On the campaign trail for our show at the Corner July 9th

Last year , when we played our first shows as Dave Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes since 1997, we went on the campaign trail to get word out to the disparate audience we'd entertained in that period. Doors actually opened in places that find it impossible to approach our current activities in many ways.

We had stories in mainstream and street press and even got onto the ABC 7:30 report. I went into Triple M in Melbourne and talked with Mick Molloy and Eddie McGuire. Clare Moore and I had a chat with Glenn Ridge at Magic 693 and Dennis Walter at 3AW. For those not in Melbourne, these are straight out commercial enterprises. The top rating AM and FM (sports related) frequencies.

Yesterday, ahead of this July 9th show at the Corner, we went into 3AW and spoke with a  fellow called Darren James.This was an afternoon show. They have those high frequency ads for Taylors tree and stump removals, Frank Walker for those damned tiles and my favourite, the DRAIN MAN.

I must tell you how refreshing it is to work/ chat with these people. Them and the production staff they have who source the music and information. They are so on the ball. It is so easy as a performer, to be in that room. They are relaxed and cool and mostly really funny. Darren at 3AW played us in with our very latest digital release "Are You Out Of Your Mind (Get Back In)" and we chatted about the Melbourne scene and the show we are doing.


Easy fucking peasy. He played Feelin Kinda Sporty from 1997 and engaged with both myself and Clare. A woman called in to talk about a venue in her area. He cracked a gag about being "the original love god of late night FM.." I laughed and said it was an honour to be working with an actual  God, to which he said " and look at me now- selling broken down furniture on Sunday mornings..." (He mainly works on the weekends on a  kind of radio version of the Trading Post and with the piss weak Melbourne version of an opinionated Shock Jock, John Michael Howson. (More like being flogged with a damp lettuce leaf).

In most cases, commercial radio on both AM and FM have proved to be the most approachable and open. On air, they have this talent who just sit in  a groove and know what they are doing. Pros. They do not freak out about their audience and what they can or can't say or what their audience can or can't hear. They are cool.

Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes July 9th at the Corner Hotel - Melbourne

Harry Howard and the NDE July 23rd Croxton Park Hotel

Dave Graney and the mistLY play the Grandview Hotel in Fairfield,Vic
 Saturday August 20th

Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes - Brisbane Festival (Spiegel tent) September 3rd

Dave Graney And Clare Moore – Bowral Bowling Club September 16th

Dave Graney and the mistLY – Petersham Bowls – September 17th

Dave Graney And Clare Moore – Smith’s Alternative- Canberra September 18th

Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes Semaphore Festival (Adelaide) October 2nd

Are You Out Of Your Mind? (Get Back In)

Are You Out Of Your Mind? (Get Back In)

It's our June single.

I started the year with an idea to release a song every month. Being the lazy, sunny  starting month of January, it took until I'm a Good Hater to come out.
March was when "This Is The Deadest Place I've Ever Died In" happened.
Then April came with "I Been Trendy" and May brought us "Drifting Donna Reed". We were in Europe playing and both of those were in the pipeline.

I've been enjoying the discipline of coming up with a  track each month. It's got me thinking and writing with a different kind of focus. Mostly its been all played by myself and Clare Moore. I get ideas quick and jump on them, getting obsessive over sounds and arrangements. I'm not the neatest and Clare usually comes in to tighten, edit , arrange and offer somne textural suggestions.

I've always thought of albums and over arching themes and sounds. This way I'm freed up from that and just hone in on one track and whatever it needs.

I'm A Good Hater was a guitar track I'd recorded for the Fearful Wiggings sessions and never used. We wanted to put some synthy bass with teh driving guitar. That was the musical impetus.

This Is The Deadest Place came from a  mad compression effect that happened when I put on a drum track. It nade the cymbals "whoosh" and "pump". I thought it'd be great to accentuate this and got Clare to drape a string of pearls on her crash cymbal. To softly lay it on the metal and then lift it off. I recorded it and boosted it to get a maddening, clattering and swishing sound over and above the compressed drums. The fuzz bass sat nicely.

