Hello comrades, so the election was great! We got rid of so much ugly fat!
Meanwhile, the Covid19 pandemic rolls on. People want it to be over but it can't be wished away. We have been fully vaxed and wear masks in public in our daily lives and when we do shows. We take an our own mics and also an air purifier on to the stage and into motel rooms. Taking it seriously. I don't want to get it.
We have done some great shows in recent times. Last week at a lovely community theatre in Emerald in the hills of Melbourne and at a winery in the Barossa. The latter was with the mistLY. Myself and Clare with Stu Thomas and Stuart Perera on bass and guitar for the first time in a year. We played two sets with just a half a rehearsal and had a fantastic time. Driving there through the Barossa after a night in Murray Bridge was beautiful. We drove back through Renmark and Mildura for a change of scenery. Hey, Victoria is dark and lonely in the northern part of the Wimmera. Very little phone coverage too.
We have also played in Geelong and Ballarat at more traditional type venues. We launched Everything Was Funny in Melbourne at the Northcote Social Club on a Sunday night. That room sounds great and we brought our people and sounds to it for a special night. A rare gig for us in our home town.
I have been putting together a book of lyrics from 1980-2022 for a project. I have gotten it all together, with some notes as to chords and general thoughts as to what I was thinking about. I want it to be a simple looking thing with text only. Like something produced during a wartime rationing period. I hadn't really approached any of the Moodists music from this direction and got a feeling that I'd love to present some of the material somehow. A reunion of the band is not really on the cards due to various physical constraints on a couple of people but Clare and I have a vague idea to do a "play the Moodists" type show. In doing the text for the book I came across this clip of a song from 1980. It was the b side of Where The Trees Walk Downhill and the actual title was I Should Have Been Here. It was when we were really vibing on the Postcard records scene as well as Vic Godard and the Fall. A year later we went down a very different sonic path.
We have finished our rock'n'roll album and are still deciding when and how to release it. With the staggered nature of our live shows we are still doing launches for Everything Was Funny. This next album is equally as high quality but is much more of a drums, bass, guitars and vocals set. Its tough being a musician and writer at any time but being vintage players who still write and produce stuff regularly is weird. Where and how do you pitch it? In a world where vintage players should be sad - we are not. Or when they should only be rootsy or play genres we are not. There's no one doing what we do here or anywhere else either so we can't be talked about as a local version of something from the real world. Its true. Graney got no Graney.
There is also another album of less structured, more weird material inside my computer.
Then there is the WAM AND DAZ Album which WAM is threatening to tie down (or up) and finish too.
And then there is the album I did with UK electro dynamo SCANNER which may come out at some point. It was started/finished in 2019-2021 but I have left it to him to schedule it. Its got a great vibe! Like a mad, cold, electro jazz session.
Clare Moore has been tutoring some young people on drums via the internet. Its been enlightening hearing of how high school age kids interact with music. Either deep dive obsessions on single, huge selling artists from the 70s or just music thats heard through games and gaming.
We have kept doing our live stream shows via Stage It this year but have kept it to Sunday morning sets to make it Saturday night in the UK and Saturday afternoon in the USA. Since summer finished and so daylight saving as well, this has seen us performing at 7am. This has been very enjoyable - and of course- weird! You sing in a register that is not available at other times, for instance. People join us from Wales, Lancashire, London, New York State, Oregon, Seattle, Los Angeles, Norway, Tasmania, Sydney and Abury. We play a different set each fortnight.
Our next online show is Sunday June 19th at 7am. This makes it 10pm Saturday UK time.
5pm Saturday USA EDT 4pm Saturday USA CDT 2pm Saturday USA PDT
There is no chance of watching it back. A small fee to access the site ($US5), A 50 minute set.
Our live show sees Clare Moore using her Boosey and Hawkes AJAX model vibes - a small jazz set from the 50s as well as a Yamaha Reface keyboard, melodica and percussion, an audio interface with some simple (and some quite rich) rhythm tracks as well as a mellotron app which she accesses via an ancient ipad and plays through her keyboard. I play several electric guitars through my Vox amp head and speaker box (a Fender , covered in marshall tolex and loaded with a tech21 speaker) with some delay and Phase pedals. I have to have several guitars due to having used multiple open tunings on EVERYTHING WAS FUNNY. We are getting my speaker box fixed at the moment and Clares vibes are also in the shop. The low keys on the vibes are not ringing out which might mean some new keys being made to a mould. That is, some molten steel being poured into a mould and fired up and then bashed into tune by a blacksmith! Luckily we have a guy around the corner who can do all of this. The bonuses of being hillbillies.
Upcoming shows....
Friday June
24th The Great - Marrickville
Saturday June 25th The Music Lounge in Wollongong Town Hall
Friday July 1st George Lane St Kilda
Sunday July 3rd Hotel Warrnambool (3pm show)
Saturday July 23rd Portland Arts Centre
Friday August 12th The Trinity Sessions - Adelaide
Saturday August 13th - the Three Brothers, Macclesfield, Adelaide Hills.
