The Savage Sportsman- aka australian songwriter,performer and musician dave graney writes an irregular blog.
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.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Nextshow is the Greyhound-St Kilda- Dec 4th-sunday- 6pm
The Camelot Lounge is quite a great venue. Surprised us in its size and the care and attention in the decor. Right in Marrickville, tucked away in an industrial cul-de-sac around that sharp corner coming away from the station and towards the Inner west.
We did two sets, continuing to play in a lot of new tracks.Sounding tougher and sharper. I was wearing some black satin shit I've had in the wardobe for a while. All black and white. White t shirt and hat. I've embraced the white t shirt. In the 80s it was so naff. Guys like Eric Clapton and the kind of fellow he would influence style wise would wear a suit with the sleeves rolled up and a white t shirt. With high waisted jeans. I kind of like that look now. But like I'm sure I've said, I like outmoded forms in clothes as well as music. I like to wear and fly shit that people have tried on before. Recognizable forms and feels. I don't have the stamina to invent my own shit, I like to throw incongruous stuff into relief. Things that still have a charge.
I guess thats why I play the headless bass in Harry Howards NDE. people are scared of those futuristic bats with strings!
The gig the night before the Camelot lounge was a solo set above a small Italian restaurant in Drummoyne. Playing with an acoustic is a bit of a novelty for me but I got into it. I can access a lot more of my older stuff with that wooden box. People asked for obscure numbers which I was happy to play. "Anchors aweigh" and "listen to her lovers sing".
Got back to Melbourne and did BLB, the radio show I do with Elizabeth McCarthy everyTuesday from 12-2pm on RRRfm.Elizabeth loves to drive me nuts playing shit like Guns and Roses and the appalling Stevie Nicks. I'm sad to say it works every time. I can't stand that jive ass rubbish! We had Robyn Hitchcock in as a guest . He was in town as part of the "way to blue" Nick Drake tribute shows. Elizabeth wasn't interested in any of it but did the studio panelling and kept it running smoothly. Robyn is one of my favourite songwriters and singers. One of the greatest contemporaries we have. A one off. He had done an interview in the Melbourne Age where he had cconfessed he didn't like Nick Drake at all until REMs Peter Buck and the producer Joe Boyd had tuned him into it in the 80s. Nick had only ever done a dozen gigs and recorded 3 albums. Robyn says that you develop a "beak" in your voice by playing gigs through bad pa systems and Nick never got a beak. He said in the paper that his voice just sat there "like a luxurious poached egg". I congratulated Robyn on this flight of wit and said that if I was the editor of the paper they would have been breakout quotes. "Nick Drake had no beak!" and "his voice sat there like a luxurious poached egg!"
Had some lunch with Robyn and he bumped into an old Cambridge friend . Jerry Hale , who runs a guitar store in Johnston street.
The actual show was deluxe. In the beautiful Recital hall.
Joe Boyd - Producer/Curator
Kate St John - Musical Director
Lisa Hannigan - vocals
Krystle Warren - vocals
Robyn Hitchcock - vocals
Vashti Bunyan - vocals
Green Gartside - vocals
Scott Matthews - vocals
Danny Thompson - bass
Neill MacColl - guitars
Zoe Rahman - piano
Martyn Barker - drums
Luluc - vocals
Shane Nicholson – vocals
Zoe and Steve from Luluc were my favourite singers. Neill MacColl on guitar -and singing on one song- was superb. He was Kirstys brother and Ewans son.Ewan wroite "dirty old town" and "the first time ever I saw your face". I had just bought a vinyl folk album of his in Sydney at a junk shop. "the Manchester Angel and other songs- with accompaniment by Peggy Seeger".
Scott Mathews was a brilliant young singer and guitar player. Robyn intruded at the start and finish with his magnificent beak. Closing the show with his own "I saw Nick Drake". He is a bit of an adept at writing old fashioned broadside type topical songs such as "NY DOLL" from a recent album which he wrote after seeing the film of the same name about Arthur KIller Kane. He also wrote one about Steve Jobs. "I saw Nick Drake" is an elusive, poetic flight. He has mad skills in vocals, words and guitar playing.
Then I took a train to the station and then a bus to the airport and a plane to Hobart where I had a room above the stage I was to play in.
The gig itself was underattended. Hobart is unpredictable. I did two sets. Enjoyed it. Playing anything people asked for.
I also did, for myself, "alabama bound" as originally arranged by the Amazing Charlatans and also the two LOVE songs aI know. "alone again or" and "you set the scene".
Flew back to Melbourne and trained and bussed it back to Upwey where I then walked for twenty minutes uphill to our compound. Had a bath and ate some cookie. Clare was working in the studio with Jane Dust on a 2012 scheduled album.
The next day I sat and worked on my pedals and amps and power supplies and electric guitars to try to get a handle on volume and gains and polarities . Settled on the Roland amp for the 12 string and the Fender M80 with a Sansamp in front of it for the 6 string.
