Generations - Mic Conway . Where Did ALL The Freaks Go?

 

I did a few narrative style shows at the Butterfly Club in the early 2000s. 

It’s a small theatre showroom that used to inhabit a Victorian house in South Melbourne and has now flown into town where it has landed inside a narrow four storey building that fronts onto Collins street between Swanston and Elizabeth. Incredibly, the rent is cheaper in the new address!

There are several bars across several levels. A bit of a carnival fantasy world, all sense of direction is lost as soon as you enter the building, (through an alleyway off of Little Collins street). The building is full of all sorts of bric a brac – books and stuffed animals and old 78 record players as well as board games and posters of everybody from Schwarzenegger to George V.  A great joint. (The owners transported  a lot the items to the new location via the tram that goes straight down Clarendon street into Collins street in the city) 

My third show (Early Folk. It folllowed POINT BLANK and LIVE IN HELL) was an experiment in early opening. A 6pm start and I was greatly heartened by the public’s appreciation of the idea. Big, sophisticated cities need early entertainment options! Screw all that dumb diehard rock’n’roll bullshit! Go to a show and then walk outside at 8pm to decide what to do next! A game of squash? Why Sure?! A sauna? Yes please! Dinner and a late movie? Do it!

The club is still a bit of a secret to people who tread the familiar paths to established venues which operate at regular times. (Not that the club closes early- it has several different shows most nights and loves any kind  late night loosening of people minds)  I mean to say its hard to find out about it and what goes on in there. During my run there I espied a performer of interest to me who was coming down from Sydney to do a rare Melbourne show. It was Mic Conway who, decades ago , entered the straying public consciousness as the long haired but deep voiced singer of The Captain matchbox Whoopee Band. A true troupe of freakish brothers from the wilder depths and shores of underground Melbourne music and performance. they crossed boundaries and all manner of manners as to what an act could be doing and saying. Not that I ever saw them perform- just a mere glimpse of them destroying the joint that was the tv show COUNTDOWN one Sunday evening. Even then , they may have been past their prime, things moving much quicker in the world of entertainment in those days.  (By way of illustration, I heard the drummer of Metallica talking about Creams drummer Ginger Baker in a  film called “beware Mr Baker” and he said that Creams entire career lasted two months less than his bands last tour….) Luckily, I had seen them via an even earlier ABC show called GTK which transmitted their true freakdom to the bush and the far cities in a  very sensitive manner) 

 

So on the Sunday following my own season I sat down with Clare Moore to watch Mic do a show in the same room, on the other side of the footlights.

The Butterfly Club showroom fits roughly 80 people and is run like a small theatre. Very formal. An usher walks through the bars and lounges ringing a bell to signify the show is to start and people take their seats- no latecomers allowed!

Given the room is so small, many performers opt to work without a microphone at all- singing straight into the room. Even though its small, this can be very demanding on a performers pipes and they must choose the material carefully. Mic came out with his accompanist, Rob “daddy long legs” Long, on archtop electric guitar and began the show. He used no microphone. Mic used no mic-  just Mic!

His voice is a classic, rich and deep and sonorous. they began the show.

I once read a book about the legendary star Louise Brooks and she talked about how it was a shame no film ever really captured the comic genius of WC FIELDS because they didn’t show his whole body. She had worked with him a lot on the stage and said he was comic in the totality of his movement. His face and his voice were funny but the whole package was the best. He moved funny.

Mic Conway has this. His clothes are perfectly dusty and the collar all skew whiff and drunk. A cummerbund, a funny hat to begin. His side of the stage was like a shop and he kept diving into the pile of props and bags to bring out another marvel. We laughed from beginning to end. He does magic tricks and tells the corniest of gags and lays it all out, the show I mean, with the ease and timing of an absolute confidence man.

He played a parlour  sized steel guitar with Hawaiian dancers painted on the back and a ukulele. He put a harmonica rack around his neck which included a kazoo, several whistles, a couple of bird calls, and a jug as well as the harmonica. No turn was unstoned.

There were others in his generation, across many countries, who appeared in that counter cultural fog of the 60s and 70s. Tiny Tim and Robert Crumb to name a couple. They appeared among the freaks. People assumed they were put-ons or flim flam artists -  fakes. Time moved on and the freaky crowd settled down and these characters stayed the same. They were for real, that was the freakiest thing!

Robbie Long was the perfect accompanist, vamping on chords and licks as Mic pulled off elaborate sight gags and card tricks, pulled faces and joined in on the mad stories with yells and cries into the room. Absolutely magic entertainment skills. He played a  beautiful old archtop through a tiny Vox amp. Splendidly.

Mic drew on songs from Bing Crosby’s early repertoire “street of dreams” , Tom Lehrer “masochism tango” and Marlene Dietrich “illusions” as well as the beautifully sophisticated and bitter sweet “paper moon”. He played a song called “lets incorporate” and mentioned it was from “the last depression- nobody heard it then – I don’t know why- I’ve only ever liked stuff nobody knows about…” He touched on songs from his Matchbox past with “my canary has circles under his eyes”, explaining it was a song from the twenties when people gave marijuana to their pet birds! 

 

The whole show was a display of skills in every area. Then there was the innate charisma and persona of the performer. It has struck me several times, seeing a player in front of a crowd where they have a sense of him or her in their minds before a word is uttered or a note is played. The performer is already there, walking across their minds. He had us moving with him from the beginning.

Mic moved through all these songs and changes. Hats and clothes and props and tricks. His voice stayed constant. He has an easy smile and world weary, hooded eyes. A light, knowing touch on every note. No heavy trips here. Sometimes he looked like the oldest entertainer in vaudeville, other times, he was a timeless hero from the youth of the known world. He was there with all this stuff before AC/DC and before Cold Chisel. Probably playing in the same joints.  He seriously has the blues. I mean that as the highest compliment. He seemed surprised but delighted this hammy stuff still worked. He liked it!, nobody else was supposed to! He smiled easily, like Nick Cave, from a long way away. 

