Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes NIGHT OF THE WOLVERINE show in August. Archiving the fuck out of it. Smashing it!

The last few weeks have been a rabbit hole of archiving songs and music from old tapes and digitizing them.

Before that- I did a lovely gig at a place in Ballarat called The Eastern. Ballarat has always been a hard place to "make show" in but this old joint is something different. A sweet crew of people came along to the room and I had a great time. Patrick McCabe , a local player, did an opening set and was real charming. He even did a song about us and the last time we played in Ballarat and the venue dropped the curtain on us while we were playing. The indignity!(It was a part of a music school and they were teaching students how to put on an event. Number one- the musicians are horrible- crush them!)
I was passed a note from an old friend from the MOODISTS days. Now bands grab onto many things when they are young and cooking themselves up in order to get some internal heat and balance happening. Some sense of themselves and where they sit in regard to the smaller world of music they are trying to live in and that worlds relation to the wider world. Worlds within worlds.
THE MOODISTS were three parts South Australian in the Melbourne scene. We were always outsiders, and grabbed tight onto that. We were also not from private schools and didn't take hard drugs. We were hard core boozers and loved country music and football. So we were delighted when we met a fellow who came to our gigs who was from Ballarat and who was a shearer to boot. This fit so well with us. He was a lovely guy and we got a lot of poise from knowing him.
So this card that was handed to me was from this old compadre, Mark, and he apologized for not making the show as he was shearing in the area and had some early morning work to do. How hard would that work be as you get older? How cool did I feel? To have this touch , this contact from such a real world, when I'd been so shamefully engaged in the precious world of alternative music for so long. This is me in the dressing room. (You always need a hat , scarf and coat when night falls in Ballarat).

Then there was our annual trip to Adelaide to play at our favourite venue, the Wheatsheaf. When I do a gig here, people come out of the woodwork. For Clare Moore too- we never know what to expect. there is also no dressing room or ANYWHERE to hide and take a breather, it's all out there in the room.
People also get into my music here like nowhere else, they know my shit! Always a pleasure to play in South Australia. They get me.

A woman came up to talk, saying she had a lot of my albums, a very nice person. She then said that her father had known my father, during the war. they had been on the island of Borneo together.

I have had a picture of them together for many years, they must be 17 years old in it. My dad Noel is on the left. I love the way their hats are at the same angle.

Then I came back to Melbourne to archive some more music from boxes of old tapes. I'd been meaning to do it for years but now I had to find some particular stuff. From particular periods of particular bands. I got a bit atomized, I'm afraid.


First, I had to get  some more tracks for this Cherry Red/Creation Moodists disc that's being put together.

I looked through some old notebooks and saw that I met up with Slaughter Joe Foster at BAROCCA in Soho August 13th 1985, then met with him and Allan McGhee at the Bee Hive cafe in Kings Cross Sept 4th.
The Jesus & Mary Chain gig at the Electric Ballroom where there was this "kind of a riot" was September 9th and we recorded the 3 songs for Creation at Alaska on September 10th.
We did shows around London as the single came out and a  tour of Holland in December.
Our bass player Chris Walsh left to return to Australia after that tour.
We recorded these other three  songs I found, with some others at our rehearsal room , (SOLID LIGHT in CAMDEN), onto a 4 track tape player and did further overdubs at a home studio owned by Scott Bushburt from Turkey Bones and the Wild Dogs.
There is no bass on the session.
So the extra three songs are From 1986, no bass, lots of trebly guitar and drums and Clare Moore singing "the train from Kansas City" by the Shangri Las. Also another long lost song of ours called "the day they all wake up" and a version of Brian Wilson and Glen Campbells "I Guess I'm dumb" with me singing. Freaky sounds.
This is a picture of the Moodists at their last show in London at the Sir George Robey in 1986 or 1987. I was back there as a punter in 1996 to see Arthur Lee play with Love!

I then found all these live and rehearsal tapes of the 1986/1987 Moodists which featured David McClymont on bass. This was a really musically turbo charged, inspired period and the songs sound amazing. I really love the music we made then and would love to make a digital release of the songs.


The other main things I was looking for were demos for the NIGHT OF THE WOLVERINE album. I'd done a lot of 4 track recordings in early 1992 with our live mixer Ted Hamilton at his place. I wasn't intensely perfecting anything. Quite the opposite. The moment I put down a guitar track and then a vocal was usually the first time it had ever really been arranged or put together.
Here I am in Tony Mahonys old East St Kilda flat in 1992 where we often got drunk and listened to excellent  records and hatched plans to show the world what our ideas of something really great was...

Anyway, I found it all, as well as demos for the following two albums and the session Clare and I did for the greater part of the Devil Drives album.

I was lead to this place because we are doing a show in Melbourne with Rod Hayward and Robin Casinader. Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes playing NIGHT OF THE WOLVERINE August 8th this year. A Night of the Wolverine set and then one where we get unbuttoned.

http://www.trybooking.com/Booking/BookingEventSummary.aspx?eid=134537