ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? 2019 album out now

Our 2019 album ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? 2019 album is out now on our favoured format, Compact Disc, and in digital stores. In Melbourne you can source it at Rocksteady Records and Basement Discs. In Sydney you can find it at Redeye Records. Otherwise, it can be sourced at our live shows or mail order via this blog or from our web site.

A link for several digital portals here.  iTunes, Spotify and Google Play.

Track Listing

1 Baby, I Wish I’d Been A Better Pop Star  3:55
2 Song Of Life  4:30
3 ULTRAKEEF  5:46
 4 Gloria Grahame  3:59 
5 Your Masters  3:54
6 Is That What You Did?  8:14
7 Where’s My Buzz?  7:01
 8 You’re All Wrong  4:51
9 Baby I Wish I’d Been A Better Pop Star - darkly blues version  5:41
10 Song Of Life remixed/extended original version  5:30
11 Gloria Grahame (fuck or die) original electro glitch version  3:39
12 Is That What You Did? alternate version  7:24
13 Where’s My Buzz? alternate version  6:53

Available as a high quality digital album or on Compact Disc via Bandcamp.

Dave Graney, vocals, electric, acoustic guitars, bass, autoharp, occasional keys .Clare Moore, drums, vibes, marimba, percussion, keys, melodica, backing vocals. Stuart Perera, electric guitar, backing vocals. Stu Thomas, bass, backing vocals.

Tracks 1-3 and 5-7 and 12-13 recorded over two days in  in July 2018 at Soundpark Studios in Melbourne, Australia and engineered by Andrew “Idge” Hehir. Track 4 built up from a live track recorded at Smiths in Canberra October 2018. Robin Casinader guests on synth.
ULTRAKEEF mixed by Andrew “Idge” Hehir and Your Masters mixed by Henry Wagons.All others recorded and mixed by Dave Graney and Clare Moore at the Ponderosa during 2018. Mastered by Greg Wadley December 2018. Photos by Barry Douglas. Video by Donna McRae and Michael Vale.
Cover art by Tony Mahony.
All songs written by Dave Graney. Copyright Control, except for ULTRAKEEF and IS THAT WHAT YOU DID? which have words by Dave Graney and music by Clare Moore, Stu Thomas, Stuart Perera and Dave Graney.

 A great review of ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? at Your Music Radar.

There’s a side A : Baby I Wish I’d Been A Better Pop Star, Song Of Life, ULTRAKEEF, Gloria Grahame and Your Masters.

Baby I Wish I’d Been A Better Pop Star first appeared as it does on Side Z with me playing all the instruments (except for Clare Moore on drums). Clare suggested we do it with the mistLY and it came over all swinging and bright with pounding toms, pop oomph and zinging twelve string guitars. That was the idea of the album, to have songs done in different styles and tempos.
Song Of Life is the title track, in a way. The chorus has the line “ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS?”. Song Of Life was recorded and released in February 2018, an extended version of that original, clean and very pop version appears on Side Z of the album. We started playing it with the mistLY and it sounded great so we wanted to do it again.Words written while I lay in a hospital bed after an appendix operation. Thoughts naturally drift to an overview of your entire life.

ULTRAKEEF began with a rough demo of a couple of slurred block chords and an idea to set them against a cowbell heavy beat. Then to tell a story within those confines of a badass rock’n’roll myth. To take that myth to the nth and push it over the edge of the falls. It helps if you are versed in the lore of the Stones, a popular beat group that came straight out of Dartford in the UK. This track was mixed by Idge at Soundpark.


  

Gloria Grahame (fuck or die), another tale of showbiz chutzpah and flash. They’ve all got it. Infamy! A film actor who was wild in private life and lived even hotter in underworld gossip. She did it her way. Great films like The Big Heat with Lee Marvin and In A Lonely Place with HumphreyBogart. Originally recorded and released in April 2018 with me playing keys over a one chord beat I glitched up one day, I started to fool around with open tuning and  a slide guitar on my archtop guitar and a live performance in Canberra late 2018 saw Coral Snake Robin Casinader jump onto the bandstand with us to play some synth over the G chord and the loping beat. We added some sounds to it in the studio
(good enough for Lou Reed on Street Hassle) and we had another kind of song.

Your Masters was originally written and recorded for The Dave Graney Show album in 1998 in repsonse to John Howards election as PM and his invention of a group of blue collar “battlers” whom he dubbed “aspirationals”.
Then he was re-elected another three times. Started playing the song again and it kept staying relevant. The chorus says “you know they’ll never let you in”

There’s a side B: Is That What You Did?  Where’s My Buzz? and You’re All Wrong.
The idea of the album was to have songs done in different styles and tempos. The two longest tracks, Is That What You Did? and Where’s My Buzz? seemed to be pieces that would always be different. There would never be a perfect version, just different ones.

When I say “the “sou’westing ballroom jam” that is the eight minute plus “Is That What You Did?” I mean to say its springing from my youthful immersion in Southern Rock (Allman Brothers/ Lynyrd Skynyrd) and West Coast jams like the Grateful Deads DARK STAR. Of course, I loved The Blue Oyster Cult , Doors and Television as well.
I’m saying that’s where I was aiming for us to stray near to.
Lyrically? It stems from people asking me after shows - or even during shows whether what I was doing is what I did. What they’d heard that I did or was supposed to have done. Was that it?