 

 

They ended with “I don’t want to set the world on fire” and he apologized for the lack of fire eating and flame throwing. Regulations forbid it in the venue. He didn’t need the hell here. He played the room in a supersized, classic, pre electric mode. If you ever see him posterized as to an upcoming visit- see him! 

 

 

https://micconway.com/

 

Generations: Tony Cohen - Lets Get This Turkey In The Shops.

 

Tony Cohen was a recording engineer and one without many peers. Perhaps the last of his kind? A wild man and a gentle and peculiar person. I write from the position of having worked with him more than several times and been present at other sessions he was chairing. I also write from the position of having heard him and others tell the stories of where he came from and what he could do that no others could. I must stress that I don’t pretend to have known the whole man, but I saw and experienced that studio buzzed side of his life.

 

When I first started recording, it was a hideously expensive exercise and mostly the province of radio and television jingle production. The engineers were not in white coats but it would have been only a few years before that they would have had to have dressed just so. They were on one side and the musicians on the other. They didn’t explain themselves to the players and didn’t really like them to be in the control rooms. Australian studios (I soon learned) were many years behind those found in the UK and the USA (where music culture informed audio recording more than AM radio advertising aesthetics) . All the rooms here were covered in carpet to better isolate all the sounds. (To then be able to assemble them together again in more complete sterility). It was no place for freaks.

 

Tony Cohen was one of “us”. He had that image from working with bands in the underworld scene of Melbourne. The ones that connected with me (there were many others as he worked hard and long hours) were the Boys Next Door/Birthday Party and the Models and the Laughing Clowns. Everybody wanted his name on their records, the Go Betweens did their first album with him and my band the Moodists did a recording with him in 1982 in a midnight to dawn (using cheaper time) at his studio home ground  of the time, Richmond Recorders. We only had that short time and we came out with six tracks, recorded and mixed. Even then, Tony regaled us with war stories of working on Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs album MORE ARSE THAN CLASS when he was just starting out as a studio tape op. (A young apprentice whose job was to place mics, loop mic leads and make tea for a couple of years before being allowed behind the actual desk for a session). He talked of these giants striding into the session with boxes of 740 ml beers on their shoulders and staying up for days on end, husks of destroyed engineers being tossed in the corridor and another one chucked into the room - to their certain deaths. There was also the Doug Parkinson experience with young Tony falling asleep (somehow) under the desk and waking to see the big mans arse making lewd pumping motions in the carpeted darkness, plowing into some willing lover amidst overflowing ashtrays and empty bottles. Did I hear all this right? Tony was a great story teller. And a great story. Several people tried to get him to sit down and talk into a tape player. But he knew all the trickery of tape machines, didn’t he? People are trying to own him now but he was his own thing. He ruled that post punk scene but he came from a world of real experience in the pop and rock’n’roll worlds. Areas of extreme commerciality. As well as the Aztecs there was his work in 1977 with the Ferrets. They laboured for months on a multi-tracked epic debut album with Molly Meldrum yelling at one and all about the big bits and the loud bits and the need for something more here and there. The powers that were left the band with just Tony in the studio one day and their biggest hit “don’t fall in love” just happened. Billy Miller was the charming and handsome singer, aided by his two beautiful sisters, Pam and Jane and a cast of characters from the world of hustlers that was primo mid 70s Australian rock music. One of them was the late Ian Davis, who wrote – at least the words – for “Don’t Fall In Love”. I have only heard of him in legendary conversation. Far too wild for any “industry”. He seems to have spoken in a kind of Pentridge exercise yard argot with references to “dogs” and “maggots” that Tony always delighted in dropping explosively into conversation. (His conversations being commonly with a willing audience of private school alternative types).

I could list all the acts Tony worked with but I’m afraid I would only leave somebody out. He was a go-to man for most of the 80s and 90s. I use the term “worked with” as well because he didn’t really have whatever ego it took – or management – to get the title “producer” on many of the recordings he facilitated. He engineered and worked away at whatever sound he had in his brain. He was definitely pre digital. He worked less as music entered the pro tools, sound as visualized on a screen world of the late 20^th and early 21^st Century . (People just listened and stared at speakers and the desk before the computer screens came in with their easy graphic representations of sound files) It was mainly the speed and memory of early digital software that shat him. It couldn’t give him what he wanted at first, so he moved out of town and came back when the computers got better. When they could keep up with him. He knew all about mics and their  placement, reverb, delays and tape splicing. He was a shaman in the studio.

Perhaps a UK equivalent to him would be Martin Hannett (Joy Divison) who worked in Manchester in the same period as Tony hit his stride in Melbourne, or Guy Stevens, (though he seems to have been much more violent), producer of the Who, Procul Harum and Mott the Hoople. Guy was the man the Clash hired to make London Calling. A fellow people hired to give them some fire. Tony was expected to bring that too.

We worked with him in 1982 in the Moodists, then again in 1993 on a record with our band Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes called Night Of the Wolverine. Before he came to the studio, he worked on successive albums for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (Live Seeds) and the Cruel Sea (the Honeymoon is Over). Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds had gotten Tony in to remix an album called Henrys Dream the previous year which had been produced by American David Briggs. The record was missing something and they knew who to call. Tony had worked with Nick Cave and Mick Harvey in the Boys Next Door and the Birthday Party. For the Cruel Sea he was at the helm of an album when they had a large audience and a business waiting for something big from them. They’d developed slowly by themselves and were at such a creative swoon that someone really had to capture it. It was delicate, they were burning through stuff really quickly. Tony mixed and remixed parts of songs for days. He mixed with AM radio in mind, lots of treble and sizzle. He’d get into a state which would drive everybody out of the room, his hair all about his face, his hands and arms all over the desk like a spider or some greasy version of Richard The Third. Hunchbacked and scowling. He would turn inward and drive bands crazy – they’d walk out or begin to yell at him to get his attention. Or worse. But he got it down on tape.

