I Passed Through Minor Chord In A Morning - Its a Quantum Americana Album - notes on the tracks and recordings and conceptual flow.

 

 

I PASSED THROUGH MINOR CHORD IN A MORNING

14 track album . out November 11th 2024

Cover image by Izabella Shaw.

Could be called our basement tapes album.
Our studio is downstairs.
Could also be our most post-punkest of albums. Certainly our most auto-harped album.
Some songs started life twenty years ago, some six or seven years ago, two built from processed and distorted sounds recorded almost thirty years ago. Four began life as bass and drum improvisations into a single mic four months before the albums release and two as fresh as three months ago.
There are some two minute songs and several almost ten minute epics.

After we finished our April 2024 album (strangely)(emotional) Clare Moore suggested I do an album of freewheeling lyrics and perhaps even talking/speaking. That’s where it kind of started. 

Elvis Never

(words Dave Graney/music Dave Graney)

Dave Graney, found sounds, 4 track bounces and cuts and pastes, vocals, keys, bass, guitar. 

Australian colloquialism. When its said "so and so never..." It means that didn't or never had to do somethin.

This and Still Got The Truth were slabs of cut and paste chaos which I’d been experimenting with since 2021. I had bought a 4 track cassette recorder and was bouncing sounds into and out of it and bringing them into the digital realm. I had no grid or sequence to cut it all to but I could hear a beat and sang to it and then cut and pasted and deep fried it all some more. I was most happy that the songs were barely two minutes in length.

 

 

Still Got The Truth
(words Dave Graney/music Dave Graney)

Dave Graney, found sounds, 4 track bounces and cuts and pastes, vocals, bass, guitar

 

Its true- I still got the truth. But like the song says- you got to choose your battles!

This and Elvis Never were of a pair in cut and paste madness and squall. Also both worked out of base material that was decades old. I was most happy that the songs were barely two minutes in length.

 

Acceptable Back Story

(words Dave Graney/music Dave Graney-Clare Moore)

 

Clare Moore, drums.
Dave Graney, bass, reverse guitar sounds, vocal
Stuart Perera, guitar
Mark Fitzgibbon, piano from 2007 treated backwards (sorry Mark)

Some people need trusted sources if they are going to give you their attention. They are easily spooked.
Music  came from an improvised session of bass and drums being recorded by one mic and a stereo Zoom recorder in our studio in July 2024  just before we headed off to do some shows interstate. We then forgot about them. I just wanted to have a long groove that drifted in and out of focus that I could talk over. It had a funny quality to it in that we were both hearing the one in different places (as in 1-2-3-4) but it still all held together. I brought in some backward sounds from older recordings. I also used a few studio plugins that had a life of their own. Its all very improvised, even the studio stuff. 

"the principality of Werona" refers to the street I grew up in in Mt Gambier.

 

 

Parking Lot Scenes

(words Dave Graney/music Dave Graney)

 

Dave Graney, beats, loop, bass, vocals, autoharp
Stuart Perera, guitar

 Parking Lot Scene takes it title from a movie about Grateful Dead fans who would gather inforce and go off piste in the parking lots around the giant venues they would play.
This and Emcee Bitz were both studio improvisations that happened when I learned how to loop a drum beat. Then I strummed my autoharp and cut that to the beat. Stuart Perera flew his guitar in later.

 

Did You Have Servants?

(words Dave Graney/music Dave Graney-Clare Moore-Stuart Perera)

 

Clare Moore, drums, backing vocals
Dave Graney, bass, vocal
Stuart Perera, guitar

From the improvised bass and drums into one mic session. Then Stuart Perera added some hard rock tones and turned it into something else.
I tried to keep the vocal steady and deadpan but commanding. I didn't want to get all emotional/angry.
Surely you have met people who have always had other people following them to clean up their mess?

 

 

I’d Rather The Frills

(words Dave Graney/music Dave Graney)

Dave Graney, guitars, bass, autoharp, vocal
Clare Moore, keys, bass drum, percussion

 

Goes back to 2004 and an experiment with open D tuning and some 12 string raga guitar moments. Clare added a stomping bass drum and keys. When I had first dug it up and out and spruced it a little she thought it was a track by the Moodists.

 

1985

(words Dave Graney/music Dave Graney-Clare Moore-Stuart Perera)

 

Clare Moore, drums
Dave Graney, bass, found sounds, effects, vocal
Stuart Perera, guitar

 A roundabout song which in a roundabout way refers to the year before 1985. A famous year that promised a dystopian world. But here we are decades later.
From an improvised session of bass and drums being recorded by one mic and a stereo Zoom recorder in our studio in July 2024  just before we headed off to do some shows interstate. We then forgot about them.
Stuart Perera added some guitar and it seemed he heard a different song as he transformed the whole vibe, like a jazz player taking off. He added all these changes that were not there before. Changed it at will from minor to major.

