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
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
mc bits
MC Bits - songs that destroy is a show I'm doing at the Butterfly Club this weekend, Friday 14th and saturday 15th May. The shows start at 10:00pm.
The venue is the Butterfly Club which is in a large Victorian House at 204 Bank street South melbourne. Right near the South Melbourne Town hall.
Its a cabaret room. It holds 50 people, who are seated and is run with all the formality and show manners of a theatre. You walk in off the street and down a corridor to a lounge area and a bar. There are other rooms for lounging up the stairs and a covered garden area out the back. Back out towards where you came in there is the performance area.
Usually there are no microphones in the room. A little lighting and a stand up piano is what the show is given.
We first did a show there in 2006 called POINT BLANK. This was a narrative show built around songs of mine, mostly from the albums "the devil drives" (1997) and "the dave graney show" (1998) . The narrative was that of a performer walking onto a stage and what he brought with him to that neutral area, that foreign planet, and the heroic battles he fought to conquer it. At the end he walks out to the stage and is met with the attentive gaze of a suddenly interested audience who can see him. Thats the POINT BLANK. We did it in the Butterfly Club twice and in Adelaide at the Cabaret Festival twice and at the Sydney Opera House Studio.
That show was performed by myself with Clare Moore on vibes and percussion and vocals and Mark Fitzgibbon on piano.
In 2008 we did a sequel called "LIVE IN HELL" This has been performed at the Butterfly Club twice. (two SEASONS of four nights) with Stu Thomas on a very quiet fuzz bass, Stu Perera on nylon string guitar, Clare Moore on a toy drum kit and myself on guitar. That show took up fom the end of POINT BLANK and began with the performer coping with life inside the perception of others. Previously he had been free to roam wide, coming out of the shadows and able to constantly renew and reinvent his own life. Now he was fixed in time and was in HELL. Songs included "one night of sin" by Elvis, "the Bogus Man" by Roxy Music, "new face in hell" by the Fall and many songs of mine. It ended with a recital of "lament for my cock" from the posthumous DOORS album, "an American Prayer".
MC BITS is a set of songs I'm gonna sing with Mark Fitzgibbon on piano. I just wanted to do a set of heavy songs. Songs that destroyed.Me. Music is a powerful force and eats up people who dive into it. And you have to dive into it. People think its easy because you have to get some skills to perform music. Balance, tone, cadence and poise. Things that destroy you for anything else much. You become a husk of a person. A collection of routines. MC BITS.
"hong Kong Blues"- Hoagy Carmichael.
"if the world wasn't there" and " love is teasing" - Bert Jansch.
"walk on water"- Kevin Ayers.
"paper Moon"- Nat King Cole.
"serpent at the gates of wisdom"- Robyn Hitchcock.
"I can't be satisfied"- Muddy waters.
"the goodbye train"- Peter Milton walsh.
"the blind mans penis"- John Truby.
"franklins tower"- the Grateful Dead.
And a whole lot of my own songs. Heavy songs like "saturday night bath", "lifes a dream" and "I will have always been here before".
You can check out the venue at http://www.thebutterflyclub.com
The venue is the Butterfly Club which is in a large Victorian House at 204 Bank street South melbourne. Right near the South Melbourne Town hall.
Its a cabaret room. It holds 50 people, who are seated and is run with all the formality and show manners of a theatre. You walk in off the street and down a corridor to a lounge area and a bar. There are other rooms for lounging up the stairs and a covered garden area out the back. Back out towards where you came in there is the performance area.
Usually there are no microphones in the room. A little lighting and a stand up piano is what the show is given.
We first did a show there in 2006 called POINT BLANK. This was a narrative show built around songs of mine, mostly from the albums "the devil drives" (1997) and "the dave graney show" (1998) . The narrative was that of a performer walking onto a stage and what he brought with him to that neutral area, that foreign planet, and the heroic battles he fought to conquer it. At the end he walks out to the stage and is met with the attentive gaze of a suddenly interested audience who can see him. Thats the POINT BLANK. We did it in the Butterfly Club twice and in Adelaide at the Cabaret Festival twice and at the Sydney Opera House Studio.