 

He came to the studio after those two long and heated sessions. We had enough money for one day in Armstrongs studio (AAV) in South Melbourne. I was paying for it. We were there at about ten am. He might have arrived at 3 or 4pm, scowling still and growling under his hair at a business that was apparently running him into the ground. He rolled the chair out of the way as he always preferred to stand up at the desk. We were ready to pop ourselves and in the end, which is all that matters,  he got an amazing sound onto the tape. Yes it was still tape, and we watched with hearts in mouths one breathless moment as he slashed the actual multi track tape with his razor in one swift, sure blow and edited two halves of two different versions of a song into one – perfectly - and continued mixing. Chuckling as he clocked our discomfort. In the end I asked him for any directions as I was taking the tape to a mastering studio. (The final sweep across a finished mix which polishes a set of songs into the right sonic continuity and sequence). He just said to tell them not to touch it. So that’s what it was when it came out. The record has a strangely soft and dark sound to it – unlike any of Tony’s other sessions and maybe due to the pounding his ears had taken in the long sessions  leading up to it.

We worked with Tony again on the next album, “You Wanna Be there But You Don’t Wanna Travel”  (which made much more use of his talents with sounds and breaks and snare rimshots and guitar licks all given severe attention to make tracks like “I’m Gonna Release Your Soul” and “the stars, baby, the stars” pop right out of their natural states and come to new life, glistening and febrile on the record) and then again remixing a reissue of an  earlier live set called “Lure Of the Tropics”. He wasn’t really there for the latter, not in mind to begin with and then not in body as he nipped out for something at the shops and just didn’t come back. Of course we got mad at him for that sort of thing and swore never to work with him again but he was always a charming fellow to run into.

 

He loved to yell things like “Lets get this turkey in the shops!” (meaning lets finish this thing). Jim, Mick and Warren from the Dirty Three took that phrase from a Tony session into another studio with Steve Albini - who took it into a session with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page – who I am told had to stop and ask what was wrong with their session that it was being dubbed a “turkey” so casually.

 

For a while in the late 90’s he could be found invariably at an all night liquor stop in Windsor, near where he lived. He wasn’t the type to sit in a pub and didn’t really drink a lot. He just liked the atmosphere in the brightly lit bottle shop I guess. Someone said he had the demeanour of an eccentric ex British army type, though he was really all Australian. He took people as they came and didn’t give a damn for business or industry standing.

All the dark and dangerous sounding records he helped into the world will be his legacy, but he didn’t bring that darkness himself. He knew how to catch it and mix it right. But he was not at all gothic, dark or bluesy as a man. Well, perhaps when he was two or three days into fifteen seconds of a mix but that was when he’d gone into more of a sonic rabbit hole searching for that special something which Jimmy Page described to an impertinent interlocutor as “power, mystery and the Hammer of the Gods…..”

 

In a world littered with phony legends and generic icons, he was actually a unique, supremely talented and human being. 

Film maker Kerry Negara did this short piece on Tony in 1993. He smartened himself up with a  buttoned up shirt and tie for the occasion but his  mad spark shines through really well.

 

 

Further notes to the last blog in regard to Billy Miller.

 I wrote this after a special show Billy did in 2012.

 

This night was going to be an event cooked up by Billy Miller. An exceptional and highly individual player of music in Melbourne for many years. A soldier, an officer and a dude.

Billy Miller usually held court at the time down in the bottom bar of the old George hotel every Sunday with his band, the Love Brothers. They played on the floor. Callow indie musicians would have been killed by the ferocious, close fighting in that red brick room but Billy is highly skilled. Unlike most of his generation he is a pop player rather than a bluesman and can play anything at will and with great conviction. You could sit and marvel as he played the Kinks and the Stones and Michael Jackson and  Free and the Bee Gees with his son Eddie and John Annas and KD Firth and the entire crowd singing along. Hardly needs a  PA! Billy and KD were once in the Ferrets and they power through some of their own back catalogue. Billys our Alex Chilton.

By that I mean he’s always been into songs and pop music and never went down the road of roots and blues. “Rootless and toothless” as he calls that generic dead end. He began playing in the early 70s in a band called Buster Brown that morphed into Rose tattoo. Its not like he hasn’t hung with badass types. That band broke up on a trip (by train) to Perth and Billy had to make his fare back by busking Beatles songs. Shit was really real then. Beatle Billy! The Ferrets and Countdown era pop stardom came in time.

After the Ball, as they say, he’s been a player. I played with him and learned so much, mainly about conviction and how great it is to play with people who are UP for it. No sooks.

Tonight he was doing a set of songs based on the first gig he ever went to, Festival Hall in 1968 with Paul Jones (from Manfred Mann), The Small Faces and the Who. He had a crack band – James Black (from RockWiz) on keys, Bill McDonald on bass, John Annas on drums, Eddie Milller on guitar and guest vocals from Stu Thomas and Mick Pealing. It was Bills show though. Oh and it was also the Who and the Small Faces show. I used to turn my nose up at tribute bands years ago, but I then got to respect their hard-core showbiz attitude. It’s different if it’s an ongoing week after week things. In shows like that, all the weirdness usually gets shaved off and the basics are trotted out.  Then there is the phenomenon of bands getting back together. The Who themselves, came here in the early 2000s for a car race gig. “The Two” they were derisively called. A friend of mine, a guitarist from Sydney, made me think differently when he said he went to the show just “to see the man who actually write and played all that great stuff-play it!” It made me think that it was true, this stuff has lasted (mostly thanks to oldies radio) but it’s also worth hearing and people love it! What’s the problem? Ruth Rogers Wright, an English woman living in Melbourne, does an amazing Nina Simone show. It is difficult stuff to inhabit and pull off, for the players and the singer. She does it brilliantly well. Henry Manetta and the Trip did a Sun Ra show, complete with conga line of freaks chanting “Nuquelar War” as they weaved about the room. Again it was great to hear the music for real, being pushed out into a room by real people. Tex Perkins plays Johnny Cash as well as doing shows of country standards. Who couldn’t do that stuff any better? His amazing voice and his really demanding standards for any player who steps on a stage with him? People love it! Those songs are stone tablets!

So I was really looking forward to the show. Its valid to play music you love to people who wanna hear it!