 

A Rampart Across Time

(words Dave Graney/music Stuart Perera)

Clare Moore, drums, organ
Dave Graney, bass, vocal
Stuart Perera, guitars

 

Stuart Perera sent me this music that he had recorded to his phone back with his nylon string guitar in 2021.  I turned into a song and sang along to it. Stuart added some more guitar parts. Lovely kind of Bill Withers feel to it.

 

Girls Are Famous
(words Dave Graney/music Dave Graney-Clare Moore)

Clare Moore, drums, keys
Dave Graney, bass, autoharp, vocal

 

From the improvised session.

Clare added some keys from a new/old module she bought after we got back. The original jam was about ten minutes and I cut into it at about half way through, when we had found a solid groove.
The lyric is deadpan. The singer is a man and he is addressing the listener who has to be another man. Talking about girls. Women. Famous things are objects. That “people” stare at, consume, touch. 

 

 

I Passed Through Minor Chord In a Morning

(words Dave Graney/music Clare Moore

Clare Moore, drums, synth bass, vibes, keys
Dave Graney vocal, fuzz guitar
Stuart Perera, delay guitar

 

This was started by Clare Moore with a beat, keyboard bass synth and vibes in 2008 and she had Stuart Perera play some guitar on it. Its been sitting in the archives since then. The lyric is talking about Minor Chord as a physical place - a town that the singer passes through. (I generally avoid minor chords- and three/four or 6/8 time) . I thought the title had a cosmic folk ring to it. In some ways this is a Quantum Americana album. 

 

Emcee Bitz

(words Dave Graney/music Clare Moore)

Dave Graney, beat, vocals
Clare Moore, organ, piano

 

Music is a powerful force for the listener but also for the player. It can be toxic and dangerous. Dealing with forbidden, unspoken, antapped stuff. As well as many other positive things.
This and Parking Lot Scenes were both studio improvisations that happened when I learned how to loop a drum beat. Emcee Bitz is a lyric about performing your life story.

 

 

I’m Against it (whadda you got?)

(words Dave Graney/music Dave Graney)

Clare Moore, drums, keys, backing vocals
Dave Graney, bass, guitars, keys, vocal
Will Hindmarsh, backing vocals

 

Have you ever seen the movie The Wild One? The scene where somebody asks Marlon Brando what he is rebelling against? His answer was "whadda ya got?"
Music based on a rhythm track from 2016. And that was based on a track from 2007.

 

Et Tu, Doudou?

(words Dave Graney/music Dave Graney)

Clare Moore, drums, percussion, backing vocals
Dave Graney, bass, guitars, autoharp, keys, vocal

This dates from 2017 and concerns a story Georgio “the Dove” Valentino (who we had just been touring with) told us about a childhood totem he had taken with him on an epic journey of many years from Florida and around the USA and Europe and the trauma he felt when it was stolen from his car one dark night in Belgium.

I kept piling on guitars and autoharp and keys and using processors and the 4 track bounces and compressors over and over. The chords being strangely (for me) MAJOR.

 

                                                photo Greg Thorsby

The Trojan Egg

(words Dave Graney/music Dave Graney-Clare Moore)

Clare Moore, drums, organ
Dave Graney, autoharp, vocal

The Trojan Egg was built up from the skeleton of a song that appeared on Fearful Wiggings in 2014. Its a nice prog ending to an album of strangeness and-hopefully-quirks and charm.

I PASSED THROUGH MINOR CHORD IN A MORNING is a digital release and is available/ accessible through all digital outlets. I see us in a period where we will be releasing lots of music and its not possible for us to make physical releases of them all.

This is available through our Bandcamp site as a digital release with t shirt bundle if you would like.

 

T Shirt with image from the album I Passed Through Minor Chord In A Morning. Digital album released 11-11-24.
Available in two colours. Navy and Camel

Image by Izabella Shaw.

 
Sizes S M L XL 2XL
and
WXS WS WM WL WXL

This t shirt comes with a digital copy of the 2024 studio album I Passed Through Minor Chord In A Morning.

Goodbye Andrew Picouleau

 Andrew Picouleau passed away this week.

 

I heard about it via text from a friend who had also had the good fortune to have played with him.

Andrew played with Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes on bass in the year 1991-1992. May have been just a little less than two years.

Our bass player Gordy Blair had come to Australia to play with us in 1991 and stayed until August, when he had to leave to return to the UK. I was in a bit of a slump due to an album we had recorded being lost in the British Indie music world as a big distributor had gone under. I was in a low point.

