warrnambool to Radelaide

Warrnambool.Played as a power trio.Me on electric guitar, Clare on drums and Stu D on bass. People seem to be able tor elate to trio setups more easily. They can see what everybodys doin'. Add another guitar and it gets diffused. Add a further keyboard and its all a blur.
Played two sets ina lovely room called the LOFT. People pay to get in so they act better than people who drift in and out of free venues. A bunch of young heads light up the room. Dancing and yelling. Older, mad women dancing as well. Met and talked with a lot of people. A girl made me write "something beautiful"across the back of her calico dress.She was a voluptuous , country siren. Straws of hay in her hair. I jest a little. I wrote "dave graney tryna write somethin' bewdiful" .

A band of young players asking about guitars and amps. I love that kinda talk.!

The next day we drove to Adelaide and played another two sets at the Woidy. (Wheatsheaf) An older, more demanding, static, sit down audience. Though having said that-people kept launching themselves onto the stage. The first was a woman anxious to ask Clare as to which Adelaide Catholic school she was talking about in her song "Alphonsus will get you". Another couple of younger, posher women leaped onto my part of the stage demanding a photo as the last chord of the first set still rang in the air. Many photo opps ensued.
The reading happened without incident and also seemed to up the energy in the room (as it had in Warrnambool too). At the end of the show a young woman rushed the stage , demanding we played "my stick".She artfully informed us that she had never really heard of us but a friend had said it was funny. She kept coming back and yelling again and again, well after the pa had been turned off.

The next afternoon we played at the Semaphore Workers Club. A Communist/ Union stronghold down by the old Port area. Both of these venues have no security. And despite the irritating behaviour of some people. I really like that. Its tough and you meet a lot of dicks but anything is better than bored muscle hovering around every situation and pushing people out before the gig is hardly over. Again, there was a bunch of young heads up the front, lifting us higher. A lot of mad dancers too. This was the only place in the whole country where the reading went flat. Partly due to a couple of people yelling and complaining, mostly to do with the foldback not being strongand present enough to pump the plosives into my flow. One of the hecklers was a ships captain of Indian origin who soon left. He told Pez he was into smuggling. "drugs and people"- whatever pays- though that was when I was younger..."
A mad woman in a hat and shades started to dance with her older, skull headed beau. Another woman danced in a totally arty and suggestive , dramatic, Isadora Duncan style all across the front of the stage.
The woman in the hat was demonic. She danced for so long I thought she was going to explode. She yelled incomprehensible, drunken guff in between songs. Then she lunged at a passing woman and they both fell onto my mic stand and pedals. We finished the set. I had already ahaken hands with an old aquaintance who I knew had been involved in a double killing. Hed done some time and was now living his life. I was still disturbed about that. How should I act to him? I had been friendly.

A young fellow requested 'death by a thousand sucks" which suited my distracted mood.
As I was talking to people afterwards the drunken woman in the hat and shades came up to talk. She had a harsh Liverpool accent and bad breath. She wanted me to sign a poster shed ripped off the wall. She went off to bother the others. A man came to talk, so stoned he uttered unconnected, isolated words, having thought the rest of the sentences . Holding my hand and eyes for several minutes .
The drunk woman came back for more. I begged off. She threw a pen at me and called me a "sad , miserable bastard!" She repeated this as she left. To paraphrase Lord Rochester "her belly was a bag of turds and her cunt was a common shore". Scrag.
She ahd some stamina though. A normal drunk would have just conked out on the lawn hours before that.
She must have been powering on something else too. We sat around with the club operator for a while . He had an idea to take a few bands to play in Cuba. Flying via Canada. Using his COP connections, we said yes, of course. He also wants to take a bunch of acts to the Antarctic to play at all the stations there. The acts have to be old though.And they mightn't be coming back. We said yes to that as well and then went to a posh Chines noodle house.
On Monday I did a reading in a bookshop. No mic,just standing on a step and talking to about 30 people. Afterwards. I was signing books and chatting when a very recognizable voice from my past said "you dont know me do you?" It took me a good olfashioned double take to realize it was a certain aristocratic, country squire stoner from back in the days. He figures for a moment in the drug and booze fogged body count pages for Mt gambier in 1001 Australian nights. Three kinds of crystal meth. A Viet Vet who had been in the regular army (not conscripted) due to a family tradition.He talked of how crap the RSL had been to his kind back then. Not bitter or carrying any grudges. You just never hear of how those older guys treated the Viet / Australian soldiers. Its all about the commie peaceniks ruining it for everybody. He went to an RSL once and never went back.He said that we were winning that war when him and a mate were still there anyway.

He said he would be visiting the country soon.For a party.Out of curiosity I asked what he would be taking to teh shindig, pharmaceutically. "Oh - five of us so we'll have plenty of weed, some googs (eccys) and some decent whizz. No point in slowing down at this stage..."
Tall and straight backed, wearing a jacket and jeans with a black leather shoulder bag and snakeskin boots-he could have stepped out of the streets of 1975.

He gave me hope for the nation.

I drove to Mt Gambier and checked into a motel . When I filled out the card, the woman said, "Dave Graney- are you Sean Graneys brother?"



Saturday July 2nd -Caravan Music Club- Oakleigh

Sunday July 3rd - 2pm at the Williamstown RSL

Friday July 8th Norfolk Basement Fremantle

Saturday July 9th the Bakery Northbridge WA