Billy came on and did the Paul Jones songs first. “pretty flamingo”, “do wah diddy” and “the mighty quinn”. Bill plays a 1963 Strat that he makes absolutely sing. Battered and worn, he gets the cleanest sounds then power chords and works the tone constantly with the pots on the guitar, very few pedals. His voice is outstanding, getting all those screaming notes and totally controlling it. Screams ,squalls, melodies and mugging all present. They launch in to the Small Faces songs. “Itchy coo park”, “you really got a  hold on me” (a song he insisted they covered on the night in 1968) “sha la la la lee”, “natural born boogie”, “lazy Sunday afternoon”, an obscure b side “I’m only dreaming” and ending with the amazing “tin soldier”. It was beyond great to  hear. People were dancing crazily. Antique moves from back in the day. Led by the women first, as always.

A short break and they came back fro the Who set. A man with a shaved head and quite ordinary suit stood in front of me. As the chords to “substitute” rang out he began to move violently all by himself in the crowd. (The Whos music talks to men) .Making windmill guitar arm moves and riding the cymbals and clapping in a flamenco style. Stuff as hell. Not drinking at all. Song by song he first removed his coat, then tie, then shirt and ended the gig in a drenched old t shirt. The band played superbly, all the dynamics, harmonies, solos , key changes and other weirdly Who-specific  arrangements. “I can see for miles”, “I’m a  boy” “pictures of Lily” ,”magic bus”, “see me –feel me”. Stu Thomas added backing vocals, and percussion and trumpet and then sang lead for “Pinball Wizard”. People were absolutely loving it. Mick pealing sang “My Generation” (complete with arpeggiated bass solo from Bill McDonald), then they played a trio of amazing hard rock lessons in dynamics and arranged, delayed and suspended and released power. “Behind Blue Eyes”, “Baba O’Riley” (with the long synth introduction and violin solo by James Black) and an amazing “won’t get fooled again”. People know every note of these songs and Bill sang the hell out of them and made all those licks on the guitar totally happen. Nailed it all. Joy! “Won’t Get Fooled again” is so full of weird dynamic changes and vamps on a single chord. A song written and recorded by a band in their own world and at its very peak. The edge of their world. It was so exciting to hear. Within these songs you heard all sorts of other musics by people like the Rasperries and Big Star who totally tripped out on the 60s mod style.

Like a recital of music in the classical world, played by modern players who were still close to it. Outstanding experience.

 

Generations- Billy Miller

 

Billy Millers first exposure to showbusiness was with the Australian cast of the stage show "Jesus Christ Superstar" during the years 1972 to 1975. After this he played in "Buster Brown" (which also featured a pre Rose Tattoo AngryAnderson) for six months and then formed the Ferrets. This bands' debut single "Don't fall in love" was number one in the Australian charts for three weeks in 1977. An album, "dreams of a love" went gold and one further long player came the following year. Bill Miller fronted "the Great Blokes" from 1979 to 1983, then the Spaniards from 1983 to 1986 and then the Gypsies. Since then he has released the solo albums, "Yarraville",  "Victoria" “Elsternwick 69” and “Australia”. 

 

 

Bill is a superb guitar player, arranger and vocalist. He approaches music and life with a real sense of delight and play. I mean to say that he has his priorities and one of those seems to be that he doesn't look to be bummed out every time  he turns around a corner. He's tough and wiry and he's a complete joy to play with. He knows his nuts and his bolts. We first worked with Bill on a remix of a Dave  Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes single called "feelin kinda sporty". He was working with Andrew Duffield and Phil Kenihan on this project and ended up providing most of the backing vocals and guitar. Billy worked with Andrew and Phil in their South Melbourne studio which was at first in the same building as AAV or Armstrongs.  His job was to add musical touches to jingles for tv and radio. Guitar and vocals (and voices). Prior to that he had been working with his band "the Spaniards". Before that he'd worked with "the Great Blokes". During the pop years of the Ferretts Bill was a pop  star. Flanked by his two beautiful sisters. He was at the end of the popstar spectrum where it's good to be bad. Good-Bad. He knows what excess feels and tastes like. It's quite enjoyable actually. The Australian scene prefers its pop stars to be humble and thankful for the opportunity to briefly rise above the pack. I don't know for sure as I wasn't there but I can't imagine Bill playing that particular game quite that straight.

He played on and helped arrange the (1998) Dave Graney Show album and then Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Clare Moore’s solo album The Third Woman, Heroic Blues and The Brother Who Lived. We played all over Australia in many different situations and appeared on a mess of tv shows. He also played various residencies in Melbourne for decades.
After a while, due to economics, I started to do gigs as a four piece band. We still saw and worked with Bill when we could but didn’t tour anywhere outside Melbourne with him after a while.

 

He was excellent company with his stories of Tony Cohen and that kind of rock n roll skullduggery that was the norm before it all got to be too square and domesticated. Tony had this language that was really streetwise – or maybe even prison yard. He would yell out “dog!” and “maggot”. Tony had of course mixed the hit Don’t Fall in Love in a day (or less) while the producer Molly Meldrum had been working on the other tracks of The Ferretts album for more than a year. Turns out the words to the song had been written by this character called Ian Davis aka The Wood Duck. Not a musician or music world person – except for the extra curricular activities. A spirit animal type. He wrote the song with KD (Ken) Firth who had been in Tully. 

 

We would run into KD occasionally . A total bass player in his grim, earthy demeanour. He played in a band at a pub on the corner of High st and Chapel st but got banned from the venue so –for a short period- would fulfill his duties sitting on a chair outside the door, with beers being brought out to him during the lengthy sets. I could say more hilarious, gossipy things I heard about KD but it would be wrong of me to do so. It was all hearsay and I liked to believe it but I don’t want to stir anybody up. 