Andrew was a friend of Rod Haywards from previous work in - I think -The Pete Best Beatles (which included Frank Savage - elder brother of Conway- and also had included Gary Adams, Johnny Topper and at some point Spencer Jones). Andrew had also been in the Pop Gun Men and the Metronomes and the Sacred Cowboys. So he was a totally made Melbourne music guy. 

He was educated and light hearted and agreed to play with us until Gordy came back. It was nice of him to do that. He was also a great player and knew the material and nothing fazed him. He was interested in the mechanics of song contstruction and paid me compliments about my tunes as he quickly worked his way into them. That was also really nice of him and at the time I needed all the positivity I could get.

After playing shows around the usual haunts open to us in Melbourne I thought I should just have a spell but Robin Casinader began intensive rehearsals with Andrew, Clare Moore and Rod Hayward - along with Amanda Brotchie - to play his material as The Vanishing Lady. A brilliant band with Robins visionary folk rock bent really coming out. Some very complex arrangements. Robin drilled the band far more than I ever did! Andrew stepped into this all very easily as well. A classic, solid bass player. A great guy to have on your team. The rehearsals were mostly all at our flat in Port Melbourne which was above a garage so I loved listening to the music as an observer and faux outsider.

Clare and I  had a mindset to keep Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes playing in Sydney as much as Melbourne but due to work commitments Andrew couldn't take any time off. (He worked for many years in University administration). We played shows without a bass. Andrew was cool with that too. These were  what we called ‘soft’n’sexy’ shows all through the latter part of 1991 and into ’92. Semi-acoustic shows with acoustic guitars, piano, violin and percussion. 

It all came to a boil around the end of that year. Lure Of the Tropics came out and then I Was the Hunter And I Was The Prey and then we went into a studio for a day to record Night Of The Wolverine. Half of it was done with no bass and for the others, we captured the songs with Andrew on bass for that more full-bodied and full-throated sound. For the groove he had worked up with Clare. It was too good not to record it. We did a couple more days overdubs in the following weeks but Gordy Blair was back in town so Andrew suddenly seemed to fade from the picture. I say that as if it just happened and I wasn't there but it did just occur that way. And I felt a little guilty, always, as thats what bands are like. You are held together by promises and camaraderie. You put up with situations that are very undignified, you see each other at your worst. All that intense stuff. In a way you are more than friends. Comrades! Yeah, we owed Gordy but as it turned out we owed Andrew as well.

We kept in touch with Andrew, not very regularly, but we attended significant moments in each others lives. He would say occasionally things about other players from our band who had moved on or whom we had moved on from like "so you kicked them to the gutter and walked away too?". He would say this sort of thing with a smile and laughter but there was something real there. Those are the sorts of messy things we leave trailing for each other I guess. 

But I don't mean to say he was full of grudges, he just had that dark, grim, macho wit men of our generation tried to summon and play with and which we communicated through.

He was genuinely a nice character and a great player. I was lucky to have met him and played with him.

He continued to work in the university sector as well as recording several albums with The Metronomes.  Farewell, Andrew. Condolences to Margaret and the kids (young adults).

A podcast with Frank Savage and Johnny Topper talking about the bands they were in which Andrew would have occasionally been a part of.

Andrew Picouleau discography. 

The Metronomes 2023 album.

The Metronomes 2016 album

Pete Best Beatles in "battle Of The Bands" shot. Andrew Picouleau at bottom.

 

 

 

Qld NSW and Melbourne recap now we play Victorian shows.

 Upcoming Shows

Sunday 16^th June, Coolart, Somers, Vic

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1206509

Sunday 23rd June The Stables - The Cosmopolitan Hotel Trentham Victoria
https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1206519

Friday 28^th June The Flow Bar, Old Bar, NSW

https://www.dramatix.com.au/events/2274

Saturday June 29^th- Wauchope Arts Hall, NSW

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1224720

Sunday 30^th June Bellingen Memorial Hall, NSW 

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1222781

 

Friday 5th July, Link and Pin, Woy Woy, NSW

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1226741

Saturday 6^th July, The Vanguard, Newtown NSW

https://moshtix.com.au/v2/event/dave-graney-clare-moore-album-launch-strangelyemotional/165484

Sunday 7^th July, Dangar Bowls, Dangar Island NSW

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1219608

 

Friday 26th July, Murray Delta Juke Joint, Goolwa SA

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1234804

 

Saturday 27th July, Wheatsheaf Hotel, Thebarton SA

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1228687

 

We  have been playing two sets at all of these shows we have been doing. A lot of songs from (strangely)(emotional) and a lot of songs from other albums. Thanks to everybody who has been coming along. Also thanks to our agent Steve Griffiths for finding interesting venues for us to play in. Its been really challenging for us to work out how to play some of the songs and then also to present it all to people. An enjoyable challenge. But thats what we think musicians and songwriters and performers should do. They should keep on bringing stuff out from within themselves and then chuck it out into the world. They should stand by what they do as well as what they have done in the past and see how it all stacks up as a piece.

