ZIPPA DEEDOO Darwin Kyneton Brisbane Melbourne Adelaide

Clare Moore and I had been to Beechworth in 1994 when we drove up in our rusty '73 HQ Holden, on a general Ned Kelly trip, stopping off at a  few places along the way. Well, we stopped at a crossroads/cemetery which was named Great on the map and which is often mentioned as Neds family turf but there was nothing there when we got out of the noisy old car to stretch our legs and have a squizz. The wind was rough, the sun was bright, magpies cried and a gunshot rang out in the distance. We jumped right back in our car and drove to Beechworth. A National Trust (heritage listed) main street and a cute old museum named after the doomed explorer Robert O'Hara Bourke, who had been constable of the town before applying for the job opportunity of his death when he set off to walk to the northern tip of Australia with another gloomy loner called Wills. It struck me then that Beechworth must have always been cultivating its back story, obsessed with its history.
Back then we had visited the museum and the Chinese cemetery with its ornate arches as well as the court house where Ned had first been arraigned after his capture. People would lower their voices in 1994 when asked about the K---y mob as the descendents of the slain officers were still in the area and not keen on any glorification of the 19th century robbers.  We asked to get our photo taken in period costume in the courthouse and when we'd put the clothes on,  the photographer had cried that he'd left his film home and ran off to get it. We were left standing there dressed as if we were a part of the exhibit. people straggled in and asked us question, to which we smirked and looked away.

Here were again, 25 years later and playing in a pub in the main street. Its still a delightful looking place with the big street drains and troughs for horses to drink from. No fast food shops, no neon lights, no poker machines. Maybe a few too many natural fibre clothes shops but all in all a really sparkling, regional town with great community spirit.

We set up and played two sets in the front bar, guitar, vocals and keys. The sound was very reverberant with the high ceiling and the large mirrors on every wall. Country people don't get to socialize much either, so there was lots of talking all through the gig. We made show.

That day we had gotten up at 5:30 am to drive into town to be interviewed on radio 3 Triple R FM. We had then driven the four or so hours to Beechworth, stopping in the town of Benalla along the way. When I got to Beechworth I did an interview on the phone with an AM station called 3AW in Melbourne. With Dennis walter, an old school pro. Both of these interviews were for our show on the Sunday. Before the Beechworth gig I did an interview with local community station Indigo FM.

During the show we met amd talked with some locals, one of whom was Gary, the  photographer from 25 years before who'd left us in colonial drag in the courthouse when he ran to get his film.

We drove back on the Saturday, taking our time, watched a Roger Corman movie on DVD called Machine Gun Kelly with Charles Bronson (1958) and then got up at 10am to drive to the Northcote Social Club for soundcheck.
We checked at 11:30, using the clubs drumkit and bass amp. the doors opened at 1:30pm and David Cosma did a great opening set. With his his band flying in from Sydney and Perth. He played his guitar left handed, but stiull strung right handed, so the high strings were struck first. A lot of his songs had seventh chords  which were differently accented, struck and voiced with this upside down perspective.

We were a four piece. Myself, Clare Moore, Sru Thomas on bass and Stuart Perera on guitar. I had my Crate amp with Ibanez Salvador and K Yairi 12 string. The amp is for acoustic guitars but a  Sansamp modelled it toward an electric tone for my archtop.
We played these songs...

I Wanna Get Lost Again

Song Of Life

Your Masters
Baby I Wish I'd Been A Better Pop Star

I Ain't Hi Vis

Everything Was Legendary With Robert

I Need To Be Hot

Saturday Night Bath 

You're All Wrong

Gloria Grahame

Ultrakeef

Is That What You Did?

Perhaps a  few more. And we encored with Buffy St Marie's CODINE as a tribute to the Charlatans' Mike Wilhelm who had passed away in the last week.

There was no  acts on after us in the club so it was great to chat with old friends and people who'd come to see us without bouncers crowding around to clear the room. We packed up and ate in the venue with Stu Pereraand Phillipa Berry and then drove her home to Reservoir and then the other 40 k's to our place where we ate some yoghurt and watched season one of Miami Vice.

