bass with Harry Howards NDE the other night at the Tote. The joint is all clean carpets and spanking sound system. Quite liked it. There is also a taco stand out in the beer garden. I can now enjoy saying "lets blow this taco stand!" at the end of a night and experiencing it being rooted adjacent to some kind of a reality.
Clare Moore on drums, Harry on one of his excellent, collectable guitars and home made amp and Edwina Preston on vintage organ. I borrowed the bass amp of the other act, Ron Penos RSVP. It was a sansamp into a Galleon Kruger head into a 4 by 10 bass cab. then the other bass player , from Black Cab, brought his cabinet of the same size up and I had a massive tower to plug into. I've always complained about bass players amps, usually when helping them lift the things. Now I understand. You NEED that power under you to really get the oomph! required for the true bottom end!
Had a great time. Like driving a steam train. All that power at your touch. Dampening it and pumping it. Riding it!
Got plenty of dates coming up. Some of them being duo gigs and most with the Lurid Yellow Mist.
"Super Modified" is set to drop in August/September. A remix comp. 18 tracks. All sounding great.
Thursdays 1st (w/ the Dames) ,
8th (w/Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes),15th (w/Stu Thomas Paradox) and 22nd ( w/ Go Go Sapien) July Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play at the Grace Darling Hotel, Smith st Collingwood.
Saturdays 3rd,10th,17th and 24th July. Dave Graney -- Oscars AleHouse in Belgrave. The first two a duo with Stu Thomas on bass and the second two a duo with Clare Moore on vibes.
Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play the following NSW July dates w/Tiffany Eckhardt and Dave Steel opening.
Wednesday 28th July. - Clarendon Guesthouse- Katoomba
Thursday 29th July.- Lizottes, Central Coast NSW
Friday 30th July. - Lizottes- Newcastle
Saturday 31st July. - Notes- Newtown
Sunday 1st August. - Brass Monkey ,Cronulla
Clare Moore on drums, Harry on one of his excellent, collectable guitars and home made amp and Edwina Preston on vintage organ. I borrowed the bass amp of the other act, Ron Penos RSVP. It was a sansamp into a Galleon Kruger head into a 4 by 10 bass cab. then the other bass player , from Black Cab, brought his cabinet of the same size up and I had a massive tower to plug into. I've always complained about bass players amps, usually when helping them lift the things. Now I understand. You NEED that power under you to really get the oomph! required for the true bottom end!
Had a great time. Like driving a steam train. All that power at your touch. Dampening it and pumping it. Riding it!
Got plenty of dates coming up. Some of them being duo gigs and most with the Lurid Yellow Mist.
"Super Modified" is set to drop in August/September. A remix comp. 18 tracks. All sounding great.
Thursdays 1st (w/ the Dames) ,
8th (w/Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes),15th (w/Stu Thomas Paradox) and 22nd ( w/ Go Go Sapien) July Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play at the Grace Darling Hotel, Smith st Collingwood.
Saturdays 3rd,10th,17th and 24th July. Dave Graney -- Oscars AleHouse in Belgrave. The first two a duo with Stu Thomas on bass and the second two a duo with Clare Moore on vibes.
Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play the following NSW July dates w/Tiffany Eckhardt and Dave Steel opening.
Wednesday 28th July. - Clarendon Guesthouse- Katoomba
Thursday 29th July.- Lizottes, Central Coast NSW
Friday 30th July. - Lizottes- Newcastle
Saturday 31st July. - Notes- Newtown
Sunday 1st August. - Brass Monkey ,Cronulla
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Ruby,Sammy,the heroic Staffy,Pippin,Bambi and Aughtie etc
I went for a walk/run this morning, attached to my old discman. Intending to listen to an album I’ve been remixing. The speakers in the studio are good and can take a lot of bass frequencies. When I play it on the normal, household sound system, theres always too much bass for those speakers. I want to hear it on the tiny ear plugs as well. Running around the hills, I get to hear it with all manner of bird sounds as well. I got used to it on the last album, “knock yourself out”, and added some squawks and exotic jungle fowl shrieks to the last track “2068 babe”. That seemed to complete it.
