Hey whatcha been doin?

Hey whatcha been doin'?

Well just hangin' around the house really. Like everybody else in the entire world.

Since early March. A weekly visit to the shops, a short drive away. Reading books, watching some long form tv series. Some old and some new. Scrolling through social media. Waiting for the daily press briefing from the Victorian State Premier and health officer. (There has been a bad spike in Melbourne Covid infections. Either a second wave or the actual real first wave).

Cooking more variety of food than ever in my life. The first lockdown was in late Summer/Autumn so seemed a little easier. This second one has been a winter experience. We have gas heating but also a fireplace so for May and June I was just burning wood that was laying around our block. Fallen tree branches and some logs from a tree trunk that we had had cut up. Lots of bark and stray bits of wood. Then we had to buy some firewood. Hard wood and red wood is about $120 for half of a square metre. There are quite a few places out on the highway. Otherwise the service stations 12 kilo sell bags for about $12.

The places that sell wood also sell mulch and stone and decorative pebbles. The people who work there are tough as the work they do.

My daily clothes have consisted of a few items. Several layers of shirts, jumper and jacket, scarves, socks and boots.

We have played a bit of chess and kept up with physical exercise.

Our weekly shows via Stage It have been  a great focus for us. We have been playing every Thursday night at 8pm AEST and have also been doing every second Sunday morning at 7AM to make a show happen 10 PM Saturday  in the UK/ Euro zone. The latter shows have been really enjoyable as I had not ever experienced performing at that early hour. It is like a being in a half dreamy or softly drugged state. Very enjoyable! Though it destroys us for the rest of the day which we spend wandering about in a jet lagged fog.

The shows are live and there is no facility to record or watch it back. We endeavour to play a different set each week using vibes, keys, guitars, melodica, autoharp and rhtyhm machine. Whatever is needed. So far we have played roughly 73 songs of mine...

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (2000)

Song Of Life (2019)

Where Did All the Freaks Go? (2019)

Be Sad For Me (2017)

Anchors Aweigh (2001)

Everybody Loves A Mass Killer (1997)

The Devil Drives (1997)

Drugs Are Wasted On The Young (2000)

Tuning Up (2020)

Mt Gambier Night (2012)

Answering Machine (2019)

The Brother Who Lived (2003)

Twilight Of A Villain (2003)

The Stuff That Night Is Made Of (2000)

Vengeance Is On It's Way (2000)

Night Of The Wolverine (1993)

I Need Some Scratch (2000)

A Woman Skinnies A Man Up (2014)

Midnight To Dawn (2003)

Chads Car (1981)

All Our Friends Were Stars (2003)

Everybodys Gone (2005)

A Man On The Make (1997)

Comrade Of Pop (2019)

My Schtick Weighs A Ton (2005)

Where's My Buzz? (2019)

Apollo 69 (1995)

The Birds And The Goats (1995)

Lifes a Dream (2012)

Bodysnatcher Blues (2009)

Baby I Wish I'd Been A Better Pop Star (2019)

Hell Is You, Babe (2019)

You've Been In My Mind (2019)

I Wanna Get Lost Again (2005)

Sometimes You can See Yourself (2005)

I Will Always Hate You (2001)

I Will Have Always Been Here Before (2001)

Ruperts Pets Grave (2017)

Are You Out Of Your Mind? (2017)

Your Masters Must Be Pleased With You (1999)

Lets Live Properly (2005)

We Don't Belong To Anybody (2011)

You Need To Suffer (1993)

We Need A Champion (2012)

You're All Wrong (2019)

Saturday Night Bath (2005)

Everything Was Legendary With Robert (2014)

Have You Heard About The Melbourne Mafia? (2000)

You Put A Spell On Me (2000)

Finally I Come Clean (2019)

Blues Negative (2012)

They Wanted To Be Players (1999)

I'm A Comander (1999)

Lt Colonel Cavalry (1999)

Only The Stoned (2005)

Am I Wearing Something Of Yours? (1999)

That's Frankies Negative (1984)

Ultrakeef (2019)

The Stars, Baby, The Stars (1994)