I loved the whole weekend.  Being with our great band and playing. Playing so well because we were so tight with the material yet it was still so fresh.
The Northcote Social Club is such a  great sounding room, it was terrific to present our music there. Inside me I had - an still feel very strongly - a feeling that we are so isolated in this Australian music scene. Especially the rock music scene. If I expressed myself myself fully on how low I feel most peoples expectations of what a band or a song or a sound is , I am afraid passers by would think me quite angry or of a very dark frame of mind. Hey, I'm just a pro! I know stuff!

Here I am being billed "eccentric" and "grilled" by Mikey Cahill. I'm the straight guy! 

We get very little radio support and have never been big with people who write about music.  We do have a few champions here and there and I thank them. Usually they have travelled a long, epic way to get to our stuff and tune into it. (Truth be told , I loved that talk by Frank Zappa where he said that any music that was so low that could be explained by critics was not worth the bother... Something along those lines. Anyway, that was in the days when there were actual critics who wrote for actual publications. Now the artist pitches himself to the freelance writer who picks him or her up and pitches them - and him or herself - to the clickbait portal which is nearby or still humming.)

Anyway, we paddle our own wheels and make our own way. We make our mistakes and get to play again.

Our next shows are in Darwin, Kyneton, Nambour, Brisbane , Melbourne and Adealaide. i was going to play with the mistLY in Qld but just couldn't make it work so I'm doing them solo.

Saturday June 1st - The Railway Club Darwin (Graney and Moore)

Saturday June 15th-Major Toms, Kyneton(Graney and Moore) 

Friday June 21st the Bison Bar, Nambour DAVE GRANEY SOLO

Saturday June 22nd - the Bearded Lady, Brisbane.DAVE GRANEY SOLO

Saturday June 29th - The Caravan Music Club - Bentleigh Special guest Sean McMahon 

July 12th - THE GOV - Adelaide.Special guests The Sunday Reeds

"You can dip in almost anywhere into the vast Graney catalogue and find something deeper and more satisfying than the pop fizz of the day. But if you are starting out, this album and attending a Graney gig on an extensive Australian tour in the next few months is an excellent place to begin".
Noel mengel - MusicTrust.com

"Dave Graney and the mistLY new album “Zippa Dee Doo What Is-Was That-This?” - guaranteed deep grooves, dangerous themes and hip-heating hot Rock action.
Get the good oil at Rocksteady Records"
Pat Monaghan

"This is described as a “rock and roll” album and in that it reflects music from the late 60s/early 70s (pre-punk if you will) that is a reasonable description but i’d say it goes beyond that basic description as there are modern elements, nods to jazz, the use of current technique, and of course the unique Graney/Moore stylings all present. It adds to and enhances a formidable body of work.
I commend it to you without reservation".
Bob Osborne - Analogue Trash Radio (UK)
“Graney has always been a raconteur – with equal doses of smooth, smug and wit. They say rock ‘n’ roll is a musical genre on the decline – but with this unusually titled album Graney has raised the rock ‘n’ roll flag and wears his love for the genre on his sleeve, meshed with some blues and psychedelia.
An album title that will cause confusion, but a set of songs that remind us of what a maverick Graney is. Liking his music will make you feel smarter!"
Brian Parker- Your Music Radar

”...brilliant show. Best band in this country by miles. Graney and Co. are totally unique. Whatever line-up, always amazing. And FUN!”.
Jon Schofield (musician)

"the Serge Gainsbourg/Lee Hazelwood/Jim Morrison/Scott Walker/Skip Spence/Ern Malley/Lenny Bruce of Australian music.
A genius songwriter with effortless presence and command, and yet also an invisible chameleon, a reflecting surface, an anonymous conduit.
Anyone who saw his and Clare Moore’s ATP sets last year will not want to miss these.
Dave is one of the all time greats. I learned much of what I know from him. Rock and Roll is where he hides”. Stewart Lee