Clare and I flew up to Brisbane from a very cold and wintry Melbourne. We decided to go for a streetwear look for these dates.

We met up with Adele Pickvance who was going to play bass with us and the first gig was on a Thursday night at  The Bearded Lady in the West End of Brisbane. This was a pretty regular rock'n'roll type room. The young sound guy was so 2024. By that I mean he was very attentive and helpful as well as very sensitive and skilful. He really took care to stop and listen and make eye contact with whomever he was talking. Nothing was a problem. A really good backline was provided and I played through a Roland amp. I love them! I had decided to use my Ibanez Talman guitar only (as opposed to carrying two through the airport) as it was really good for quickly changing tuning as well as having a lot of variation to the tone with the two Gretsch Filtertron pickups. Unfortunately the case was not hard plastic and there were signs of it having been tossed about by the baggage handlers as all the latches on it were bent. (Baggage handlers seem to take pride in damaging music gear). This was a pretty raucous show, though we began with the delicate guitar and keys songs from (strangely)(emotional). My oldest friend David Edwards was in attendance as well as Federal MP Graham Perrett, Mick Medew and Ursula  and Pascalle and Ian from The Stress Of Leisure. We loaded out into a strangely empty and misty street.

pic by Gawain Barker

pic by Pascalle Burton

Friday 31st May the Majestic Theatre, Pomona Qld

 

On the next day, Friday, we travelled to the Sunshine Coast in Adeles car to play the Majestic Theatre in Pomona. A community run venue. It was raining steadily for most of the day but it wasn't cold at all.

This venue deserves a lot of pictorial coverage here. 

pic by Adele Pickvance

This lovely theatre was all run by volunteers and they have silent movie screenings every week. A gem of a venue. You could hear a pin drop during the quiet songs.

 

Saturday 1st June Eltham Hotel, Eltham , Northern NSW

 

Eltham hotel on Saturday was a cool couple of sets in a sheltered outdoor area with soft rain falling on the roof. Good to see Dave Wray (who has played a lot of sax on our two most recent albums)  and Andy and Dave Brown from Mt Gambier party scene days. Derek Bovill had helped out with sound and backline for the Pomona show and he was with us for these three dates. He brought a Fender Deluxe Reverb amp for me. I love those amps!

 

 

 

 

 This venue is unfortunately having to fight in the courts to stay open due to one neighbour complaining. There are 30 houses which are much closer to the hotel than the litigant who are all happy to have  a well run social and musical hub in their midst but thats all it takes. I hope the hotel is allowed to continue. We stayed the night in the fantastic upstairs rooms (no tv) and then breakfasted and drove to the Gold Coast.

 

Sunday 2nd June Tom Atkin Hall, Tugun, QLD

  Sunday afternoon we played Tom Atkin Hall in Tugun on the Gold Coast. Wonderful community run venue. BYO alcohol and food! We brought a PA in thanks to @dungeondungeon and Bobs yer uncle! Two sets from 3pm. Bring on more BYO gigs! Thanks to all who came to gigs in Qld and Northern NSW and special thanks to Adele Pickvance and Derek Bovill! You made it so easy.

  We drove back to Brisbane after the show and then caught a plane to Melbourne in the morning.
We had last played with Stuart Perera on guitar and Stu Thomas in February at the single launch for Creative Creep at Northcote Social Club. We had a rehearsal at Pony Music in Hallam on the Wednesday afternoon. 

Stu Thomas and Clare Moore

Stuart Perera and Stu Thomas

 

Saturday 8th June Kindred Bandroom, Yarraville, Vic

 

 

 With Stu and Stuart we are able to do more songs from our 2022 album In A Mistly. Two guitars , bass and drums and lots of vocals.

Kindred is a venue on the west side of Melbourne where there has been little music activity over the years even though many musicians live there. 

Thats a problem as it takes people an age and then another age to know where a venue is. Its hard enough for us to connect with people in Melbourne in the best of times. In the end, they found us and we had a fantastic night. Again, playing two sets of music. 

Kindred is all new. No sticky carpet, no smells, no graffitti in the band room area. The young sound engineer was as skilled and as sensitive to anybodys needs as the one in Brisbane and indeed as Drek Bovill for our other shows. He worked hard and took care of all the business. I played through my Vox amp head with Fender speaker box and Clare used her own kit. I wore a light blue suit with white t shirt and my Adidas Gazelles. I was going for a Phil Collins at Live Aid look, though I forgot to roll my sleeves up enough. .

 

pic Clare Moore

Pic Henry Manetta

Pic Wendy Catling