Eye O' The Vibe (2001)

Where The Trees Walk Downhill (1980)

Clinging To the Coast (2001)

You Need A Kleek, Klook (2017)

I Ain't Hi Vis (2017)

Are We Goin' Too Fast For Love? (2001)

Playin' Chicken (2012)

I Need To Be Hot (2017)

Matey, From On High (2017)

I'm Not Just Any Nobody (2019)

Flash In The Pantz (2012)

This Is the Deadest Place I've Ever Died In (2017)

You Can't Have Your Boogie (2019

Runaway (1983)

And we have done these 22 songs by other artists,

My Foolish Heart (Bill Evans-John McGlaughlin- Billy Eckstine and many others)

Theme From Midnight Cowboy (John Barry)

Time Waits For No One (Rolling Stones)

High Coin (Van Dyke Parks - Charlatans- Jackie De Shannon)

We May Never Love Like This Again (Maureen McGovern)

Clang Of The Yankee Reaper (Van Dyke Parks)

Diamonds Fur Coat Champagne (Suicide)

Lowdown (Boz Scaggs)

Hyacinth House (Doors)

So You Wanna Be A Rock N Roll Star (Byrds)

Baby I'm A Want You (Bread)

Walkin' On The Water (John Fogerty- Richard Hell)

Walk On Water (Kevin Ayers)

Alabama Bound (Charlatans)

In A Misty Morning (Gene Clark)

Midnight Rider (Allam Brothers)

Taboo (Arthur Lyman - Martin Denny)

Black Stick (The Cruel Sea)

You're Gonna Miss Me (Thirteenth Floor Elevators)

The Dolphins (Fred Neil - Tim Buckley)

Sweet Surrender (Tim Buckley)

Parchman Farm (Mose Allison)

I must pay credit to Clare Moore for learning this amount of material, when she mainly knew them as a drummer. Learning all the chords and arrangements to play them on vibes, keys or melodica has been amazing. (I am really terrible at learning material other than my own). She also really stepped up with the tech by getting her small keyboard to work via midi with a digital mellotron via an aged ipad, no mean feat to do any of that but degree of difficulty with old operating sytems and recalcitrant apps is HIGH!) . There has also been the wrestling with Dropbox to access rhythm tracks we have gravitated to working with.

The first month or so of shows (March) were stressful and occasionally glitchy but since we have had the NBN the upload has been great and sound and vision work perfectly. The sets go for 50 minutes and people "talk" to us and each other in the text area of the sscreen.  They are quite social occasions.

It has been really great for us. A highlight of the week.

Our next show is Thursday 8pm AEST show. This will be our 25th hit out. Here is a ticket link for Thursday August 6th. The cost is basically Five Dollars American (though you can pay more). When I use the platform I use Paypal.

WE are also playing another UK-Euro timesone show August 15th/16th.

 

This image contains a photo by Bleddyn Butcher and elements or graphic art by David Western from an illustration he did for us in 1988.

Otherwise we have an album at Bandcamp and Apple Music (and elsewhere) August 7th. Its is a 17 track collection from a  tour we did in Europe and the UK in 2017, myself and Clare Moore with Georgio "the dove"Valentino and Malcolm Ross. I will write more on it in a separate blog. It is a great recording and is the second of three "from the vaults" releases we have planned for this year. (It follows the album Clare and I did with Robin Casinader - IN CONCERT- which came out in May).

This one is called Dave Graney and Clare Moore with Georgio "the dove"Valentino and Malcolm Ross.

Here is a link to pre order it for $10 Australian at Apple Music.

Here is a link to pre order it at Bandcamp.

The artwork was done by Matthew Robertson from Bath in the UK who had worked on the imagery as a tour poster.

I made a clip for a song from the album. Clare and I did our parts in our Melbourne studio, Malcolm Ross did his in Leith, Scotland and Georgio did his in Athens, Greece.

The song is WE NEED A CHAMPION and the audio comes from a show at the Betsey Trotwood in London.

These album releases have been supported by the City of Melbourne COVID-19 Arts Grants.

Thank you!

davegraney.com