"Just a quick note to say how much I’m loving the new album. Front-loaded with hits, and then a series of great band workouts. Superb.
Can’t decide which version of ‘Song of Life’ I like best. And ‘ULTRAKEEF' is a bloody classic. Am spreading the word on that clip.
And surely you’re catching up to - and have maybe even overtaken - Mark E. Smith in terms of output! Congrats, yet again".
Tony.
"Dave Graney gave me his new album Zippa Dee Doo whatis-was that-this. I saw the Mistly perform 'ultra keef' at one of the those marvellous Croxton Sunday arvo gigs. Fell in love with it and asked him if I could record it. Ending up recording a bit on the album, Dave mixed it. So many great f words on this track, very cathartic. A story about keef, everytime I've seen him play it the lyrics are different, genious".
Idge (Soundpark)

"Had this on high rotation today whilst driving from one place to another and back again. It’s a fantastic and thought provoking unique new album from Dave Graney and the mistly. A whole bunch of truly original well played weird, whack and wonder existentialist outsider art with the usual dash of wit and humour- oh and I can’t stop singing the hit song over and over in my head, “Bam! Baby I wish I’d been a better pop star” - excellent work guys - love it!- congrats".
andy jans brown
 
Dave Graney and Clare Moore CD Let's Get Tight available at iTunes and Bandcamp now.
"* #EzRepost @coiledsprings with @repostigapp
I can’t forget the bill that hot night at the Palace in St. Kilda many years ago…The show opened with a guy called Dave Graney, the song and dance man, the loveable rogue, ‘the love rustler’ with his Coral Snakes, and the serene Clare Moore keeping everything together in the back. Then the Cruel Sea shambled onstage with Tex Perkins, tearing a hole in the night, a bellowing, rancid Lizard King in a ripped Jaws t-shirt. Finally, the Bad Seeds, with Cave mounting the fold-back, capes flowing in an impossible wind, like some perverse southern gothic evangelist, braying to the raptured who were already certain to be damned, and didn’t care. The Palace heaved that night with sweat and obscenity. And we were right there, in Melbourne, at the molten core of the rock world, drinking in the magma. Not even a thousand beers as we poured out of there, and drifted over the tram tracks to the Esplanade, could calm us down and quell the charge. But it was the unstoppable Graney, in his natty jumpsuit, with his wit, and his ways, dipping into the slow chords of ‘Night of the Wolverine’, that we knew we’d found a poet, whose lines were etched like the statue of Carlo Catarni outside and had announced himself, that night, there and then, as a put-down-your-glassss superstar. xo
HandSolo
#davegraney #nightofthewolverine #recollections #thepalace #stkilda #melbournerocknroll #thecruelsea #nickcaveandthebadseeds #coiledspringsstudio“

I am still keen on getting another album out this year. Pretty much finished it but but just need some time to polish it right. The songs are evil.

I am also keen on doing some Parlour Shows. This is an agency/app where people apply to have me come and play at their place. I've done about three and have another coming up. All have been wildly different leaps into the unknown. It's a way for me to get out of pubs and clubs and play in different environments.  I don't really mind the honky tonks- its just the "robogig" mentality of a lot of them. All set up and run according to some music business course rules and too often the artist has to do all the heavy lifting to get people along.
Basically , with PARLOUR, a person applies via the website and offers to host a show and to organize to get 40-50 people along and I turn up and play. The person then gets the people to all chip in for the guaranteed  fee.
If its in Victoria I can come and play with my guitar and a mic through my amp, you don't need a PA. Elsewhere, we could work around that. I might just play totally acoustic or you could organize a small PA.
So far I have played at a  winery in an old shearing shed, someones back porch (with PA system and lights and opening act in front of a  seated audience) and someones back yard.
I'm interested in ideas in all states and if you live in another country? Why not? 

ZIPPA DEEDOO Melbourne launch Sunday afternoon May 26th Northcote Social Club

Well I wasn't expecting that election result. Like everybody, even the feckin' Prime Goose Minister.
Quite flat and dumbfounded. Like a lot of people.
How a rabble like that could get elected ? Half the front bench had jumped ship and the other half were in witness protection.

