This album has been received very warmly by people who have heard it and we appreciate the kind words that have appeared on Social Media. Thank you!
IN A MISTLY is available via Apple Music and all other portals.
Available in a Compact Disc via Bandcamp.
We are doing some online shows again but won't be doing any live work until 2023. Here are some links to the next online live sets.
Thursday 24th November at 8pm.
Sunday morning 8am 4th December. Which is, of course, 9pm Saturday UK time, 5pm Saturday USA EDT, 4pm Saturday USA CDT, 2pm Saturday USA PDT.
1 Silver Bullets 3:29
This is played in open G tuning. Stu Thomas on bass and Stuart Perera on guitar. Clare and I started playing it in our online shows in mid 2020. It seemed like a groover. Folky arpeggio in a Led Zeppelin style . (I often refer to my songs as being within the realm of another artists aura or shadow as a kind of note to myself as to how to play it, the tempo and attack of the playing. It doesn't really mean its a literal attempt to imitate something).
2 The Old Swagger 3:56
We must have rehearsed this with Stu and Stuart before our 2019 album ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? It was hard to get going as I'm often starting a chord progression at a different spot. It's hard to find the "ONE" for the beat. Clare is used to it. Its often "1-2-3-4-1", sometimes its on the "and" if you get my drift.But this was very frustrating as we couldn't lock into a groove. Then we got back to it three years later and Stu and Stuart found a way in, a way to lock into the groove. Both played brilliantly on this track, Stuart Perera playing some sweet 70s licks all through it, but especially when he answers the raga type lines of mine in the chorus.
3 Tang 4:12
This started out with two chords, a C and an F. Both containing B and E
notes in them. Then I worked out a change from A# to Ab to A and the
chords wanted to be played in a really "new wave" style . All down
strokes wth the pick. On the beat. I had been playing my guitar with an
MXR Phase 100 pedal as I really wanted to get the sound that Keith
Richard had on the Stones album Some Girls in 1977/8. That was their
reaction to punk and their last really great album.
I
thought it should have a really propulsive, straight ahead beat like
those 70s German pre-punk bands and the bass a lot like the early Cure. I played the guitars and the bass and Clare Moore played the drums and the piano and Will Hindmarsh aka Twinkledigitz sang some background vocals.
4 How Can I Be Old? 3:40
Dave Wray on sax, Clare Moore on drums and keys and myself on acoustic and electric guitars.
Another song in a kind of post punk or new wave style with flat fives on the A minor chord.
The lyric moves around a lot, like all my songs. I don't write with messages or to get to A point. I like lots of different points. I like the thing to have a living flow.
5 What Used To Be There? 5:22
Clare Moore and I started playing this during our online shows in 2020, when Melbourne was locked down. It was very fully formed when we brought it to Stu and Stuart. Lyrically its a very straight ahead song, musically it has some great, disparate elements. A new wave style downstroked guitar in the verse to a quite high, folk-rock chorus and a tense descent via semi tones to a very harmonic middle eight and also a terrific three bar circular set of chords to end in a hardcore prog style with Stu Perera weaving a web of long delays on his guitar.
6 Velvets MC 5:39
Clare and I were playing this into shape during our 2020/2021 online live sets. It was pretty fully formed. Its a song about a cult around a rock band. A long dead- but still twitching - underworld rock band. Their aura so intoxicating that their followers take on all the attitudes suggested by the other brethren. Like being in a motorcycle club.
I play the guitars and the bass and Clare Moore played the drums and the piano. The latter was an overdub we happened onto as we worked the song into shape. Then I added some slide guitar. It proved to be difficult to mix as to overall volume as we didn't want much compression and it almost ended up as a song in two parts - with two volumes - so the head room for both had to be managed.