 

 

On our first trips outside Melbourne in the van (after the Coral Snakes period) we had Leanne as our front of house mixer, Adele on bass and Stuart Perera travelling and playing as a guitar player in a band for the first time. Adele had previously played with the Go Betweens. We were just driving and doing gigs and those three didn’t really know what to expect from me or Clare or each other or the audience. Bill was glad to be doing shows out of Melbourne for a change and enjoyed revisiting some places. One night, early on, Bill started to talk in hilarious detail in a pitch black van about many adventures in his experience of an Australian 70s rock n roll demi monde. It was hilarious and we all drove with faces aching from laughing at his grim tales. Highly improbable, law defying scrapes after scrapes. Loads of life spilling into the air. All the women fell in love with this thin rogue with a gold tooth and long black hair. Yes, Bill in many ways was a perfectly preserved specimen – of BillNESS. Nothing punk or new wave had touched him. He was pop. Also pirate rock’n’roll. I can’t repeat most of the stories as its his business but he did offer me a song to sing. he told me he had recorded it in the early 80s. It was called “Women In The Kitchen”. The chorus was the title alloyed with a hearty rejoinder – “make me feel alright!”. He told us it was released as a single but credited to the artist 481, which was his number in the clinic for sexually transmitted ailments which he was attending at the time. (More innocent affliction-more innocent time) He added that he knew another player at the time whom he would sometimes meet at the clinic and they forever addressed each other by their clinical numbers. Clinically friends, you could say. 

 

 

Billy works as a musician with a wide group of people. He recorded several albums with Stephen Cummings, writing and recording and arranging as well as playing guitar. He plays guitar – along with his son Eddie on bass- in the Stu Thomas Paradox. He also writes songs constantly and won an award for Song Of the Year in 2018 for a tune he co-wrote with Paul Kelly called Firewood and Candles. 

 

 It was quite lucky for me to make Bill acquaintance and to work with him. A very positive force in my life and quite inspirational. An amazing bunch of of talent for songwriting and performance and positivity. He throws himself into songs and life. A great character. "There's no retiring in this busness, Dave!"

In regard to the photo with Silverchair in last post.

 

So this is from 1995 at the ARIA awards. Silverchair had won Best Single for TOMORROW which was their first single, I think.

I was there to make the scene (The ARIAS scene) and had a job to present an award. It was an easy gig. We had our album the Soft N Sexy Sound out at teh time amnd we would work it all through the next year and I would win an ARIA for Best Male Artist at the 1996 awards.

I had been knocking around in the far fringes of underworld rock music since 1978.  We got to make all ourmistakes in dark rooms where there were few people. These kids were winning awards with their first single and album. They were teenagers, not allowed to be in pubs.

I think we shared a dressing room with them at the Big Day Out earlier in the year. It was at the Melbourne Showgrounds and our part of the room had a table groaning with sliced fruit and cheese and tubs of beer in cans and wine and vodka. Across the room, they sat with people I presumed to be their parents, a few bags of crisps and some soft drinks. 

We were playing in a smaller, enclosed area, not out in the big tents.  They went on before us and there were kids throwing themselves off of the surrounding sheds rooves and others feinting and being carried backstage by roadies and St Johns ambulance people. Some would wake up and see Silverchair and then fall into a swoon again. It was a teen pop event.

We followed them and played a Soft n Sexy set to a wholly different crowd. In retrospect that seems like a good festival shifting of scenes and people through different sounds and times of lives and a day.

Back to the ARIAS. We sat there for as long as it took to take the photo . I dont think we talked. 

Then Kimberley Davies, who was then playing an improbable normal suburban Melbourne girl in Neighbours walked into the room. And looked pretty improbably great and no one knew what to say or where to look.

 Silverchair closed the show with Tim Rogers playing Radio Birdmans' NEW RACE. It seemed pretty contrived at the time. Rebelliousness and all, organized and choreographed and well lit etc.

Looking back, it looks and sounds pretty good. Daniel Johns really suits that kind of song. Tim Rogers actually looks like Davey Lane, the future (?) lead guitarist of You AM I. It would have been great if Silverchair had've listened to more Saints and Radio Birdman instead of Nirvana or whatever they were hearing then. All that howling, yarling, angsty Yankee music. They should have tuned into some classic punk.

When I won the ARIA award the next year, the "industry" band being groomed and presented was Savage Garden who debuted a single and then won everything the following year. 

It would have been an excellent event in 1995. The Cruel Sea won BEST GROUP and You AM I won Best Independent Release. The Seekers got a Lifetime HALL OF FAME type award 

Anyway, Radio Birdman, love 'em.

This is a clip from the Marryatville Hotel in Adelaide in 1977. Clare Moore is in the crowd here somewhere. (Not the blonde girl dancing up the front, thats Kate Jarrett) I was working at a timber mill in Mt Gambier, having left school the previous year. My mates had gone to Adelaide to go to University and were telling me about this amazing band when I would visit them or they would come home. I never saw them in their historical period. Later in 1996 and then later again in Melbourne in 2017 where we opened for them at the Croxton. I had met Rob Younger a few times and always found him to be such a nice guy. The time previous to this had been when we had both been on a bill with The Blue Oyster Cult in Melbourne. Rob was with his band, The New Christs. Rob brought along Blue Oyster Cult singles and albums for his heroes to sign. I had also seen Rob dealing with his own fans. At a club they had played there was a line of semi drunk, serious guys all hardly able to look at him, each testifying to how Birdman had changed their lives. Rob gave all of them some time and was very patient, kind and generous to all. Respect! I had a good chat with Deniz at the Croxton. I found him to be as perfectly somber, serious and intense as I expected him to be. I was, and remain, a fan.

Generations By Jingo - thoughts on Australian music in sequence

 A "generation" in music can be five or ten years. People also tend to stay in their lanes, very tightly.

There were a few recent list in regard to women in Australian music and they mostly had a shamefully narrow window or point of view. Indie rock and the artists indie rock people recognize and crave the attention of - which are always the most mainstream and hugely successful ones. It made me think of my own lanes and tracks and how tightly I'd travelled in them.

In the Moodists we were young people in our twenties who lived and breathed rock music in the village of St Kilda, then we later extended that village to Darlinghurst and then followed tracks laid by others to the UK. Everything in the early days was word of mouth and on the street. No real media let alone social media. 

We thought we were in a different dimension from the surrounding mainstream Oz Rock culture. And we were. Being young, we were severe, sharp  and cruel in our views of the scene. We all watched the Sunday night tv show Countdown and we all howled in disgust at it. that world was so far away. 