Oh there was that fat mining magnate who has had billboards all over the country - mystifyingly - for the last year or two and who is said to have dropped $80 million dollars advertising on his bogus United Australia Party who had candidates everywhere (but nowhere). Turns out he didn't win anything. Not a  single seat. But all his preferences went from disaffected Liberals back to that same party.

And his campaign was not really to win a  seat but to wreck Labours platform, get the LNP back in and perhaps..... whatever he likes from then on. A green light for fatso.

I was getting his ads on the front screen of my phone every day.

And the big issue was Climate Cange and the boil that couldn't be lanced was the proposed Adani Coal mine in Queensland. And the fat man is a coal miner.

At the last election the PM Malcolm Turnbull donated $1 million to the LNP campaign, buying himself - just- into office again.

This was the mining industry again.

I can't listen to any of the washup- reflections by the media. Nobody can say "I told you so" with this one.

The joint has been wrecked and more wreckage is promised. It's all they have got.

I was home alone and walked down to vote in the afternoon, a beautiful Autumn day. At around 7pm I turned on the television and watched for a while but started to feel queasy and turned it off again and did some work in the studio. I recorded two songs and came back at 11pm and it was all over.

Woke up at about 4am with a feeling of dread. I spoke to my neighbour the next afternoon and she was the same. Dread. It was our TRUMP-BREXIT moment. That bad.

Now it's Monday and the first idle 100 days of the new government begin. They hardly met all year due to them having to hide as they lacked the actual numbers in the house to resist and calls for legislation. they had to hide away. So many scandals. ......

I am finding it very difficult to listen to the ABC at all. I feel they gave the LNP such a sweet ride.
Melbournes Jon Faine excepted. He is leaving and doesn't seem to care about the corporation line anymore. Consequently, few LNP people appeared on his show.

ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS?

Suits the moment hey? The title comes from the track, SONG OF LIFE. I wrote the words from a  perspective of lying in a  hospital bed (thats where I was). I was thinking that that is where you come into this world (if you're lucky) and that is how you leave it (if you are lucky).

Our shows continue, including our Melbourne launch Sunday afternoon May 26th at the Northcote Social Club. Doors open at 1:30 and David Cosma starts proceedings.

Friday May 24th - Tanswells Commercial Hotel - Beechworth (Graney and Moore)

Sunday May 26th - Northcote Social Club (afternoon) ZIPPADEEDOO album launch show.
Special guest David Cosma. Doors 1:30pm.

Saturday June 1st - The Railway Club Darwin (Graney and Moore)
Saturday June 15th-Major Toms, Kyneton(Graney and Moore)

Friday June 21st the Bison Bar, Nambour.

Saturday June 22nd- Sunday June 23rd - the Bearded Lady, Brisbane.Special guests THE STRESS OF LEISURE

Saturday June 29th - The Caravan Music Club - Bentleigh Special guest Sean McMahon

July 12th - THE GOV - Adelaide.Special guests The Sunday Reeds

"You can dip in almost anywhere into the vast Graney catalogue and find something deeper and more satisfying than the pop fizz of the day. But if you are starting out, this album and attending a Graney gig on an extensive Australian tour in the next few months is an excellent place to begin".
Noel mengel - MusicTrust.com

Mid ZIPPA DEEDOO tour notes

We played a Wednesday night at the Brass Monkey in Cronulla. This is in "The Shire". Sutherland Shire. Sydney people know that as a signifying area. They are sensitive to it. Outsiders (like us Melbourne freaks) can't tune into it so sharply.
The local member is the leader of the Liberal Party, Scott Morrison. Evangelist tool.
Its a cool downstairs venue in a shopping strip right near the train station. It would have been right in the thick of it when the riots happened in 2005.
That would have been a rough time for one of the owners, Jad, as he is a Lebanese Australian.
Sydney is great for small venues in the suburbs, Melbourne has nothing like it.
They present music all week and the food is amazing.
It was a quiet night- a Wednesday - and Clare Moore and I played a set with guitars, percussion and keys. (At  most of these shows we played LETS KICK THIS MOB OUT from Lets Get Tight and it was great to do it in ShowMos backyard.)
Jodi Phillis had gotten in touch and came down from Wollongong to do an opening set. Her music is stunning and her skills as writer, guitar player and singer are of the highest quality. Her latest album is called Becoming and it is superb.



