After the flood! - Bowie In Berlin shows - I NEED TO BE HOT

2016 ended for us with a deluge in outer Melbourne of biblical proportions. Had just gotten home froma  long drive from South Australia. I'd been working in the basement studio but turned the desktop computer off when I heard thunder and lightning. Was sitting around watching the rain stream down the windows, hoping we were watertight and went to look downstairs again and saw, to my horror, rain streaming like an open tap from a light fitting directly above the computer, archival back up hard drives, mixing desk, keyboard and preamps. It was a swamp!

Brought all the gear upstairs as the rain eased and assessed the damage. Of course, you think the worst. It's all cactus.

Checked insurance coverage. Couple of days later took the computer and (seven) hard drives to  a digital recoverybusiness. they opened all the devices and had a look and found they were all ok.

In the mean time we were rehearsing for a run of Bowie In Berlin shows in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Clare Moore was playing drums on 22 tracks and had to get across the material. I was one of five singers and had to get to grips with three orfour songs. Mick harvey was musical director and evenytually got the two sets together and assigned which songs to which singers.
The band , aside from Clare, was Stu Thomas on bass and vocals (amazingly well prepared) , JP Shilo and Penny Ikinger on guitars (ditto for chops, sounds and shating of parts), Miles Brown on vintage synths and theremin and Robin Casinader on piano and mellotron. Mick Harvey had vocals, percussion, guitar, sampler, kazoo and general band direction and conducting to take care of. it all sounded great.

The singers were myself, Ron Peno, Kim Salmon, Max Sharam, Kylie Auldist and Michael Nolan. (Jess Ribeiro also performed in melbourne)

The first show was a Friday night at the Triffid in Brisbane, kind of a hot house rock club show. the second was at a  seated Enmore Theatre in Sydney on Saturdaty night and then Sunday at Hamer Hall in Melbourne. Friday 14th January we play at the Reagl Theatre in Perth. For this gig, Mick Harvey will be replaced by a  local MD whom nobody knows so we are a bit tense about this. Mick is in Singapore playing with PJ Harvey.

I chose some pretty obscure songs for some reason. Joe The Lion and Blackout from Heroes and Yassassin from Lodger. I also pay harmonica on the instrumental A New Career In A New Town from Low.

It's been a great experience. So much respect for ALL the players getting across the material. A lot of the songs are great David Bowie pop rock grooves with a  finicky veneer of artsy stuff happening in the arrangements and the mixing. Great guitar licks buried where they could have been bigger and more pronounced. Vocal lines coming in and out at odd, disjointed angles. Queer timings and extra bars here and there. (Everybody got to searching Youtube to see how Bowie and band actually played some of the tracks a couple of years or even decades later and found that they themsleves had had to straighten some of the kinks out, too.)
It's also been hliarious spending down time with Ron Peno and Kim Salmon. All of us used to performing whole shows and here, just running on to do a song or two as part of an ensemble.

Several singers wanted to do Heroes but Mick Harvey brought in Michael Nolan, who had been involved in some LINER NOTES type arts shows based around classic albums and performers, to do that song and he totally ruled it.

A review from the Sydney show by ross clelland

I have eventually re assembled the studio upstairs and everything seems to be working though I am furiously backing everything up again.
Apart from the music files going back more than a decade I had a couple of unpublished books.

Water damage downstairs has to be addressed and its not really an environment to be sitting in. Mould has set in part of the ceiling. Will be assessed in a  fortnight as so much damage happened in the area. Quite a start to teh year.

We have a new digital single out and I'm figuring ut what to do for February's release.

This time it's, I NEED TO BE HOT.





We have some live shows coming up. Coral Snakes and mistLY shows to start with. A trip to New Zealand and a run of duo shows with some European friends in April.

Dave Graney And the mistLY
Friday Feb 10th 2017
Appearing with VICTORIANA GAYE who are launching their new album
Caravan Club - Melbourne

Harry Howard and the NDE
Flying Saucer Club Feb 17th

Dave Graney And the mistLY
Feb 22nd Aotea Square concert Auckland Feb 23rd , Golden Dawn, Auckland

Dave Graney'n' the Coral Snakes
Melbourne NGV March 3rd

Lizottes in Newcastle March 31st.
Sydney April 1st - the Basement

Dave Graney and Clare Moore NSW dates w/ special guests from Brussels/Miami Georgio "the Dove" Valentino and Patrizia.

Sunday 2nd April(2.30pm - 5.30pm TBC)- Dangar Island Bowling Club NSW
Tuesday 4th April (7pm - 9pm) Georgio only @ The Bearded Tit -
Thursday 6th April - Oxley Wine Bar Cowra
Friday 7th April - Tooses Wine Bar , 490-494 Argyle St, Moss Vale
Saturday 8th April - Gearin Hotel, Katoomba
Sunday 9th April - Smiths Canberra