I Been Trendy came from an older  drum track that I found. I'd been playing the bass line at soundcheckss for the NDE for a year or so, always meaning to do something with it. I got the groove happening and put down some licks with my vintage Maton ALVER guitar.

This instrument has sat in a corner for decades as more of an ornament than anything but I got the machine heads fixed last year (they were all stuck and bent out of shape) by the guys at Maton and I've found it records beautifully. Not an instrument to be ever taken out of the house, though. The lyric? I was thinking of the bright lights and the wandering gaze of the mob and how it was like, you know, being at a party, in  a tanning salon...

Drifting Donna Reed came froma  rhythm track from 2007. The original song was I Like To Be Haunted. 70s reggae producers always used the same backing track for multiple releases with different vocals over them, we always wanted to try that. I cut and edited the rhythm and added some more guitar licks, a different vocal and some b/vs from Clare Moore. The lyric was riffing on ephemeral pop culture.

Which bring us to Are You Out Of Your Mind? (Get Back In)



Hey it came out on the day that the UK voted to BREXIT- weird huh?

I was asking a friend what people at the ABC did when music was sent to them. He said they were obsessed by the 3 minute length of songs - anything over was not even considered. This song is 2:59.

I started with the drum track and built some chords to it. I was thinking vaguely of a  post punk kind of up tightness with vamping , dampened chords driving the groove. Stuttering and stopping and starting. This happened over a period of a  few hours I guess. I put some bass down and Clare did the organ. I had a luyric which I thiought harked to ssome old Sonny Boy Williamson  blues type thing . "You talk too much" was my line. A bit like his "don't you start me talkin" or Bo Diddleys "shut your mouth!". I love that kind of rude stuff. My music I'd cooked up here was sweeter though and drew the words into different meanings.
The music drove other lines into focus and I ended up with a  song about social media and how people directly plug their brains into "the cloud". "Are you out of your mind?" was the question. People were spilling their minds out into their computers and phones. The age of surveillence and big data. We are vulnerable and needy. GET BACK IN!



Will Hindmarsh and Emily Jarrett from Go Go Sapien came in to the studio and put down some stellar WEST COAST harmonies in one take.  BAM! Sounded too good.

There's a page on our website with all the singles so far on it . 

I'm working on the July release now. It's sounding hot!

Rambling - Man.

It's cold outside. I've been inside the house with my cat for days. Bought a new axe and went to clear up some wood down the bottom paddock. (Very Ted and Ralph that) . It's a fibreglass axe in case you were wondering. Please don't advise me that I've done something terrible - its not a purchase I want to make perfectly.

Cutting the wet logs saw me heave the axe into a piece and then struggle to pull it out again for a good five minutes. Please don't send me youtube links on how to use an axe... I had a splitter but the handle broke. I did find that you can't really find axe handles in the proper shape too easily. Why have I lived long enough to have to know names for different shapes of axe handles? Cruel life.

Clare Moore has been in Adelaide doing a show called Southern Belles which she cooked up . Getting a  band togetehr to play songs from Southern Feamle country singer os the late sixties. People like Jeannie C Riley



and the amazing Bobbie Gentry.



People singing sociallly conscious or message type songs. A time of great change for women. 

She got the band together and then asked singers Jane Clifton, Nichaud Fitzgibbon and Carla Lippis to sing the songs. The two nights at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival were sold out before they left Melbourne.

Been reading about Brexit and dealing with our own election. Recording some tracks and hoping to get to Europe again this year.

Also rehearsing with the Coral Snakes for these upcoming shows. And the NDE album number three is coming together (sounding great) . Also doing mistLY shows and some solo and duo sets.

Our June single.