We sat around with Jad after we played.  We have been performing at the venue since it opened in 1999 and the same sound man, Anthony, has been there all along. Jad was being very amusing talking about his parents coming out from Lebanon and going back there every now and again. (Sounded like the Sopranos episode of the American Italians going back "home") He was talking about racist dills going on about Lebanese people being muslim when the population is largely christian. It made me think of my own primary school days at a  Catholic institution (correct word) in Mt Gambier which had many Lebanese christians. Ethnicity was not somthing we were at all in a  constant state of wariness and anxiety about. He said they were Phonecians and I asked if that was TROY and had he ever read The Iliad? He hadn't but I thought it would be quite interesting to read such a classic if you were on the "other" side of the story. With Paris and Hector, Priam and Aeneas.

The next day we were joined by Stu Thomas and played with drums, bass and guitar at the Bunker in Coogee. Again, another suburban gig on a weeknight. You would be hard pressed to find one in Melbourne.

This is a great venue which we have also played  before. We did two sets. We had driven to Sydney with Clares Tama kit, my Crate acoustic amp and two guitars and a Roland Cube for Stu.  With these humble, workhorse boxes, drums and cymbals, we made show. two sets 
A lot from ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? and some songs from FEARFUL WIGGINGS and LETS GET TIGHT. Several songs from our 90s period and some requests from the audience. People were sat in front of us at tables and chairs and it sounded great to me. Lindy Morrison and Amanda Brown from teh Go Betweens were in attendance so my song Everything Was legendary With Robert had their ears humming. I presumed or hoped .

The next night we were at Lazybones which is in Marrickville. A wild night life kind of place. The owner told me it was the only venue in the entirety of Sydney to present music seven nights a week. Maybe he was right.  He also told me it had been visited by police 40 times in the previous year, just to go over rules and regulations to do with the entertainment licence they have to have in Sydney.
Clare Moore is often advancing the opinion that there is some kind of campaign against music in cities and on radio. (Melbourne having more sports radio than oldies stations for instance)

We played two sets here, using the clubs backline drumkit and bass amp. I used my Crate amp. Its a great model made for acoustic guitars and  I use a Sansamp when I play my electric through it to get the right amp tones. I am playing my KYairi 12 string and my Ibanez Salvador archtop. When using the archtop I have the Sansamp on, as well as a Janglebox compression pedal. I use a Maxon Tube Screamer for light overdrive and a Tech21 XXL for super fuzz. Also a Tremolo pedal I bought in London in 1990. (It is so very battered and works on only 1 of 4 settings).
People travelled from Newcastle and the Central Coast to the show. A woman called out for ULTRAKEEF during the entire first and second set until we played it. Requests included Three Dead passengers In A Stolen Second hand Ford and The Birds And The Goats.

The next day we played an early (6pm) show at the Metro Social in Katoomba. A sold out room with seated audience and a small stage. We played a few different songs tonight, from Hashish And Liquor and You've Been In My Mind. This venue is a part of the Metropole Guesthouse near the Katoomba Railway station. Run by Fusion Boutique Presents which is mainly a dynamo called Charity. The Australian music scene needs a few dozen more of her. Totally owns her patch and does everything so well. With a toddler in tow.
I ran into old mate James Scanlon who lives in the Blue Mountains. A free man who has never owned a phone. We occasionally exchange correspondence via letters. He was once in the Craven Fops and The Ghost Of Charlie Couzens.  (Also once of a segment on Andrew Dentons tv show)

Requests at this show included Brass Buttons (Gram Parsons cover we did in 1989) , Warren Oates, Feelin Kinda Sporty and You're Just Too Hip, Baby.