On the previous Saturday morning I’d been for a run and stopped to chat with an older gent who always walks his two dogs , Ruby, a rusty coloured terrier, and Sammy, an old salt and peppered Jack Russell. The man, whose name I have neglected to ask him of, always wears a smile and a single earplug for his radio gaffa taped to his ear. We stopped to talk. He never liked dogs but his late wife did and he got used to them. He used to tease her for talking to them but understands that they respond to emotional sounds. he even posited that a plant will grow if you talk nicely to it. I laughed. He began a bit of talk about God but I begged off and he didn’t continue. I asked him where his accent came from. “Dresden” he said. The story came out as to the fire bombing and how he was told to lie on his stomach when the air raids started as the bombs could move the air with such force it could crush your lungs. He was nine years old when the fire bombings occurred towards the end of the war . He rushed out of the house as it started to burn and saw another bomb hit , leaving a crater the width of the road we were standing next to. He pointed at it to illustrate the dimensions. He lost his entire family in the conflagration. That very day. He mentioned he saw a little Daschund running around in the crater that was where his house had been. It was his companion, for a while. He grew up in Dresden as it became a part of East Germany. I mentioned the recent German film “the lives of others” , which he hadn’t seen. I mentioned it had to do with a Stasi agent. We were standing on a dirt walking track on the edge of the forest and he still looked around and over his shoulder before he spoke to me of a friend who was cautioned to change his ways of talking lest he encourage the interest of that secret service, whose informers were a good portion of the population. I was patting Sammy and Ruby through the story. Good companions for this fellow.
I continued my run and listened to my music. My mind had been enlarged considerably though. The reverberant room was bigger and connected to other , unexpected things since I had left the house. Up ahead there were a trio of people looking intently through the undergrowth for something. Magic mushrooms, I surmised. Its the season for organic psychedelics and they grow well on the edge of the forest. Actually, every day this week there have been mushroom gatherers treading carefully and looking hopefully through the ground debris there at Sherbrooke Forest. I was gladdened that there is still that deliberate interest in getting out of it in the community . Times are awful dull, why not!
Sometimes on my run I hear all never see a soul on the streets but hear all the dogs begin to call out to each other from their locked gates. The area is a bit of a dormitory. Little traffic and no shops or distractions. Suburban streets with enormous trees and much greenery hiding and draping each dream home. (All the homes being very different to each other).
Today I stopped at the edge of my driveway and spoke to Pru who was walking Bambi, her Pomeranian who marched up to see if she could bite me on the nuts, and Pippin, a white little terrier who was more mature. Stand-offish and disinterested, though she liked a bit of a neck rub just where that damn collar sits all the time.
I continued on, turning the corner where Suzie, the old, kind Kelpie always comes up for a chat, past the teen party house where the all white guard dog and his delinquent pal sit and bark by the gate all day. Further up the hill is the house where the chihouhua jumps up and down , vertically, behind the curtained window in complete frustration as my nuts walk past so invitingly. Down the dirt track there are the two St Bernards and then the tiny terrier who provokes its pal, the Staffy, to race out and chase me. Somewhere in there is a new, preposterously huge McMansion which sits where a very moderne wooden house used to be. Only it was burned down one night , perhaps a bong slipped from somebodys hand. The family was roused to escape the ensuing fire by another failthfull Staffy. We still refer to the whole corner by that incident. “The Staffy block”. Then the two Shitzus who shout from behind the wooden fence as I start up hill again. Finally there are Toby and Ruby, two miniature Schnauzers who get into a delirious funk of barking as I ( and my nuts) run past their manor. I have seen these two being walked past my joint and they are strangely silent and polite , with their owners, (whose names I have again neglected to learn) as they get their exercize. No bother, they are moving soon, I see by the sign on the front lawn. My favourite neighbourhood dog, Tony, left about eight years ago. he was very smart and would race out from his driveway and accompany me on the whole circuit. His owners gave him to another house around the corner. the new family changed his name to ANZAC and then “sent him to the country”. I have never spoken to the latter again and the former bunch are now vacating the valley. Perhaps our icy demeanour has frozen them out?
We have no dog, just an imperious cat named Aughtie. Named after Custer. Its what his brother Tom called him when they were children.