Are You Out Of Your Mind? (Get Back In)




Upcoming shows

June 29th Dave Graney and Lisa Gerrard "songwriter speaks" session at Melbourne Recital Hall - 6pm

Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes July 9th at the Corner Hotel - Melbourne

Harry Howard and the NDE July 23rd Croxton Park Hotel

Dave Graney and the mistLY play the Grandview Hotel in Fairfield,Vic
Saturday August 20th

Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes - Brisbane Festival (Spiegel tent) September 3rd


Dave Graney And Clare Moore – Bowral Bowling Club September 16th

Dave Graney and the mistLY – Petersham Bowls – September 17th


Dave Graney And Clare Moore – Smith’s Alternative- Canberra September 18th

Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes Semaphore Festival (Adelaide) October 2nd

I am at page 600 of a 1200 page John Cowper Powys book called A Glastonbury Romance. His books are a world I can drop down into. Amazing writer. I wouldn't know how to describe it. Fiction yes, but always the same themes and thoughts being worried at all through his books. It's a realm. Interior yet exterior as well. Clare refers to him as "that pervert".

I referred to having aquired a type writer and I have been enjoying writing a  few letters to old friends. Giving them a bit of a  shock I guess. Hopefully not loading them with a  burden in having to reply.
One of the letter exchanges has been with a fellow I was happy to make the aquaintance of a few years ago when he was busking on the street in Melbourne. A wild looking street person with a  wailing electric guitar on Princes Bridge in the city. He was aiming to busk his way to and around Tasmania. I ran into him a few more times, he was on social media and seemed to live in his van with his dog. Devoted to his dog. Well, he's now in gaol on a murder charge. Maximum security.
No guitar, no books, no magazines or cds. The actual fuck happens.
So we've exchanged a couple of letters. Thats a plan.
I knew another bloke from when we were kids. He killed his parents. A long time ago. Then after a gig in 2013 he came up and hugged me. He used to dink me to football training. What do you do? I asked him what happened. he said "madness Dave...". It's not like the movies or in a  song. Scenes don't close or fade. You're still standing there and you've got to deal with things.

When I hear singers sing songs about gaol and how bad they are I can't really cop it. That cuts out 90% of modern woodcore alt country rectionary punk never happened type end of the music spectrum  so it suits me fine.

I went to a night of indigenous country music. When they sang of gaol and people hanging THEMSELVES  and booze and hard times it was real. No learning folk tunes from the internet or old records. Got an education that night.


Seem to have dodged the storm here. Though it's started hailing outside. Sylvie the cat is in her safe place, inside the bass drum behind me.

Let's Kick This Mob Out #2 - I wrote a song called that and here it is

I know I was bagging Greg (c)Hunt before , as the LNP figure that shits me the most but that top of the plops place can change daily- or hourly. Some like the eminently detestable Officer Dutton lose your focus because they seem to be hidden away during this election campaign. He is a divisive figure - among a party of divided and divisive figures. He is division! Not Da Vision! Division!

Please excuse me if I use exclamation marks too much. I have been using a type writer and have found that prior to the 70s, exclamation marks were not provided for people. How did they ever communicate?

(Upon looking it up on the internet I found a youtube clip showing me how to manufacture one using a  "period" and an "apostrophe. It's very CLERK-PUNK. Yes, 1600 people have viewed this clip).

But there is another divising figure among the dividers. One whose name has been mentioned in despatches along with the risible Officer Dutton as a possible deputy Prime Divider or even a Prime Divider itself.... This figure is the grim and steely grey treasurer Scott Morrison. Sometimes ironically called ScoMo. Why? An utterly humourless character and a quite convincing manifestation of a fantasy political league player from the fevered, gouty mind of a  NSW shock Jock. Indeed I once sat and listened, while on a  long drive through NSW, to Scott Morrison talking with the angry and shocking radio mouth Ray Hadley. They were having some sort of public spat after the LNP got rid of the ridiculous Tony Abbott. A linguist should study the transcript one day. It was like listening in to two corrupt NSW cops talking in their car through a hidden mic. If the word, "mate" had been disallowed - like an exclamation point for instance- the conversation would have lasted one minute. It's hard to look at, mate, how bad things got, mate. Scott was asked mate, to swear on a bible which was supposed to have been planted in the studio where he sat. I mean. Mate!

