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.