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Everything Was Funny
Title track of the 2021 album from Dave Graney and Clare Moore. Like the other songs, the only song of it's kind on the album. A circular musical motif. Mostly guitar and vocal.
Wilco Got No Wilco
Wilco Got No Wilco- kinda says it all, really. A very smooth stop and start groove on this from Clare Moore. Yacht Rock? Only if you consider that a totally positive thing.
"Wilco got no Wilcos
I love the blues
Sgt Bilko, Hogans Heroes, F Troop
Wilco got no Bilko
Wilco got no Wilco – no other"
The Anita Effect
Another Rolling Stones related mythological groove. (Follows ULTRAKEEF on ZIPPA DEEDOO in 2019). The shadow of a female presence on a bunch of heroes. Her touch.
"Marianne knows! Only Marianne and I could know
we rode in with the boys
told them where to stand
how to say things
what to wear"
I
Knew The Wild Angels
All mixed up song about a bike gang in town when I was a kid and a Roger
Corman movie of the same name and the same subject which would have been
in peoples minds also at the time. I was wrtiting a lot of songs and kept playing them but forgot this one and it took a week for us both to put a semblance of it back together. It wasn't exactly what it started as but would up somewhere different. A chugging 6/8 time with rolling toms and vibes and electric guitar. (I always avoided 6/8 time songs)
"I knew the Wild Angels
when they came into town
long fringes over their faces
ruffled shirts, spurs
helmets with fox tails"
I Was No Captain
Another song musing on military rank and the musicians identity. Leaders, captains in a scene of loners and rebels, Dottie.
not the strongest or the fastest or the best
just captains
I was never captain stuff
follow me! don’t know where you’re goin’- twice!"
Diaghelev and Nijinsky
We wrote and named this instrumental after watching a 1981 movie
starring Alan Bates as Diaghelev. Fascinating people in an amazing
period.
I used a new kind of tuning and Clare used a digital mellotron app and played the keyboard bass.
Everyday It’s The Blues, Period.
The longest track on the album. We played it a few time and like the way it shaped itself.
"every day it’s a test of what you believe
what you are - who you’ve been
every day its a dive to reach
what you were- who you’ve been
every day it’s the blues, period."
Where
Did You Glom Your Glimmer?
I Wanted a spooky, queasy blues feel and we used a Tascam Portastudio to record parts of this (and other songs on the album).
Toglom is a slang word from the criminal world , probably Yiddish in
origin. To take, steal or more correctly to kind of ingest or take in or
on something.
"Glimmer" is a kind of glamour - most ofteen used in reference to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
"pink rocks fizzing under your skin pop (doin’ it right there)
Where did you glom your glimmer? where?"
Ronnie Loves To Hear People Talk
A song about a powerful female performer.
"Ronnie loves to hear people talk about her
she says “tell me what you said about me that time!”
“Tell me again what you said about me that time!”
The Ballroom Blitzed
All the dances we've seen people attempt in the ballrooms as we look out from the bandstand.
"slow dancin’ – moga done
the leaning tower – the static statue
the grim reaper – the junkie at the crossing
the luuude dude
arms in the air – eyes closed
epic?"
Beckett and Tubbs
Instrumental named after a favourite writer (Whose most famous book defeated me thrice in 2020-21) and a favourite tv cop.
The Smoking Years
I was on the smokes from a young age for a couple of decades.
"started on Trent, ended up Embassy
Zippo lighter, engraved, scrimshaw
still got it!"
A Little Water On My Bird
Something Frank Sinatra once said. After falling into a pool. Suggested a feeling of vulnerability.
"I had a light touch
I skipped away, free
I refreshed, again
I refreshed, again"
Dave
Graney, vocals, electric, acoustic guitars, bass, autoharp
Clare Moore, drums, vibes, bass
xylophone, percussion, keys, backing vocals.
Recorded
and mixed at the Ponderosa in Melbourne May to August 2021 by Dave Graney and
Clare Moore.
Mastered by Greg Wadley.
Photo by Kristyn Jones.
“I don’t need a pandemical lockdown to happen to write some songs. Same way I never read any”war poets”. If they need a war to write something it’s not really worth it!” Dave Graney
Though of course there was a pandemic and there was a long lockdown in Melbourne and of course it seeped into the music. Dave Graney and Clare Moore had planned two albums for 2021, a rock album with their band the mistLY and then something like this one – something more unbuttoned and freaky. Then a second long lockdown happened and it was impossible to rehearse let alone record with the band so the two changed tack and got freaky in their own studio with keyboards and drums and new guitar tunings and time signatures and here we are with EVERYTHNG WAS FUNNY. They were also able to do some live dates around Australia in between travel restrictions and on one trip to South Australia, a visit was made to Dave’s second cousin in Dismal Swamp, Kristyn Jones, who had had an idea for a portrait shot. There’s the cover of the album. Lyrical tracks, trails and themes involve a further Rolling Stones mythological piece (The Anita Effect), teenage biker gangs (I Knew the Wild Angels), American cultural firefights (Wilco Got No Wilco), tobacco scenes, alcoholic scenes, iconic female rambling singer scenes and two instrumentals – one very Russian and another kind of Dublin/Miami.
Be in no doubt though, that something funny was going on! There was something funny about that guy. She’s a funny girl! Somethin’ not quite right!
Everything Was Funny!
“funny like Warren Beatty funny…”
“I liked it-it was funny!”
“if there was somethin’ funny goin’ on
that’s what I tuned into and took away
that was my take away…”
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