Years later I would meet many people from the generation just before me and really treasured any interaction. After a while you realize being musicians, you have more in common with people than any tranistory ideas of cool or fashion.

 

When I was a teen in Mt Gambier I loved the band Spectrum. Led by New Zealander Mike Rudd.  Their biggest ever hit was I'll be Gone. They had a double/reverse band called the Incredible Murtceps and then morphed into ARIEL. I loved it all. 

Mike was a songwriter in a  scene of great players. There weren't many songwriters who were as distinctive as him. Their classic album A Strange Fantastic Dream had a brilliant illustrated cover with a  gatefold sleeve. The inside of that gatefold had the band in overalls at the Ford factory in Melbourne. This was a nod to a  song called "Garden of the Frenzied Cortinas" which was itself a pun on an arthouse movie called "Garden Of the Finzi Continis.

Ariel carried within their story all the conflicts of Australian music. Handsome guitarist Harvey James left them to join teh pop band Sherbet, a complete betrayal! Just before that had happened they had travelled to the UK to record at Abbey Road and when they arrived they were told that EMI were not interested in them recording the conceptual sci fi set of songsMike had written called The Jellabad Mutants so the band just used their time to re-record all their best songs from their live show, songs from the albums they hd put out over the previous five years in Australia. 

The resulting album Rock'n'Roll Scars is a classic recording of any period. 

Around 1993 when we were flying quite well in the Melbourne scene, Clare and I saw that Mike Rudd and Bill Putt (who had stayed with Mike all the way through the many permutations of the bands they shared) were doing a  show at a theatre in Fitzroy. This was the first sighting of them in many years. We went along and watched them play two long sets of music on nylon guitars, a duo. It turned out they had withdrawn from music in the late 80s and had studied classical finger picking guitars and just wanted to play again. thjey had jousted with punk and New Wave with Mike Rudd and The Heaters and went to a  full video screen type performance (in pubs) with W.H.Y and then they took a breather. I found this kind of withdrawing and renewing very inspiring. Clare Moore and I watched them in awe that night, going through all this material from before our own involvement in music as players. The audience seemed to be a real gathering of old time freaks too, people dancing alone in the wings of the Universal  theatre, a wonderful night.

We asked Mike and Bill to open for Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes at a  few gigs and have kept in touch since. Bill Putt (who normally played bass) lived as a house sitter at that time we met and he basically liked music and karate. Later he settled in a more domestic situation with someone in Marysville outside Melbourne and saved their house from the 2009 bushfires (but losing his lifes collection of recordings ). He was philosophical about it. Then he died one day not long after, chopping wood, a heart attack. We went up to the farm for the wake which was an incredible experience , so many players from the 70s getting up to sing songs and roadcrew people putting together a stage and PA out in the field. Mike continues to play around and maintains a website. 

He is a brilliant electric guitar player as well as a songwriter with a  fantastic catalogue of material.
In 2016 The Lost Ragas recorded Mikes song I'll be Gone and got Mike to play harmonica .

In 2020 a book about Mike and Spectrum was released. There are some details here.

Mike had first come to Australia with an R&B band from Christchurch NZ called The Chants. 

Soon after arriving in Australia he was in a  band with Ross Wilson and Ross Hannaford called THE PARTY MACHINE (1967).

Ross Wilson is another character who was already involved in music while I was still in short pants (though he was not really that far away from his own short panted period) who still plays music constantly after a lifetime of involvement in Australian music. A ball of energy, his is a great voice for creativity in this country. 

Eagle Rock was a song he wrote while living in the UK in the late 69s and brough to Daddy Cool on his return. I heard him say in an interview he met up with Mike who had I'll Be Gone in his pocket at the time and how exciting it was to be young and suddenly writing songs that then became national hits . Daddy Cool dropped right in Australian denim blues boogie rock of the early 70s with great songs like Hi Honey Ho. A total unit of a band with the two Ross's on guitars and Wayne Duncan and Gary Young on bass and drums. 

In 2016 Ross recorded a song that had been a hit for Johnny Okeefe and later a hit again for Iggy Pop called Real Wild Child.

 The song was written by Johnny Okeefe's band members Johnny Greenan and Dave Owens. 

Johnny is quoted in this Clinton Walker article chasing down the first ever Australian rock'n'roll record.

 

Margret Roadknight had a pop hit in 1976 with Girls In Our Town and I cannot believe such a bleak and stark song of truth got airplay on am pop radio. An amazing song and a high point in Australian music culture.

Written by Newcastle (Australia) folk singer Bob Hudson , every line drops like a jewel of hard truth. 

"Girls in our town, they just haven't a care

You see them on Saturday floating on air
Painting their toenails and washing their hair
Maybe tonight it'll happen
Girls in our town they leave school at fifteen
Work at the counter or behind the machine
And spend all their money on making a scene
They plan on going to England
Girls in our town go to parties in pairs
Sit 'round the barbecue, give themselves aires
Then they go to the bathroom with their girlfriend who cares
Girls in our town are so lonely
Girls in our town are too good for the pill
But if you keep asking they probably will
Sometimes they like you or else for the thrill
And explain it away in the morning
Girls in our town get no help from their men
No one can let them be sixteen again
Things might get better but it's hard to say when
If they only had someone to talk to
Girls in our town can be saucy and bold
At seventeen, no one is better to hold
Then they start havin' kids, start gettin' old
Girls in our town...
Girls in our town"

 

 I remember hearing it at school in Mt Gambier and a girl turning the radio off as it was too real. 

Even now, whenever I hear it I start to cry. Reading those words, I started to cry! 

Margret sang the song so well, told the story so straight. She is from the folk tradition and has never written songs, only interpreted those of others. 

We started to go and see Margret whenever we would see her doing a show and they are always wonderful occasions. One time, about ten years ago, we saw her do a  "50 years as a performer" show at Bennetts Lane jazz club. She really commands a show, singing and playing guitar and singing accapella and doing African throat singing. She is also well over six feet in height so that helps with the commanding as well. It was also great to see people from Melbournes indie rock community showing up at her shows as well. Specifically people from It Records and Chapter Music.

