Makin the Scene.

December is a time for socializing and parties. Ain't it just? A mad rush and crush of a time.

I'm reading a thick book by Len Deighton called "Blood, Folly and Tears- an objective history of World War 2."

Len wrote those great Harry Palmer books, the filmed versions of which starred Michael Caine. Len is still alive and still writing. The Harry Palmer character was working class but a spy (amongst all the public school MI5 boys) in the cold war. He was aspirational in that he loved to cook fine food and talked about champignons and spices in the films- in Caine's broad Cockney accent. Len even put out some cook books for LADS in the sixties.

The book is a history text all about the lead up to WW2.  The ways the armies and navies were organized in the European countries after WW1 and the codes and radar, how broke England was. How Churchill was disliked and just shaded Lord Halifax to replace Chamberlain and how Halifax was thought to be certain to deal with Hitler because- well - he quite agreed with him....

I never knew Czechoslovakia made all the weapons and the best steel. Or that the trenches in WW1 just happened and that the cavalry was waiting behind the lines for an opening to charge out of- for the entire war....

 

I think Barry Adamson made this? That's how he addresses me anyways...

Also watching the fifth season of Ray Donovan.  Another American story of violent thugs who do it all FOR THE FAMILY! I got tired of that trope in Sons Of Anarchy but have stuck with this one. Mainly because the father is Jon Voigt and he is the most destructive and wilful thug of all.




This fifth season is heavy though. Very tense. And the story is told in an amazing flashbacked and whip turned style. Really great.

I have a stack of books to read over the summer. Looking forward to that. Of course, finding time to read in the party season is difficult.

In 2007 I sat on a rock by a beautiful bay on Cocos Islands looking out to 2500 k's of the Indian Ocean and read a book.

Lord Byron knew what I meant to say there....

I. Personal, Lyric, and Elegiac

Solitude

(Childe Harold, Canto ii. Stanzas 25, 26.)   TO sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen.	5
With the wild flock that never needs a fold:
Alone o’er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude; ’tis but to hold
Converse with Nature’s charms, and view her stores unroll’d
But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,	10
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world’s tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,	15
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all that flatter’d, follow’d, sought, and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude.

So I went along to the annual party organized by APRA. Every December. It used to be open to songwriters only and was a great occasion where we could talk loosely and in very dark and careless ways. One time I just sat with Greg McAinsh from Skyhooks for about an hour and had such a great time. Our paths occasionally cross, in the streets here and there.
For a few years now- or maybe more- it's become a get together with all the other people who think they are the Melbourne music scene. Bookers and agents and pr people. I'd say writers too but I really don't know how many of them there are any more. Publishers and record company people.  All very nice and that but I would prefer it if they had their own arrangements.
The party is held at different venues around the town too. Wholly from some misguided idea that a music scene is about the rooms and not the players. Some rooms are better than others and this years was too small and hot and people spilled out onto the street. I had done my show at Triple R during the day and hung around in town to make the scene, killing a few hours shopping and then reading at the library. (see you gotta take it where you can...)
Clare Moore was rehearsing elsewhere on her secret project with jane Dust and Emily Jarrett (The ROUTINES) so I had to represent the org at this shindig.

Of the musicians and songwriters there it was very much the current crop of people of course.  It would be nice to see people from different generations. I had a cool time talking with Penny Ikinger and Kate from It Records, Dan and Chops Brodie, Richard Stanley, Maz and Robbie, Kaye Louise Patterson, Stew Farrell, Ron Peno, Lisa McKinney and Matt from Taipan Tiger Girls, Kim Salmon  and many others.

Then this fellow who I vaguely knew of from the 000's music scene started yacking at me about a regional venue he'd played at and how "nice" it was and not at all rough and unpleasant and how the man who ran it was hard to get along with but was good if he liked you. "Well fuck him then" was my response. This fellow kept throwing the hi hatting tones. He mentioned some other joint in an outer suburban suburb that "didn't make you feel like kiling yourself". I just said I play in regional areas all the time and every outer suburban place I can and generally have a great time. Then Boris from the Scientists , Dubrovniks and the Beasts sauntered up and it was nice to chat with someone from a galaxy close to my world. We did have a lot of shared experiences but have probably only really stopped to talk with each other in recent years. We were laughing at how we both first got to London in the early 80s and would buy cheap beer in exotic Euro cans and find ourselves drinking gallons of it - to no effect except to visit the pissoir more often. it took time to read the alcohol content on the tins because they varied so much. In Melbourne and in Perth there had been only one brand of beer available so the idea of choice was not really a thing.