 

 We drove back to Sydney and then made our way to Dangar Island the next day. This involved a Sunday morning drive through Sydney on Mothers Day to the freeway leading to Newcastle but getting off early at a  train station called Brooklyn and then onto a boat skippered by our friend and agent Steve Griffiths. There are no cars on the island so we carried a guitar each and some bags a short distance to the "venue" which was  a patch of grass outside the Bowling Club where people lay around with each other and their children in the midday sun. (The whole week in Sydney was quite beautiful Autumn weather).

Dangar Island is one of many "islands" on the Hawkesbury River.  Very interesting mix of people. Rich and bohemian. Owners and renters. People commuting to the train station and then teh city on little tin boats. people fishing in the salt water and houses with lawns running down to the rivers edge.

 

Stu Thomas, Clare Moore and Steve Griffiths

We ate another fantastic vegetarian meal and  played two sets of music. The drumkit, bass amp and guitar amp were upllied by the venue. My amp was a tweed Fender Deluxe Reverb. Every time I play one of those I realize I must have one.

Requests included Rock 'n' Roll Is Where I Hide and Flash In The Pantz. There were a lot of children about so I slurred the word FUCK in Gloria Grahame and subsituted "blow you", "Darn you" "Damn you" and "flick you" for "FUCK YOU" which is most of the words and all of the point in ULTRAKEEF. Nobody died. This is an entirely volunteer run venue and was the third time we had visited the island. We drove back to Sydney and had a dinner party with relatives.

 

Poor Clare Moore- she actually hates guitars and is surrounded here. 

The next day we left Sydney early as Clare Moore had an 8am gig on Tuesday morning in Melbourne. We drove down the Hume Highway and stopped in a couple of places we haven't seen up close in many years, Jugiong and Euroa. The weather continued to be delightful. It helped, as it was  a twelve hour drive to our door. The van was jammed with stuff and could not really go past 110kmh but I have a  bad feeling I may have collected a robo speeding fine somewhere past Gundagai.

Our shows continue, including our Melbourne launch Sunday afternoon May 26th at the Northcote Social Club. Doors open at 1:30 and David Cosma starts proceedings.

Friday May 24th - Tanswells Commercial Hotel - Beechworth (Graney and Moore)

Sunday May 26th - Northcote Social Club (afternoon) ZIPPADEEDOO album launch show.
Special guest David Cosma. Doors 1:30pm.

Saturday June 1st - The Railway Club Darwin (Graney and Moore)
Saturday June 15th-Major Toms, Kyneton(Graney and Moore)

Friday June 21st the Bison Bar, Nambour.

Saturday June 22nd- Sunday June 23rd - the Bearded Lady, Brisbane.Special guests THE STRESS OF LEISURE

Saturday June 29th - The Caravan Music Club - Bentleigh Special guest Sean McMahon

July 12th - THE GOV - Adelaide.Special guests The Sunday Reeds

"You can dip in almost anywhere into the vast Graney catalogue and find something deeper and more satisfying than the pop fizz of the day. But if you are starting out, this album and attending a Graney gig on an extensive Australian tour in the next few months is an excellent place to begin".
Noel mengel - MusicTrust.com

Live On Stage Peace And Quiet

 

 I've been walking around all day wondering what would happen if you actually started to say what you really thought. I mean, I'm always thinking of my life as a musician. I read books and see old albums from the golden years. There was a time when players just played, people came and took film of them as they played and critics talked of their technique.
Now there is a terrific load of admin for any player to take care of. So much.
So many idiots. So little time. I mean, they take up your time and memory. Like operating systems updating with builders bog constantly. Spakfilla in our minds. We are on zombie time.  Apps run the scene. Like tails wagging mice... or  something.
Where could anybody get those 10,000 hours in the first place? The days spread so thin.