In 2010 Clare Moore worked on the Arts Centre project about Australian female musicians called "Rock Chicks". (The title came from the Arts Centre people - all artists involved were embarassed by it really. ) This exhibition opening culminated in a performance by a formidable band she had gotten together to back singers, Margret Roadknight, Jeanie Lewis, Carroll LLoyd, Adalita , Jodi Phillis and Diana Ahnaid. 

More, anon...... 

 

International Womens Day 2021 Clare Moore Discography

Clare Moore – drums/percussion/vibes/keys/melodica/vocals

 

Started out in the Moodists. Then there was Dave Graney ‘n’ the Coral Snakes.

Now Dave Graney and the mistLY and Dave Graney and Clare Moore.

 

Along the way there was the Dames.

and Harry Howard and the NDE.

Also the Routines.

 

Involved in the writing, production, recording, mixing and releasing of over 40 albums.

Clare Moore Discography


the Moodists - Where The Trees Walk Downhill 7" single AuGoGo 1980
the Moodists - Gone Dead / Chads Car 7" single AuGoGo 1981
the Moodists - 
"Engine Shudder" Au gogo/ Red Flame, 1982. Tony Cohen (Birthday Party/Laughing Clowns/Bad Seeds).
the Moodists - "Thirstys Calling" Red Flame 1984. Victor Van Vugt.
 1984
the Moodists – Justice and Money Too (EP on Creation 1985)
the Moodists -  "Double Life" Red Flame UK, 1985. Victor Van Vugt.


the Moodists – Take The Red Carpet Out Of Town ( 12"EP TIM Records 1986)
the Moodists - Hey Little Gary 4 track EP (TIM Records 1987)
Dave Graney - With the Coral Snakes At His Stone Beach (4 Track EP on Fire Records 1988)
"Two Fisted Art" double cd retrospective (WMinc 2003)
The Moodists were contemporaries of the Birthday Party, the Laughing Clowns , the GoBetweens and the Triffids. In many ways they were the roughest of the lot and spent most of their career in the UK.

Dave Graney 'n' the White Buffaloes
"My life on the plains"Fire Records 1989 (UK), produced by Phil Vinall (Later to work withGene/Placebo/Auteurs). Also has four tracks from the first ep produced by Barry Adamson.
Dave Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes
"I was the Hunter and I was the Prey" Fire records 1990 , produced by Phil Vinall. These first two albums were realeased on Fire records. Label mates at the time being Pulp and the Blue Aeroplanes, Spacemen 3.

Dave Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes
" "Lure of the tropics" Shock Records 1992. A wild, semi improvised rock'n'roll animal style set.

Dave Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes
" "Night of the wolverine" Universal Australia 1993/This Way Up 1996. Produced by Tony Cohen . First Moore and Graney record to be released by a large label in Australia.

Dave Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes
" "You wanna be there but you don't wanna travel" Universal , 1994. Produced by Tony Cohen. First Moore and Graney record to appear on a chart in Australia. Contained "Livin' out our tomorrow" the lyic co written by Moore and the instrumental "the confessions of Serge Gainsbourg" which was co written by Moore.

Dave Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes
" "The soft'n sexy sound" Universal , 1995/ This Way Up 1996. Produced by Victor Van Vugt (Just after he'd done Beth Orton's Trailer Park). A gold record for Moore and Graney. Contained Moore writing credits for "Morrison floorshow" and "Dandies are never unbuttoned".

Dave Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes
" "the Devil drives" Universal 1997.Produced by Moore and Graney. Recorded in Melbourne, mixed in London with David Ruffy and Kenny Jones. The most psychedelic , ambitious record released by the Coral Snakes. Their last. Moore wrote the opening instrumental "the oblivion seekers" as well as co writing the title track, "I love your gravity" and "feelin' kinda sporty". She also sang the duet "Pascal and Caroline" with Graney. This is the record where Moore really came to the fore in wanting to bust out of the role she had been filling in a band situation.
This whole 90's period was spent mostly in Australia, touring intensely (very difficult in a place so big and sparsely populated) and releasing an album every year.

“The Dave Graney Show” (Festival 1999). Produced by Moore and Graney. Military in flavour, contained the marching psychedelic meisterwork, "I'm a commander!" (music co written by Moore). Other co written songs included "am I wearing something of yours?", "they wanted to be players" and "twixt this world and the next". All the instrumentation on these tracks was played by the increasingly studio savvy, multi instrumentalist, Clare Moore.

Dave Graney Show - "Kiss tomorrow goodbye" (Cockaigne , 2000) The second Dave Graney Show cd. Released in the UK and Europe by Cooking Vinyl. Produced by Moore and Graney. Contained "Don't be true", co written and sung by Moore. Other co written songs included "vengeance is on its' way" and "the big fella"( only with the "drugs" single).
 

Live dates in New York and Boston and a European tour opening for Nick Cave and the bad Seeds. Clare Moore playing vibes. Also live dates in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

The Dave Graney Show "Heroic Blues" (Cockaigne, 2001)
 The third Dave Graney Show cd. Produced by Graney and Moore. A 'folk soul singer songwriter" type record.


2001- THE THIRD WOMAN. Clare Moore's debut solo album. Most instruments played by Clare Moore and mixed with Billy Miller.

The song called LOST IN SPACE was recorded by Reneee Geyer for her album, TONIGHT in 2005.

clare moore · Lost In Space - Renee Geyer

The soundtrack to the movie BAD EGGS, (Liberation 2003).The entire score written, arranged and recorded by Graney and Moore.




The Royal Dave Graney Show - "The Brother who lived", 2003 on Cockaigne). Produced by Graney and Moore. Contained "Midnight to Dawn" and "all our friends were stars". The Post Moodists reformation rock action cd.

2003 saw the release of "two fisted art", a double CD compilation of material by the Moodists. Shows were played in Melbourne and Sydney in June.
The CD was released and distributed by Hot in Europe in May.
"Night of the Wolverine" (COCK010) was re-released, along with six extra tracks in July 2004).

2004 Scored and recorded the soundtrack to Tony Mahonys short film RAY with Dave Graney. 

Ray from Innit on Vimeo.