That show was performed by myself with Clare Moore on vibes and percussion and vocals and Mark Fitzgibbon on piano.
In 2008 we did a sequel called "LIVE IN HELL" This has been performed at the Butterfly Club twice. (two SEASONS of four nights) with Stu Thomas on a very quiet fuzz bass, Stu Perera on nylon string guitar, Clare Moore on a toy drum kit and myself on guitar. That show took up fom the end of POINT BLANK and began with the performer coping with life inside the perception of others. Previously he had been free to roam wide, coming out of the shadows and able to constantly renew and reinvent his own life. Now he was fixed in time and was in HELL. Songs included "one night of sin" by Elvis, "the Bogus Man" by Roxy Music, "new face in hell" by the Fall and many songs of mine. It ended with a recital of "lament for my cock" from the posthumous DOORS album, "an American Prayer".
MC BITS is a set of songs I'm gonna sing with Mark Fitzgibbon on piano. I just wanted to do a set of heavy songs. Songs that destroyed.Me. Music is a powerful force and eats up people who dive into it. And you have to dive into it. People think its easy because you have to get some skills to perform music. Balance, tone, cadence and poise. Things that destroy you for anything else much. You become a husk of a person. A collection of routines. MC BITS.
"hong Kong Blues"- Hoagy Carmichael.
"if the world wasn't there" and " love is teasing" - Bert Jansch.
"walk on water"- Kevin Ayers.
"paper Moon"- Nat King Cole.
"serpent at the gates of wisdom"- Robyn Hitchcock.
"I can't be satisfied"- Muddy waters.
"the goodbye train"- Peter Milton walsh.
"the blind mans penis"- John Truby.
"franklins tower"- the Grateful Dead.
And a whole lot of my own songs. Heavy songs like "saturday night bath", "lifes a dream" and "I will have always been here before".
You can check out the venue at http://www.thebutterflyclub.com
Monday, May 10, 2010
Radelaide- cool machine!
The hotel we played in in Adelaide is really on that side of the city that is the best. I mean the innovative and self sufficient and totally effective side . Its in a part of town thats a bit of a secret. Not at all hip or hyped up but you could walk to it from the end of Hindley street. Quiet streets but there were three pubs having music in a couple of blocks, in the middle of a lot of old houses. Somehow they have it working.
The pub is run by a group of women. I heard they applied for a loan to buy it as a partnership or company but were refused by the bank as their business plan did not include poker machines. Did you ever wonder how things happen in certain directions? Undeterred, three of them secured personal loans and they bought the place , freehold. they have no poker machines and the only tv in the place is a small one with a rabbit ear aerial up the end of the bar. No food, just booze and music. They sponsor an all girl roller derby team and on the Saturday night of our two night stand, they all came back after their match. This had been in front of 2000 people at the Showgrounds.
There is no security as they keep the numbers allowed in below that which triggers the need to do so. They charge an entry fee to the room where the band is and everybody gets paid. there are lots of seats and tables and the equipment is good. People old and young like going there. We played on the Saturday night at about 10:30 pm for an hour and a half. Stu Thomas Paradox opened the show. On the Sunday the brilliant Adelaide band No Through Road did a set at 4pm and we played from 5:30pm until Seven. How easy does that sound? Pretty easy when people know what they’re doing.
There were four of us playing. Clare Moore on drums, Stu Thomas on bass, Stu Perera on guitar and myself on guitar on vocals. We play electric guitars through smallish combo amps. We all sing and generally tell the local engineer to give us an R&B sound with the vocals up front.
We drove from Melbourne to Adelaide with our gear and the two Stuarts flew. We carry our own gear and generally look after ourselves.
