WORKSHY - my life as a bludge - notes

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WORKSHY is out now on Affirm Press. I tried to write about all the little jobs I did while trying to be a musician/ artist. All those temporary situations. How I lived while trying to leave as small a footprint, handprint and general imprint as possible. I’ve written songs about that kind of scene. “You wanna be there but you don’t wanna travel”, “I’m the stranger in town”, “everything was legendary with Robert”.

It’s subtitled “my life as a bludge”

My previous memoir “1001 Australian Nights” was more dreamy and abstract. About half awake dream that it was in my first band, the Moodists and how we imagined each other and also getting my tone and voice. It had two parts; coming into the world and then speaking as a part of the world. Two voices - innocence and experience.

Workshy has more personal detail about growing up in Mount Gambier, my individual and social identities and influences and my love of playing football as a kid and generally goofing about and doing my best to avoid work as best as I could. Also, the actual options that were open to me. Then I had to deal with the world and after a while I found I had dug into a weird kind of a groove.

Also, truth #1- “there’s no retiring in this business….” . (thanks Billy Miller)

In so many ways, musicians have been the canaries in the coal mine of much of modern life. We got to the brutal face of the modern scene where everybody is a “freelancer” first. Now everybody has to “manage the brand”. But we’ve always been depicted as hapless chancers and fantasists who avoided “the real world”. Hey, now people talk loosely and carelessly of “the gig economy”. Talk to a musician if you want to know what the future holds! We’ve been there for a while.

The cover art is by Tony Mahony, who has done almost all our cd and album covers and videos since1992.

I worked with Janet Austin on the editing and she did an amazingly thorough and creative job. She really gave it some air where needed and got it singing. Then the team at Affirm did their final stylistic edits and proofs. Thanks to everybody!

"Meandering humanity and honest music never follow guidelines. Neither does Dave Graney. Society didn't get fussy and uptight after he was born, it got fussy and uptight after it made being born Dave Graney illegal. The antidote: read this and remember what's real; better still, read it at work. This is a book that should come in a brown paper bag."

DBC PIERRE

“Dave Graney is a genuine hipster bohemian street intellectual.  A committed rock'n'roll theoretician and a contrarian outsider of he first order.  

This second memoir is as entertaining, funny and well written as his previous book '1000 Australian Nights".  He has a terse and semi-abstract approach to writing about the absurd reality of being a non-mainstream musical artist in Australia and Europe,  and also of the succession of dispiriting and occasionally quite tolerable day jobs he has had. 

The book is liberally spattered with hilarious observations of the art and culture of the recent past and many amusing personal anecdotes.  There are also some arcane metaphysical ruminations on the technical minutiae of writing recording and performing his excellent songs.

Dave is the unchallengeable King of Australian rock memoirists.  Buy this book now!” 
Reg Mombassa

It’s out on Affirm Press and there are launches and events planned in a lot of places.

Sunday Oct ^29th – Readings St Kilda. A talk with Gerard Elson.
TIME: 5pm
Readings St Kilda
112 Acland St, St Kilda

Wednesday Oct 25^th, a launch in Melbourne at Magnet Gallery in Bourke st Melbourne. Happy and proud to say my inspiring friend Tony Martin will be doing the launching!

TIME: 6.30pm-8.30pm
VENUE: Magnet Gallery, 640 Bourke St, Melbourne

--> Wednesday Nov 8th Mt Gambier Launch
TIME: 6:30 – 7:30pm
VENUE: Mt Gambier Library, 6 Watson Terrace, Mount Gambier 5290
Friday Nov 10^th Adelaide Book Launch

Time: 6:30pm
VENUE: Imprint Books, 107 Hindley St, Adelaide

Tuesday Nov 14th – Melbourne event

VENUE: The Avenue ,Richmond
TIME: 6.45pm for 7pm start – 8.15pm end

Sunday Nov 26^th Sydney Book Launch

TIME:
VENUE: The People’s Republic of Australasia, Camperdown, NSW

Sunday Dec 10th Perth Book Launch
in conversation with Bob Gordon
TIME: 6pm – 8pm
VENUE: Rosemount Hotel, Bar 459, 459 Fitzgerald St, North Perth WA