The soft fusion chordal folding trick that is “Where’s My Buzz?” .
Yes, this song has a lot of chords but it flows. Wonderful playing from everybody on this track. Also wonderfully recorded by Idge. I guess this has some “yacht rock nods” . There’s a few songs on the album that pose questions.
This is a legitimate question. Of the universe. Where Is My Buzz?
Originally released digitally in April 2018 and remixed/remastered in a slightly longer version here. I discovered open tuning and a slide for my archtop guitar and a whole bunch of songs stole out of it. More to come. “You’re all wrong – not everybody – just you –  but all of you – you’re all wrong…”

And a Side Z: Baby I Wish I’d Been A Better Pop Star (darkly blues version), Song Of Life (remixed/extended original version) , Gloria Grahame (original electro glitch version) and alternate takes/versions of Is That What You Did? and Where’s My Buzz?
Of course they’re all on one Compact Disc and there are no sides to it but we’re making that call. We are partitioning it, thusly. Because.

Baby I Wish I’d Been A Better Pop Star – darkly blues version.  This is the original version. More downbeat, more funk. More bluesy.

Song Of Life original electro glitch version. There is wise blood flowing through “Song Of Life” We extended it and remixed it for the album.
“Minimal keys and less guitar over a beat driven by Dave Graney”
“Gloria Grahame-manifest-manifestly-manifesto..”
“Dave Graney drops down to his mean pulp groundwater with a pulsing, keys driven celebration of film noir icon Gloria Grahame, star of the Big Heat and In A Lonely Place recently the subject of the movie “Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool”. The song celebrates her cold power and resilience and enigmatic, restless persona. It touches on an apocryphal incident where, as they watched a couple having sex in a hotel room, she allegedly pulled a gun on husband Nicholas Ray and gave him the choice, fuck or die?”
I brought Is that What You Did? to rehearsal a couple of years ago but this was it’s time to come together. presented here in two different versions. Different takes altogether. This is the alternate take. It’ll always be an alternate take whenever we play this song.A bit faster? Looser.
Where’s My Buzz? is more of a chordal avalanche, a blues-jazz cri de cour. Two different takes, both snaking out over seven minutes in length.
It asks all the relevant questions, the buzzing questions.
That was the idea of the album, to have songs done in different styles and tempos. The two longest tracks, Is That What You Did? and Where’s My Buzz? seemed to be pieces that would always be different. There would never be a perfect version, just different ones.

"ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? (The title comes from the chorus of “Song Of Life”) is a classic rock’n’roll album. Classic if you lived through what has become known as ”the classic rock era” as it rolled out new and even broke onto the beachhead and morphed into punk. That’s the direction Dave Graney and Clare Moore have always been coming from. They have spent their lives schooled by and immersed in rock ‘n’ roll culture. Neither attended higher education and they dived in deep and kept swimming. From the Moodists through the Coral Snakes /White Buffaloes to the mistLY
This is an album with their band, Dave Graney and the mistLY. Stuart Perera has played guitar with them since 1998 and Stu Thomas on bass since 2004.

Out of Melbourne, Australia. Album number 33 (approx.) from Graney and Moore

From the homage to the silhouette of the baddest droog that ever threw shade on both Life, Death and breakfast – ULTRAKEEF, to the “sou’westing ballroom jam” that is the eight minute plus “Is That What You Did?” through the soft fusion chordal folding trick that is “Where’s My Buzz?” through the attitude that speaks truth to all on the solo “You’re All Wrong” and the badass female geist of “Gloria Grahame”, it’s an album steeped in lore, myth and musical language as much as lyric power. Graney’s voice is up in the mix and the guitars, drums and bass have real tension, energy and bounce. Plenty of space, too.
There are eight songs done thirteen ways. Trembling blues, sliding guitar guitars and infinite grooves. Clean sounds and yacht rock nods. There is wise blood flowing through “Song Of Life” and “Your Masters”. (The latter being a re-recording of a song originally realized in 1998 with the Dave Graney Show). There are many alternate takes and versions.
Eight songs thirteen ways.
What Is that?
What Was This?
The album begins with the post heist-gone-wrong confessional “Baby I Wish I’d Been A Better Pop Star”. A song that’s never been written before.

ZIPPA DEEDOO

Out on CD and digitally March 2019

photo Katey Shearer 

 

People involved in the ZIPPA DEEDOO project.

Dave Graney and Clare Moore : songs , guitars, keys, vibes, bass, drums, vocals, production in their studio, administration of live performance arrangements and band personnel. Irish Australian and Irish-Greek Australian heritage. Melbourne based. Moodists-Coral Snakes-mistLY.

Stu Thomas:  bass player, member of the mistLY since 2004. Melbourne based. Australian of Chinese, Portuguese heritage. Also performs as The Stu Thomas Paradox.

photo Katey Shearer

Stuart Perera : guitar player for the mistLY since 1998. (Longest association of any player with Graney and Moore) Melbourne based. Australian of Sri Lankan/ Chinese heritage.

photo Katey Shearer

Tony Mahony, cover art for every Dave Graney and Clare Moore release since 1992. Also film director for features, ads and video. Melbourne based.

Barry Douglas: photographer and video maker who has documented Dave Graney and Clare Moore’s activities closely over the last five years. Melbourne based.

Robin Casinader : solo artist, Canberra resident , current and former member of the Coral Snakes who contributed synth to Gloria Grahame.

Donna McRae and Michael Vale : directors of the video clip for ULTRAKEEF. Melbourne based film makers for whom Dave Graney and Clare More contributed the ssoundtracks for their feature length films, JOHNNY GHOST (2013) and LOST GULLY ROAD (2018)

Andrew “Idge” Hehir, engineer/proprietor of SOUNDPARK STUDIOS where most songs were recorded and who also mixed ULTRAKEEF.

Henry Wagons : Solo artist and also leader of THE WAGONS, radio broadcaster and songwriter who mixed Your Masters.

Greg Wadley : Mastering.

Dex Audio: Manufacturing of CDs .

The Orchard : Digital Distributor.

This is roughly the 33rd stand-alone physical album from Graney and Moore.

photo Katey Shearer

davegraney.com