Scott Morrison represents the seat which is centres around the area of Sydney known as THE SHIRE. CRONULLA. John Howards heartland. This is the holy place for LNP politicians where "real australians" live. Everyone is belongs to a cast of useless characters known as "rent-a-crowd".

Coming from this place of unassailable authenticity he revelled in the job of "stopping the boats" which was the problem the LNP invented to get into government so they could "solve" it.

In 2014 Morrison gave an interview where he talked about removing any chance of any asylum seeker EVER being settled in Australia. He said that he was "taking the sugar off the table". I hope he goes down in history for that shitty statement.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-19/resettlement-decision-takes-sugar-off-the-table/5901502

"We've had great success in stopping people coming to Australia by boat and for most of that time over the past year, that has seen a significant reduction of people moving into Indonesia," he said.
"In recent months, we've seen a change to that and that's because people think they can transit and sit in Indonesia and use that as a place to gain access to Australia.

"This is designed to stop people flowing into Indonesia and to support Indonesia and for them not to become a destination country.
"It's taking the sugar off the table."

So I wanted to write a song stewing around all this and I did it last week. It's called "Let's kick this Mob Out".




The sugar was on the table
Scott promiused he would die - strong and bitter
Tony was tied to the mask
winking for his siren
Malcolm was in the long boat
talkin' to his cut throats
sayin' he knew the way
he had navigation up the wazoo
lets kick this mob out

the sugar was on the table

"hey wait! no boat must land! Not on our watch!" They said
"we must decide who goes there and the manner in which they rot!"

lets kick this mob out
the sugar was on the table
lets kick this mob out
the sugar was on the table

***** Tony and his siren - well you know who they are

*****Malcolm in his long boat - a reference to Malcolm BLIGH Turnbull's distant relative who, after the mutiny on the Bounty, took the remaining members of his crew on a long voyage to Indonesia in a  long boat...

Tickets link to this show

           Upcoming shows

June 29th Dave Graney and Lisa Gerrard "songwriter speaks" session at Melbourne Recital Hall - 6pm

Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes July 9th at the Corner Hotel - Melbourne

Harry Howard and the NDE July 23rd Croxton Park Hotel

Dave Graney and the mistLY play the Grandview Hotel in Fairfield,Vic

Saturday August 20th
Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes - Brisbane Festival (Spiegel tent) September 3rd

Dave Graney And Clare Moore – Bowral Bowling Club September 16th

Dave Graney and the mistLY – Petersham Bowls – September 17th

Dave Graney And Clare Moore – Smith’s Alternative- Canberra September 18th

Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes Semaphore Festival (Adelaide) October 2nd

election email from local LNP member - I'm scared!

I guess everybody must be getting this sort of stuff.

It's strange to get a direct email, talking to you in the same language that is in general use in the political discourse. By that I mean that as a citizen I must be pretty stupid, absolutely scared of foreigners/ terrorists/ bikers - to the extent that I can't think of anything else. Ever at all. Because IT WOULD FRIGHTEN ME.EVEN MORE.

Dear .............,

As a former police officer of 17 years, not only as a local uniformed officer, but also as a Detective in the Organised Crime Squad and Senior Sergeant in the Counter Terrorism Co-Ordination Unit, I know that community safety is vital.

In my electorate of La Trobe I understand that crime prevention is a great concern and that is why I have been actively engaging with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull MP and Minister for Justice, Michael Keenan MP, to boost safety and prevent crime at local, state, and national levels.

I have always been a loud advocate for stronger counter terrorism legislation and have supported implementing stronger laws to keep Australia safe. I have worked closely with Peter Dutton MP, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, and have strongly supported laws to deport dual citizens involved in serious crimes.