Then I went to see the Dames doing a gig as part of a female musician dominated night at the Greyhound in St Kilda. The north / South divide in Melbourne music could not have been so starkly drawn. Not a sign of any indie rock and all this anachronistic semi goth, tattooed Dave Navarro type attitudinal rock stuff. Actually, if some of the players and people in attendance walked around in Brunswick or Fitzroy, they would be seen as being ironic or wilful/playful SUPERSTARS! Collectively, it was not so impressive. I have always felt myself to be a "south of the river" type , even though its years since I lived there. I still like to be around that part of Melbourne. Something about the lack of hipsters makes it seem more "adult". Maybe it'll change if more gigs happen there and its not so much of a "dress ups" type scene. It'll be a bit more natural.
So, come and see us there St Kilda peeps! We'll be doing two sets from 6pm. Sunday Dec 4th.The Greyhound Hotel. Directly across from St Kilda town Hall.
Actually, it was cool night there as we ran into Alsy and Jill from the Triffids P/L who were in town to do some rehearsing ahead of a show at Queenscliff soon. The'll also be doing tehir own show at the Tote on Wednesday 30th November.
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Dave Graney and Clare Moore with Georgio "the dove" Valentino and Malcolm Ross
Dave Graney and Clare Moore with Robin Casinader - In Concert
ONE MILLION YEARS DC
Starts with a Kinksy groover sketching a 21st century populist tyrant who coasts in power on waves of public resentment at those on the lowest rungs of the ladder (He Was A Sore Winner). Sweeps across a sci fi terrain with nods to songs in the sand at the end of the world (Pop Ruins) and nods to the ties that bind in the underground communities (Comrade Of Pop and Where Did All The Freaks Go?).
Songs about intense, long relationships, defunct technology that didn’t answer back, severe social status definition (I’m Not Just Any Nobody), people wandering through your mind as if it was a garage sale, the anxiety of the long running showman (wide open to the elements again) and ends with a song that’s “a little bit Merle Haggard and a little bit Samuel Beckett”.
" Edith Grove! Powis Square! 56 Hope Road! Petrie Terrace!..
The Roxy! The Odeon! Apollo! Palais! Olympia! The Whisky! Detroit Grande!”
Pop Ruins!"
ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS?
ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? (The title comes from the chorus of “Song Of Life” ) is a classic rock’n’roll album. Classic if you lived through what has become known as ”the classic rock era” as it rolled out new and even broke onto the beachhead and morphed into punk. That’s the direction Dave Graney and Clare Moore have always been coming from. They have spent their lives schooled by and immersed in rock ‘n’ roll culture. Neither attended higher education and they dived in deep and kept swimming. From the Moodists through the Coral Snakes /White Buffaloes to the mistLY
This is an album with their band, Dave Graney and the mistLY. Stuart Perera has played guitar with them since 1998 and Stu Thomas on bass since 2004. MARCH 2019
ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? 2019 album out on Compact Disc - available here via mail order...
If you are from outside of Australia and wish to purchase a Compact Disc copy of ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? please use this button (different postage)
LETS GET TIGHT
FEARFUL WIGGINGS
2014 solo album from Dave Graney.
*****"If I've learnt anything in my years of writing about music it's that if you are going to do anything of worth in this tough game, you better have your own thing. Today's generic is easily replaced by tomorrow's. And yet you need to be flexible, to follow wherever the songs demand. In the case of this, only the second credited as a solo album among 30 or so Graney releases, it's a curious yet welcoming lane he walks you down, with acoustic guitars, not much percussion, vibes, smooth sounds. At the end of it you feel like you've awoken from a strange yet pleasant summer's dream. As shot by Luis Bunuel. It ranges from off-kilter reveries (A Woman Skinnies Up a Man, The Old Docklands Wheel) through to the softly seductive (How Can You Get Out of London) and the downright arch (Look Into My Shades, Everything Is Great In The Beginning.) This is music that is neither folk, nor blues, nor country, but it's all Graney, somewhere out to the left field beyond Lee Hazlewood's raised eyebrow. It's astringent on the tongue but sweetens in the telling." Noel Mengel Brisbane Courier Mail
you've been in my mind
June 2012 super high energy pop rock album - blazing electric 12 strings - total 70s rock drive. Greatest yet! available via paypal - $20 pp
rock'n'roll is where I hide/- 2011 "vintage classics/ re recordings" on LIBERATION
SUPERMODIFIED - August 2010 remixed/re-sung/re-strung//remastered/replayed comp via PAYPAL
also available as a digital album
Knock yourself (2009)-first ever dg solo set-filthy electro r&b-available via Paypal- $20
available as a digital album too
We Wuz Curious (2008)-blazing R&B jazz pop album available via paypal-$20
UNAVAILABLE-COMPLETELY SOLD OUT!!!
AVAILABLE AS A DIGITAL album
Keepin' It Unreal-(2006)-minimalist/lyrical vibes, bass, 12 string set - CDs sold out - digital only
Hashish and Liquor (2005 double disc by Dave Graney and Clare Moore) available via Paypal $25
UNAVAILABLE-COMPLETELY SOLD OUT!!!
Single album HASHISH available as a digital release
Heroic Blues- "folk soul" set from 2002-Availableas a digital album via BandCamp
UNAVAILABLE ! Completely sold out!
1 comment:
I need to have a word with clarkey about hitch.
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