Anyway, that 000's generation of indie" music. Wow, what a sexless, pointless dead end all that shit was and is! Muted, middle class, private school , neat and tidy, tasteful, beige bullshit, Who's to blame? Is there any emblematic artist? Not really, just a general pall over the scenes. They all loved Leonard Cohen and Tom waits I guess. A gated community. Kind of acoustic, kind of electronic. Indie orthodox, I guess you'd call it. Rootless and futureless. No arcadia, no utopia. No licks. Not enough reverb or bass, just too much flat (and white) PRESENCE. So I avoided most of it.

I shouldn't go on too much. Spirit of the season and all that. wot! Anyway, one day I must tell you about the worst year EVER in popular music, which I locate somewhere around 1998 - which might start somewhere in mid 1997 and end somewhere in mid 2002. It's hard to write about music and periods without picking on individual bands and artists because - ITS NOT ALWAYS ALL THEIR FAULT! So why should they have to carry the can?

The party was very enjoyable anyway. I'm really not a grouch! Just that the world can put a grip on you sometimes. I was there for five hours, sitting around at the end with Glenn Bennie from the Underground Lovers and Lisa Gibbs, two of my favourite people. Glenn was arranging his funeral service which involved a lot of songs from the first Split Enz album.





Then Clare and Jane Dust slid their van onto the kerb, knocking over some tables and chairs and I got in the back and we drove off.

I debriefed with them on the night they'd avoided . So many people at this party spoke of Paul McCartney too. Weird.

Hey its Xmas, buy a friend a copy of WORKSHY from the publisher AFFIRM PRESS.  

We also have our 2017 CD LETS GET TIGHT available on CD. It costs $20 and is one of the best albums we have ever made. You can find copies of it - as well as many others - at this page on our website. 
In Sydney it's available at REDEYE RECORDS.
In Melbourne its available at Basement Discs, Rocksteady Records in the city and Greville Records in Prahran. 
In Adelaide it's at Streetlight records.

Dave Graney and Clare Moore CD Let's Get Tight available at iTunes and Bandcamp now.

We have our annual Boxing day blowout in Adelaide at the Hotel Metro 6pm December 26th.

January 27th - we do a DJ set at the National Gallery of Victoria. DJ's HASHISH AND LIQUOR. 6-8pm .

In February we journey to NSW regional venues and then to the Sunshine Coast and to Brisbane.

Dec 26th Dave Graney and Clare Moore annual Boxing Day show at the Hotel Metro in Adelaide, SA.

2017 Dave Graney memoir - WORKSHY out on Affirm press in. Order it here. 

Feb 7th Dave Graney and Clare Moore at Smiths Alternative in Canberra, ACT
Feb 8th Dave Graney and Clare Moore TBA -  Wollongong, NSW.
Feb 9th Dave Graney and Clare Moore at the Agrestic Grocer, Orange, NSW

Feb 10th Dave Graney and Clare Moore at the Cafe Metropole in Katoomba, NSW

Feb 11th Dave Graney and Clare Moore at Dangar island Bowling Club, NSW

Feb 16th - Dave Graney and the mistLY at the Grand Hotel, 124 Main st - Mornington, Victoria

Feb 18th , I'm part of a talk about the art of Jenny Watson and the music that inspired her in the late 70s- early 80's  at the Museum of Modern Art- Heide Gallery at 2pm. 

Feb 21st I am doing a WORKSHY reading / event at Geelong Library - 7-8:30 pm.

Thursday Feb 22nd - A WORKSHY event at Avid Readers in Brisbane. 6-8pm.

Friday Feb 23rd Dave Graney and Clare Moore at the Bison Bar in Nambour, Qld
Saturday Feb 24th Dave Graney and Clare Moore at THE JUNK BAR in Ashgrove , Qld
Sunday Feb 25th Dave Graney and Clare Moore at THE JUNK BAR in Ashgrove, Qld.(4pm)

March 11th Dave Graney and the mistLY at SOUNDS IN THE SECRET GARDEN - the Events Foundry, 74 Brougham st, Geelong.

davegraney.com