In 2010 I developed the National Violent Gangs Squad Policy to aid the National Anti-Gang Squad in identifying emerging gangs. This has since become the national body for taking on Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (Bikies) – the main group behind the Ice epidemic which is affecting so many families nation-wide. In recent times I have called for the National Anti-Gang Squad to assist me in tackling the APEX Gang too, which poses a particular threat to our local community.

The Coalition Government has been working hard to tackle organised crime and the increase of outlaw gangs which are costing Australians $36B a year. Our Government has invested heavily in our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to boost their efforts in detecting and disrupting the business of organised criminals. Since coming to government the coalition has invested;
$18M in the Australian Gangs Intelligence Coordination Centre to boost the Australian Crime Commission’s ability to share intelligence information between law enforcement agencies – assisting in getting Ice and guns off our streets.
$77M to establish the National Anti-Gang Squad which operates across all states of Australia to specifically target outlaw gangs.
$88M to increase screening and examination of mail, air and sea cargo – assisting our agencies to detect illegal weapons and drugs at our borders.
And developed a national unexplained wealth scheme to target illegitimate wealth and to give our law enforcement agencies greater power to seize criminal assets.
Unlike our opposition who cut funds and staff from our law enforcement and border protection agencies, the Turnbull Government is determined to do everything in its power to ensure that our law enforcement agencies are well resourced to maintain the safety and security of the Australian people.

I pride myself on being an accessible representative and I look forward to the re-election of the Turnbull Government so that we can continue to fight crime and keep Australians safe from terrorism, organised crime and outlaw gangs in the future.

Yours sincerely,


Jason Wood MP
Federal Member for La Trobe

Election dragging on 'ey? Lets kick this mob out!

The seat I live in is Latrobe. During the John Howard years it was the seat of an American born ex policeman called Bob Charles- after having been Labour for a decade. It then went to his LNP successor, Jason Woods, another ex copper. The Rudd election (and Howard rejection) brought a Labour member for one term and then it went back to Jason Woods. He must hate this clip of his most noted speech in parliament. Orgasms...
That last gasp (fart) of John Howards saw his election launch at our local RSL.  He dropped a wad of cash on the place and it soon had a ridiculous ex service tank outside of it, pointing its gun at the main street.


How silly. Always with the  war!
Yes, how glad we were to see the arse end of Howard and Costello! How little did we know what terrible shitly characters awaited us? Abbott. Kevin Andrews, Greg (c)Hunt Joe Hockey, Matthias the terminator, Christopher Pyne. Actually, the Conservatives so resented being kicked out of office that they just refused to believe it was the case. Tony Abbott had the party on an election footing since some time in 2008. He invented problems such as a flood of refugees and terrible taxes on mining and pollution and solved them. Great big hurrahs!
How glad we were to see the arse end of Tony Abbott, the mad monk! How little did we know as to what shitly characters just stayed in place and stood behind the oily lawyer Malcolm Bligh Turnbull!

Anyway, I keep running into our ALP candidate, Simon Curtis He is a schoolteacher and I met him at an opening of the Selby pool we played at, then at the Upper Ferntree Gully train station early one morning as he stood there, saying hello to people. Probably before he had to go to work himself. He's started to be active on Social media and he's always pictured at these freezing train stations and walking around the hills.

I would never vote LNP and I must say, Jason lost me at "orgasm"

The seat needs a 4% swing to change. The Greens? Always an option. In the Senate, for me.

Only four more weeks to go.