I could be dead by now/ it’d be all over/you could be on your fourth or fifth
I blew it baby! I screwed up! when it was time to shine I wasn’t shiny
I should’ve stayed on message/ I shoulda repeat myself/ repeat
I shoulda known it was on!
baby I wish I’d been a better popstar

 Very tense and grinding time of it with this Australian election. So many gears crunching. The governing LNP is so bad that half the front bench has already run away or retired to spend more time with their poor families. The other half are in disgrace. The Queenslanders abuse the Victorians.
The national broadcaster has been bashed around so much by the Murdochian atmospherics we all swim in that they only know one mode - to desperately show to their masters that they are not biased. To do this they skew to the hard right constantly.
The Labor Party is treated as an illegitimate interloper. Socialist to boot.
I have a lefty friend air raiding me with texts about how the two major parties are both right wing. probably true but one is totally hard right and downright evil and the other is not.
Rupert Murdoch orders one around and not the other.
I would rather not have the LNP in power. They are the worst.
Our local seat is Casey since  the boundaries were redrawn. The sitting member is the speaker of the house, Tony Smith. An IPA graduate. If you don't know what the IPA is, you're lucky. They are a "think tank" who tell the LNP what their policies are. They are a tax free institution who provide talking heads for most ABC radio and television shows. They do not divulge their major donors though it has been tobacco and mining companies- including Gina Rinehart. Anything cuntish, basically. They believe in the Free Market above all.  One of their top brains, John Roskam went on to the ABC show Q and A and spoke of how "work makes you free". They worked tirelessly to try and get the anti racial vilification laws relaxed and want the ABC itself to be privatized. They are the shittest of shit stirrers. Sui Shitted Shit heads. All Shits and no giggles. Shithouse shitbirds of the lowest order. Shit. Itself.
The local Labour member is on Facebook only and is pretty grassroots. I hope he cuts through.
The seat we used to be in , Latrobe, will hopefully swing to Labour. The sitting LNP member is a former cop who did his best to stir up anti African gang hysteria. He was one of the main backers in teh leadership spill for the other former copper, Peter Dutton. 

meet everybody by the age of ten/ you search for those cats again
all your life/ faces in the street/you put ‘em to that lens
try everything on in your teens even though so much is down to your jeans
never knew such plenty in your twenties/ get real sentimental in your thirties
get awful mean in your forties/ get even better in your fifties
then you better find somethin’ else to do
song of life
ZIPPA DEEDOO what is/was that/this? 

 Yeah sometimes it seems the smart people got out years ago. The musicians are still cool. They just get shoved out of the way by the layers of middle apps people. Weird times. PR abounds with so little media available. Zombie media. The content is the last thing to be considered. Its more to do with the flash. In the 90s the music biz was full of people just slumming it on the way to work in films. I don't know what the motivation is now.

Fuck you day /fuck you time of day
fuck you breakfast/fuck you food/
fuck you mealtime/fuck you bedtime
fuck you Dartford/fuck you London
fuck you England/fuck you France 

 I read a book about the year 1922. That was the year that James Joyce's Ulysses was published as well as TS Eliots The Wasteland. Also, Satchmo moved from New Oleans to Chicago to kickstart jazz for real. It was a pretty inspiring period. (Though I tried Ulysses last year and put it down in exasperation after 400 pages). The text of teh 1922 book went through the year day by day. Others in the yearbook include Wyndham Lewis, F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Graves, Nijinsky, Lenin (he died), Jean Cocteau, Andre Breton, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Harry Crosby, Igor Stravinsky, Diaghilev, TE Lawrence, DH Lawrence (In Australia where he wrote Kangaroo), Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Mussolini, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd.

Gloria Grahame/manifest/manifestly/manifesto/
Nicholas Ray/take off your eye patch/give us a spray/Nicholas Ray
I got this gun in your eye/I got this gun in your eye/fuck or die 

 Yes, all this admin. You always had to be part politician to be a musician but now more than ever. You have to abide by the rules of general play. No horse-play! Actually no play at all!
Look at the sorts of music tv shows we've had in Australia. Very popular and repeated constantly. Just shows for parlour tricks and games. Musicians brought down to earth to trivialize themselves. There was a recent attempt on tv last year and that suffered from it a lot too. Even though it had live performances from young players. I know there are no soundstages to record tv shows any more but this was set in a kind of domestic situation and it was really hard to distinguish the players from the audience. I found it a way of levelling out the performance just too much. The players need to be isolated to shine.