2005 saw the release of Hashish and Liquor on Sydney label Reverberation. A double set with Graney taking one disc and Moore the other.

Late 2006 saw the release of "Keepin' it unreal". An album credited to Dave Graney and Clare Moore...featuring Stu D aka le comte d'alucard. Again released on reverberation.



2008 saw the release of the album " We Wuz Curious" which was credited to the collective "Lurid Yellow Mist...featuring Dave Graney and Clare Moore".This being very much a collective effort in composition and execution.Contained the amazing “junk time” , music written,recorded and played by Clare Moore.
2009 - "Knock yourself out", released on Cockaigne through Fuse, has most instruments played by Dave Graney but has more than half the tracks with the music created and recorded by Clare Moore as well as guest turns from Stu Perera and Stuart Thomas.
2010 release -"remix compilation" -SUPERMODIFIED. 18 tracks, all remixed , re-sung,re-strung and replayed and remastered.

2010 Clare Moore worked on the Arts Centre project about Australian female musicians called "Rock Chicks". This exhibition opening culminated in a performance by a formidable band she had gotten together to back singers, Margret Roadknight, Jeanie Lewis, Carroll LLoyd, Adalita , Jodi Phillis and Diana Ahnaid.  

2011 – “rock’n’roll is where I hide”. Graney and Moore returned to their 90s classics to re record them for Liberation.

2011 - Clare Moore composed and recorded the theme tune for  ABC tv show A QUIET WORD by TONY MARTIN.

2012 “you’ve been in my mind” . Dave Graney and the mistLY on Cockaigne.

2013, digital albums “the soundtrack to JOHNNY GHOST – music composed and performed by Clare Moore and Dave Graney.

 

2013 – THE DAMES. Clare Moore and Kaye Louise Patterson writing and recording as the Dames. Album mixed by Barry Adamson in the UK. national tour to promote it. 

 

HARRY HOWARD AND THE NDE – Near Death Experience (CD Spooky 2013)

"THE MERCURY YEARS" 4 disc set of albums recorded for Universal by Dave Graney ‘n’ the Coral Snakes 1994-97. Includes the disc of rarities and unreleased tracks "Lobster palace royalty"

"POINT BLANK" and "LIVE IN HELL" two digital only live narrative show albums . Clare Moore playing vibes, keys and percussion.

2014 “FEARFUL WIGGINGS” by Dave Graney. Clare Moore plays vibes, keys , percussion and sing.ing Also involved in editing and production .

2015 play mistLY for me - dave graney and the mistLY - (digital only 14 track live collection on COCKAIGNE 2015)

 

Feted as Melbourne Music Legends by City of Yarra/Leaps and

Bounds Festival in 2015. A concert given with a cavalcade of

Melbourne musicians young and vintage playing Dave Graney and Clare Moore songs.

HARRY HOWARD AND THE NDE – PRETTY (CD Spooky 2015)

2016 -

Completed a 17 date tour of Europe in April/

May 2016, the main focus of which was the ATP festival in

Wales curated by lauded comedian/writer Stewart Lee. The

festival was a cavalcade of underground heroes and heroines

from the music worlds of the USA/ Europe and the UK. There

were two Australian acts chosen, Dave Graney and the mistLY and jazz mysteriosos , the Necks.
Clare Moore arranging logistics, gear and tour managing

 

Series of monthly singles with Dave Graney - collected on the album released in the following year.....

 

2017 release LETS GET TIGHT . Credited to Dave graney and Clare Moore. Clare Moore playing, vibes, keys, drums, percussion, singing.

 

HARRY HOWARD AND THE NDE – Sleepless Girls  (CD Spooky 2017)

 2017 - national tour as drummer for the BOWIE IN BERLIN series with band including Mick Harvey, Robin Casinader, Stu Thomas, JP Shilo, Miles Brown and singers Dave Graney, Ron Peno, Kylie Auldist, Kim Salmon, Max Sharam and Michael Nolan.

 

Completed a 15 date tour of Europe in 2017, playing in Spain for the first time, as well as France, the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Scotland. 

Nominated at the 2018 OZFLIX awards for best original soundtrack (with Dave Graney) for the Donna McRae film, LOST GULLY ROAD

 

March 2019 ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? Dave Graney and the mistLY (Cockaigne) CD and digital release. 

 

  November 2019 - ONE MILLION YEARS DC - Dave Graney and Clare Moore . Studio album released. 

2020 - Dave Graney and Clare Moore 2020 digital album with Robin Casinader - IN CONCERT.

 

2020 - Dave Graney and Clare Moore 2020 digital album with Georgio "the dove" Valentino and Malcolm Ross.

2021 - Dave Graney and the mistLY - 2021 digital album - LYVE AT BYRDS

2020-2021 Clare Moore and Dave Graney playing weekly live streaming shows from their Melbourne studios. Sixty seventh show by March 11th.

Other recordings

Robert Forster , "I had a New York Girlfriend", 1995. Clare Moore drums and sings on the entire album.

Kim Salmon and the Business, "Record", 2000. Clare added keyboards and vocals to several tracks on this amazing work.

Clare Moore has also worked as a remixer, doing just that for "I will always love you" by Melbourne artist Philippa Nihill, released in 2001.

Recordings and production have also been done with Kaye Patterson, (along with Robin Casinader).
Clare also recorded and performed with Henry Manetta and the Trip. A freaked out jazz/r&b band. Clare sang and plays percussion.
Clare Moore also co-produced and recorded (with Kim and Dave), the Darling Downs two cds.
SALMON, played and recorded as one of TWO drummers in this seven guitar art hard rock project driven by Kim Salmon.

Played drums with Charlie Marshall on the albums TRAVEL EASY in 2006 and SUBLIME in 2017.

Recorded Jane Dusts' first cd " a spray of red from the deep. Played drums on the second,, “ a birds jouney”  and the  third  , “Tessera Terrain”. Currently playing with Jane Dust and Emily Jarrett as a part of the Routines.

 

Plays vibes and sometimes drums with singer songwriter/actor Alyce Platt.