I just don't know which one of those lying LNP freaks I dislike the most? How I would love Pyne to lose his seat! Cory Bernardi as well, as a proud South Australian born dude, those two insult the place so manifestly. And the gruesome Peter Dutton (another ex cop). But there's something about (c)Hunt which really grates on me. He is so unconvincing in his fronting of such shocking policies in his role as Environment Minister. Then today there's this story of his precious tweets to American tv host Ellen Degeneres who dared to point out, like so many actual scientists already have, how quickly the Great Barrier Reef is DYING! He cares about her opinion. Because tourists! Yes, I do hate him the most. Like Abbott, he is relentless - but in a horribly decent way. I am heartened by the thought that he and Fat Joe Hockey will go down in actual HISTORY ( they might care about that) as the worst amongst the worst. (c)Hunt, who did everything he could, as Environment minister, to fuck up the environment and  Fat Joe who killed the Car industry as a matter  of ideological pride, so soon after taking office in his role as treasurer and punisher (volunteer role).

Here they Dutton, Pyne and (c)Hunt are dancing and laughing as they repealed the Carbon tax... Chums for business!

Drifting Donna Reed - May digital release

Hey this single came out a couple of weeks ago. I'm in a sort of lag. A jag. Dragging my chains. Travelling for weeks and then stopping suddenly. I did a Wam and Daz spot at a show and also a really enjoyable two sets with the mistLY at Melbourne's almost defunct but somehow still happening jazz club, Bennetts Lane. You should go there while it's still happening. Playing there was delightful. We had to keep the amps down so low. Meg, who runs the place came and "soundchecked" us, just a mic on the bass drum and four for the vocals, and did it with her iPad while entertaining her young child who was running around the room. Never a cross word from anybody. It was very impressive, and sounded great on the night too.

 This is what we played

all our friends were stars
got myself a beautiful nightmare
death by a thousand sucks
my schtick weighs a ton
Saturday night bath
life’s a dream
anchors aweigh
I’m not afraid to be heavy
flower of the earth
everybody does what they want to

we don’t belong to anybody
everything was legendary with Robert
I’m not the guy I tried to be
we need a champion
I wanna get lost again
mt gambier night
I don’t wanna go bush
A woman skinnies a man up
how can you get out of London?
the birds and goats
I’m a good hater
this is the deadest place I’ve ever died in

Drifting Donna Reed ...

Surely you've had the experience of mentioning some person or event that happened very publicly , only for the person you are talking to to say "I don't know- before my time..."

A quite reasonable response and perhaps a way of containing information in a more empiric fashion. But people can be very selective I find. They never say Da Vinci or Jesus is before their time, or Shakespeare. Though they would have been.....Socrates? Billy the Kid? Napoleon? Joan of Arc. There's a ref to a great 90s movie right there with that last bunch of names. They help the two teens with their high school exam, might have been before your time?


The song is about that sort of feeling. Pop culture references losing their charge. Images and personas and events drifiting through us and around us, disappearing like snow...

yeah - Donna Reed
drifting - Donna Reed
aah don't worry
I'm before your time - don't worry! don't worry!
you don't wanna know you don't have to
I know
I'm not here
you're not either
you weren't there
neither was I
we're never gonna be on the same page
different time zones
we'll never mesh
not unless a bomb goes off or somethin'
maybe a fire
we're never gonna be on the same page
I'm before your time - its cool
I'm before your time - its cool
I'm before your time - its cool
I'm before your time - its cool
you weren't there!
wow! you missed quite a show!
never mind
you don't wanna know I got here late and I'm also old
what have we missed?
drifting Donna Reed
drifting Donna Reed
what could that even mean?
drifitng Donna Reed
drifting Donna Reed
I'm puttin' BIRD in here
the heavy hitters
puttin' 'em to work
he was in the ground before I leapt into this world
BIRD
my father moaned my mother wept
BIRD blew
I'm before your time
its cool
dont worry
you don't wanna know
you don't have to
I know
I'm before your time
its cool
drifitng Donna Reed
way way way way way back
way before my time
drifitng Donna Reed.
oh!

We've been putting out digital songs every month. At itunes and Bandcamp. Just seeing what the digital world is like, not thinking about making physical artefacts.

Working on the June release  right now. It's a killer pop tune. Though you must know my tastes are so mainstream they are RIGHT  OFF.

Oh and our website has a new address

davegraney.com