On the previous Saturday morning I’d been for a run and stopped to chat with an older gent who always walks his two dogs , Ruby, a rusty coloured terrier, and Sammy, an old salt and peppered Jack Russell. The man, whose name I have neglected to ask him of, always wears a smile and a single earplug for his radio gaffa taped to his ear. We stopped to talk. He never liked dogs but his late wife did and he got used to them. He used to tease her for talking to them but understands that they respond to emotional sounds. he even posited that a plant will grow if you talk nicely to it. I laughed. He began a bit of talk about God but I begged off and he didn’t continue. I asked him where his accent came from. “Dresden” he said. The story came out as to the fire bombing and how he was told to lie on his stomach when the air raids started as the bombs could move the air with such force it could crush your lungs. He was nine years old when the fire bombings occurred towards the end of the war . He rushed out of the house as it started to burn and saw another bomb hit , leaving a crater the width of the road we were standing next to. He pointed at it to illustrate the dimensions. He lost his entire family in the conflagration. That very day. He mentioned he saw a little Daschund running around in the crater that was where his house had been. It was his companion, for a while. He grew up in Dresden as it became a part of East Germany. I mentioned the recent German film “the lives of others” , which he hadn’t seen. I mentioned it had to do with a Stasi agent. We were standing on a dirt walking track on the edge of the forest and he still looked around and over his shoulder before he spoke to me of a friend who was cautioned to change his ways of talking lest he encourage the interest of that secret service, whose informers were a good portion of the population. I was patting Sammy and Ruby through the story. Good companions for this fellow.
I continued my run and listened to my music. My mind had been enlarged considerably though. The reverberant room was bigger and connected to other , unexpected things since I had left the house. Up ahead there were a trio of people looking intently through the undergrowth for something. Magic mushrooms, I surmised. Its the season for organic psychedelics and they grow well on the edge of the forest. Actually, every day this week there have been mushroom gatherers treading carefully and looking hopefully through the ground debris there at Sherbrooke Forest. I was gladdened that there is still that deliberate interest in getting out of it in the community . Times are awful dull, why not!
Sometimes on my run I hear all never see a soul on the streets but hear all the dogs begin to call out to each other from their locked gates. The area is a bit of a dormitory. Little traffic and no shops or distractions. Suburban streets with enormous trees and much greenery hiding and draping each dream home. (All the homes being very different to each other).
Today I stopped at the edge of my driveway and spoke to Pru who was walking Bambi, her Pomeranian who marched up to see if she could bite me on the nuts, and Pippin, a white little terrier who was more mature. Stand-offish and disinterested, though she liked a bit of a neck rub just where that damn collar sits all the time.
I continued on, turning the corner where Suzie, the old, kind Kelpie always comes up for a chat, past the teen party house where the all white guard dog and his delinquent pal sit and bark by the gate all day. Further up the hill is the house where the chihouhua jumps up and down , vertically, behind the curtained window in complete frustration as my nuts walk past so invitingly. Down the dirt track there are the two St Bernards and then the tiny terrier who provokes its pal, the Staffy, to race out and chase me. Somewhere in there is a new, preposterously huge McMansion which sits where a very moderne wooden house used to be. Only it was burned down one night , perhaps a bong slipped from somebodys hand. The family was roused to escape the ensuing fire by another failthfull Staffy. We still refer to the whole corner by that incident. “The Staffy block”. Then the two Shitzus who shout from behind the wooden fence as I start up hill again. Finally there are Toby and Ruby, two miniature Schnauzers who get into a delirious funk of barking as I ( and my nuts) run past their manor. I have seen these two being walked past my joint and they are strangely silent and polite , with their owners, (whose names I have again neglected to learn) as they get their exercize. No bother, they are moving soon, I see by the sign on the front lawn. My favourite neighbourhood dog, Tony, left about eight years ago. he was very smart and would race out from his driveway and accompany me on the whole circuit. His owners gave him to another house around the corner. the new family changed his name to ANZAC and then “sent him to the country”. I have never spoken to the latter again and the former bunch are now vacating the valley. Perhaps our icy demeanour has frozen them out?
We have no dog, just an imperious cat named Aughtie. Named after Custer. Its what his brother Tom called him when they were children.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
diary o' activities autumn- winter 2010
I've been involved in remixing, re-singing and re-stringing (more guitars) our 2003 album "the brother who lived". I was gonna put it on itunes but opened the files and started to tinker. I was misfiring on a couple of cylinders health wise for a few years and thought I could sing it all much better now. So I Hot Rodded the album . Sang most of it again and added a lot of instruments and generally spooked it up a lot. Goosed it , lowered it, and gave it some hot wheels and extra mags, a spoiler and general trim. Chromed it. Sports steering wheel, bucket seats, eight ball on the stick shift. It is a chariot! Also did four tracks from "Heroic Blues" as well as four other unreleased tracks from the vaults. All recorded around the same time. Its gonna be an album called "Heroic Brother- Super modified" and it'll be out in September.