We played these songs...
the sheriff of hell
night of the wolverine
a man on the make
pianola roll
bodysnatcher blues
feelin kinda sporty
rock n roll is where I hide
dylan the indie fake
mt gambier night
I like to be haunted
you had to be drunk
I come from the clouds
you’re just too hip, baby
the birds n goats
apollo 69
I’m in the future now
lets kill god again
I’m gonna release your soul
My schtick weighs a ton
sellout!
lifes a dream
midnight cats
I don’t wanna know myself
Most are from our last two albums, “we wuz curious” and “knock yourself out”. There were four or five unrecorded songs that I like to play as its something absolutely fresh in the room for everybody to check out. We also play songs from our albums going back to 1993. Anything earlier, we play if people ask for it and we know it. On the Sunday night I asked if anybody wanted to hear anything. There was a call from “three dead passengers in a stolen second hand ford” which hadn’t played for a few years. We stole onto a sweet version of that, with a bossa nova beat. Someone asked for “the Moodists” so i went over to Stu and played the bass line of a song we did with them called “runaway”. Clare hit the beat and I cued Stu Perera to start wailing half way through the song.
After the show we went to a house nearby and ate pizza and drank wine with Matt Banham from No Through Road. There were all these intelligent women there, smoking Adelaide joints ( rolled with herbal tobacco) and we watched a video of Adam and the Ants clips. Stu Thomas is an expert on Adam and he talked us through the changes.
We drove back the next day. Thats how you do it!
The pub is run by a group of women. I heard they applied for a loan to buy it as a partnership or company but were refused by the bank as their business plan did not include poker machines. Did you ever wonder how things happen in certain directions? Undeterred, three of them secured personal loans and they bought the place , freehold. they have no poker machines and the only tv in the place is a small one with a rabbit ear aerial up the end of the bar. No food, just booze and music. They sponsor an all girl roller derby team and on the Saturday night of our two night stand, they all came back after their match. This had been in front of 2000 people at the Showgrounds.
There is no security as they keep the numbers allowed in below that which triggers the need to do so. They charge an entry fee to the room where the band is and everybody gets paid. there are lots of seats and tables and the equipment is good. People old and young like going there. We played on the Saturday night at about 10:30 pm for an hour and a half. Stu Thomas Paradox opened the show. On the Sunday the brilliant Adelaide band No Through Road did a set at 4pm and we played from 5:30pm until Seven. How easy does that sound? Pretty easy when people know what they’re doing.
There were four of us playing. Clare Moore on drums, Stu Thomas on bass, Stu Perera on guitar and myself on guitar on vocals. We play electric guitars through smallish combo amps. We all sing and generally tell the local engineer to give us an R&B sound with the vocals up front.
We drove from Melbourne to Adelaide with our gear and the two Stuarts flew. We carry our own gear and generally look after ourselves.
We played these songs...
the sheriff of hell
night of the wolverine
a man on the make
pianola roll
bodysnatcher blues
feelin kinda sporty
rock n roll is where I hide
dylan the indie fake
mt gambier night
I like to be haunted
you had to be drunk
I come from the clouds
you’re just too hip, baby
the birds n goats
apollo 69
I’m in the future now
lets kill god again
I’m gonna release your soul
My schtick weighs a ton
sellout!
lifes a dream
midnight cats
I don’t wanna know myself
Most are from our last two albums, “we wuz curious” and “knock yourself out”. There were four or five unrecorded songs that I like to play as its something absolutely fresh in the room for everybody to check out. We also play songs from our albums going back to 1993. Anything earlier, we play if people ask for it and we know it. On the Sunday night I asked if anybody wanted to hear anything. There was a call from “three dead passengers in a stolen second hand ford” which hadn’t played for a few years. We stole onto a sweet version of that, with a bossa nova beat. Someone asked for “the Moodists” so i went over to Stu and played the bass line of a song we did with them called “runaway”. Clare hit the beat and I cued Stu Perera to start wailing half way through the song.
After the show we went to a house nearby and ate pizza and drank wine with Matt Banham from No Through Road. There were all these intelligent women there, smoking Adelaide joints ( rolled with herbal tobacco) and we watched a video of Adam and the Ants clips. Stu Thomas is an expert on Adam and he talked us through the changes.
We drove back the next day. Thats how you do it!