Clare Moore and Dave Graney - photo by Ilia Kupriianov
7 We Get Life 3:55
Clare Moore and I worked on this during 2021 and played it in our online shows a few times. This was a song where we both heard the "One" happening in a different spot so we agreed I would start it and wherever Clare came in was it, the spot around which we grooved. I looked upon this as a Chuck berry type of tune. Lyrically, a song about the gift we get - to be in this spectacle and inside our physical carriage for a brief time. The music moves around a slight key change and Clare really brought the chorus and middle eight to life with some piquant harmonies and keyboards. It was difficult to mix and put together so I eventually included an alternate version on the Bandcamp and iTunes version. (The guitars are a bit louder and the vocals doubled and tripled and some rhythmic editing on occasion).
8 Now
You Must Die 3:27
We started playing this during our 2020/2021 online shows. Its played in open G tuning. Originally it was to be a vibes and guitar track but one day I asked Clare to play drums on it and I thought I could play the acoustic with a more driving strumming pattern much like "Thats Entertainment" by The Jam. We were going to record two versions but it sounded great as one mix of vibes, guitars and drums. Vibes are always hard to mix when put in amongst so many competing instruments as often whole areas of the sound are obscured. Lyrically it grew out of our shared enjoyment when somebody says "Now you must die!" in spy or thriller movies. One of those things we often say privately when it suits. I thought it could become a thing in offices for people to say under their breath as their overseer walked off after hugging them. Perhaps even on a coffee mug.
9 Where Are You In The Underworld? 3:28
Also developed during our online show over 2020/2021. Also intended to be recorded in two versions, one with vibes and another with drums. We played it with vibes first and then Clare played a beat, I think we were thinking of a Joy Division feel with loads of toms happening. It sounded great. (We didn't play it for while and hadn't recorded a demo and Clare forgot the beat but after we talked about a Joy Division feel she was able to get that groove back). Also difficcult to bring the vibes out in the mix as well as the toms and the vocals.
Lyrically inspired by thoughts of underworld stars and how intense their dark power is. How intense the engagement with their audience, however small. The cosmology of the underworld.
10 We Need Cash, ( She Said) 3:11
Lots of toms and downstroked guitar chords in the verse with the bass coming in for the chorus was the original arrangement. Stu Thomas and Stuart Perera locked into this straight away. Starts with a chorus. A series of shifting chords which all share the same three notes but the root note changes. C#, E and F#.
Lyrically inspired by something a friend said on a rare night out in public.
The middle eight and ending have a kind of "grunge era" feel to the chords in their intonations and their attack.
11 Thanks To The Women For Dancing 3:10
Dave Wray on sax, Clare Moore on drums and myself on bass and guitars. This felt like an old school rockabilly tune, something Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps could have cooked up.
A track we have played at a rehearsal with the mistLY in 2019 but hadn't been able to record. Clare More and I put it down in late 2021 in at Soundpark. A rough arrangement which stayed that way, must have been intuitive. Dave Wray lives up near Lismore and recorded the sax at his home studio.
We have known Dave for many years and met him when he was first doing his Frank Bennett shows. (Fronting big band playing popular - grunge era- songs and singing in the style of Frank Sinatra) He guested on several tracks on our 1997 album the Devil Drives, as a singer.
Lyrically? Surely you have noticed at clubs all over the world that its the women who always get up to have a dance at live shows. They bring it to life! Thanks you!
Stu Thomas, Dave Graney, Clare Moore, Stuart Perera on the day of recording in the kitchen at Soundpark Studios, Melbourne.
12 You Are The World 5:21
Dave Wray on sax again. I thought of Roxy Music and the Who when putting this together (just the sax and power chords and pick burns).
Its a simple song saying the world is screwed up and mad but its not my fault, I'm not the world...
We put the backing vocals on in the middle eight and then played something similar with keys on the long tailout. Clare and I were both playing the keyboard and using the tuning wheel to give it it that special wonky feeling all through it. I overdubbed more guitars and then an autoharp and it made a crazy kind of sense.But you know, I'm not the world..
Dave Wray - photo by Bruce Tindale