The MC Bits shows went well. Me on vocal and guitar and Mark Fitzgibbon on piano. Might do it again later in the year.
Another Sunday at the Retreat the other night. That is such a great place to play with a hard driving band like us. Great people seem to show up there. A real cool time. As they say.
That week after MC Bits saw us hanging out at a gig in Melbourne by Paisley Park alumni Ricky Peterson and the Peterson Brothers. The three brothers played keys, bass and guitar. Oh, and they had Sheila E side of stage on drums. It was such a tight, funk sound.
Those of us in the audience got a treat. A very unique audience of music instrument shop types of people and r&b folk. Not like a rock crowd at all.
A few days later we saw Kim salmon and the Surrealists play their new album "Grand unifying theory" at a rock club in the city called Cherry. Kim kept pulling the envelope way out of whack with the amazing jams on the new album and then punching it back uptight with classics from his back catalogue. Shit the audience was panting for. It was classy and cruel. Go Go Sapien opened the show. they are so great. All dressed in white and playing super arranged pop classics. All major blocked chords with great lyrics and giant choruses.
After the bands finished people got up on the stage and vogued to old trad rock stuff like the Velvet Underground and AC/DC. OOOOOWWWWWWW!
We played at the Retreat with Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes who are really gelling. A country funk sound not to be heard anywhere else in 2010. Jane Dusts album is dropping soon. Its a classic.
Dates coming up---------------
Sunday June 13th Dave Graney and the Lurid yellow Mist play at the Retreat Hotel-Sydney Rd Brunswick.Special guests Go Go Sapien.
Thursdays 1st (w/ the Dames) ,8th,15th and 22nd (w/Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes) July Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play at the Grace Darling Hotel, Smith st Collingwood.
Saturdays 3rd,10th,17th and 24th July. Dave Graney - solo- Oscars BAR in Belgrave.
Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play the following NSW July dates w/Tiffany Eckhardt and Dave Steel opening.
Wednesday 28th July. - Clarendon Guesthouse- Katoomba
Thursday 29th July.- Lizottes, Central Coast NSW
Friday 30th July. - Lizottes- Newcastle
Saturday 31st July. - Notes- Newtown
Sunday 1st August. - Brass Monkey ,Cronulla
The MC Bits shows went well. Me on vocal and guitar and Mark Fitzgibbon on piano. Might do it again later in the year.
Another Sunday at the Retreat the other night. That is such a great place to play with a hard driving band like us. Great people seem to show up there. A real cool time. As they say.
That week after MC Bits saw us hanging out at a gig in Melbourne by Paisley Park alumni Ricky Peterson and the Peterson Brothers. The three brothers played keys, bass and guitar. Oh, and they had Sheila E side of stage on drums. It was such a tight, funk sound.
Those of us in the audience got a treat. A very unique audience of music instrument shop types of people and r&b folk. Not like a rock crowd at all.
A few days later we saw Kim salmon and the Surrealists play their new album "Grand unifying theory" at a rock club in the city called Cherry. Kim kept pulling the envelope way out of whack with the amazing jams on the new album and then punching it back uptight with classics from his back catalogue. Shit the audience was panting for. It was classy and cruel. Go Go Sapien opened the show. they are so great. All dressed in white and playing super arranged pop classics. All major blocked chords with great lyrics and giant choruses.
After the bands finished people got up on the stage and vogued to old trad rock stuff like the Velvet Underground and AC/DC. OOOOOWWWWWWW!
We played at the Retreat with Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes who are really gelling. A country funk sound not to be heard anywhere else in 2010. Jane Dusts album is dropping soon. Its a classic.
Dates coming up---------------
Sunday June 13th Dave Graney and the Lurid yellow Mist play at the Retreat Hotel-Sydney Rd Brunswick.Special guests Go Go Sapien.
Thursdays 1st (w/ the Dames) ,8th,15th and 22nd (w/Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes) July Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play at the Grace Darling Hotel, Smith st Collingwood.
Saturdays 3rd,10th,17th and 24th July. Dave Graney - solo- Oscars BAR in Belgrave.
Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist play the following NSW July dates w/Tiffany Eckhardt and Dave Steel opening.
Wednesday 28th July. - Clarendon Guesthouse- Katoomba
Thursday 29th July.- Lizottes, Central Coast NSW
Friday 30th July. - Lizottes- Newcastle
Saturday 31st July. - Notes- Newtown
Sunday 1st August. - Brass Monkey ,Cronulla
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