Your masters must be pleased with you/your superiors must be happy/
you’ve explained us to them/takin’ care not to identify yourself with us
you know they’ll never let you in 

 Clare Moore and I are almost finished album number two for 2019. We are still getting ZIPPA DEEDOO out but we've got the songs and I just feel like going at the pace of creativity rather than any idea of proper music marketing. We could probably have another finished before the end of the year. If you got it - get it out! This next one is just Clare Moore and myself and has about twelve songs almost finished. Songs like Old Friends, You Cant Have Your Boogie, I'm Not Just Any Nobody, Et Tu Doudou, You've Been In My Mind, When The Weird Cant Get Goin', Finally I Come Clean, Hell Is You Babe and others.. I'm very happy with it.

the man from the museum was passin’ through town/he said “I ain’t comin’ in unless I get it in print
that you’ll be doin’ what you did/is that what you did?Is that what you did?
should I know? I just gotta know
is that what you did?this thing that you’re doin’?is that it?
I just gotta know

 I did another Parlour show and had a good time. A house in Mt Eliza. I played on the back verandah with my guitar and mic running through my amp. I'm keen to do these shows so hook me up if you want. I quite like the aspect of it not being in the area of organized music entertainment. Pubs and clubs. If you're in driving distance from Melbourne I can come with my amp. If you're a flight away, we'll work something else out. You go to the Parlour site, apply and then sort out your friends and the place. You need to agree to have about 40-50 friends pay around $30 for a performace and we agree on a time.Click on this image to go to the site.

where’s my buzz?

I walked in here/like I rolled/my head was tight/my tongue was thick/my eyeballs were warm and full

my voice was burred/where’s my buzz?

 Yes, whats a songwriter in Australia? Show me one? Yes, that fellow. Indubitably. Are there any others? Ok, whats a song? What's in a song? How long should it be? How should it finish? Aren't there courses on this stuff in school? Who teaches? Players who couldn't stomach the game any more?
Yes they have courses and blowhard apps people talking about the importance of emotion and inspiration. They all namedrop Dylan but none mention the Brill Building.
What do we get? Buskers is what we get. Desperate emotive mimics. Not just an Australian phenonemon, look at Ed Sheeran.

You’re all wrong/just you/not everybody/but all of you/you’re all wrong

I see a spectrum under you/that’s a nice way of sayin’ you’re on it/you’re all wrong 

 Oh, I am so much looking forward to these shows we are doing. Just getting in the van and setting up and playing. Thank fuck music is still there and still accessible. Getting on stage and playing is just such a  sweet spot to be in. Some peace and quiet.

Wednesday 8 May - Brass Monkey Cronulla (Graney and Moore with special guest Jodi Phillis)
Thursday 9 May - The Bunker Coogee
Friday 10 May - Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville
Saturday 11 May - Metro Social, Katoomba
Sunday 12 May - Dangar Bowlo.NSW

Friday May 24th - Tanswells Commercial Hotel - Beechworth (Graney and Moore)

Saturday June 1st - The Railway Club Darwin (Graney and Moore)
Saturday June 15th-Major Toms, Kyneton(Graney and Moore)

Sunday May 26th - Northcote Social Club (afternoon) ZIPPADEEDOO album launch show.w/ David Cosma

Friday June 21st the Bison Bar, Nambour.
Saturday June 22nd- Sunday June 23rd - the Bearded Lady, Brisbane.
Saturday June 29th - The Caravan Music Club - Bentleigh w/ Sean McMahon

July 12th - THE GOV - Adelaide. w/ the Sunday Reeds

 

original hand drawn art by Tony Mahony in a frame.