FEARFUL WIGGINGS reviews and stories - online tour posters

 Some reviews and online concert posters. All the faces and modes and imagery and characters and places- are from within the songs on FEARFUL WIGGINGS.

You can get a cd or a digital copy - or both - from Bandcamp HERE. 

FEARFUL WIGGINGS is at itunes here. Its a great album.

A very thoughtful review of a show by art writer Chris McCauliffe 

Hello Dave. Congratulations on the release of ‘Fearful Wiggings’. That’s a pretty big album (your 28th offering in your career so far). It’s slightly more laid back compared to previous releases, so why the change of pace, and why did you decide to go solo with this album (which is your second solo album, I believe)?
I really loved some recent music by the American artist Bill Callahan. His albums DREAM RIVER and MY APOCALYPSE. Found it fascinating as to how little instrumentation there was and how much room it left for the voice. Still remaining full of power and dynamics. Started recording early last year with my acoustic, knowing I’d be working with Clare’s band the DAMES (in which I play guitar) and HARRY HOWARD and the NDE (in which I play bass) for the rest of that year. Had time to spend on my album. Felt like doing something different. Our 2012 album “You’ve been in my mind” was a real high point for our up tempo pop rock songs. Did it in the same studio as 2011s “rock’n’roll is where I hide” album so I just felt we’d exhausted that tip for a while.
You’re in your 4th decade of writing and performing songs. In an industry where longevity seems to be less common occurrence (particularly with younger musicians), how do you keep challenging yourself to come up with new material, and not burn out?
Enjoy yourself! Play with people who love to play too. What else? Don’t worry about people who think they run the show. Musicians rule! Its good to have being a musician to fall back on! Actually, I really can’t do anything else, there is no retiring in this business. Once you accept that , you can relax and get in a groove.
I love the clip to the first single ‘Everything Was Legendary with Robert’ (the whole séance theme you went with was very cool), but I do have to ask exactly why everything was legendary with Robert?
I did a song called “You wanna be there but you don’t wanna travel” in the 90s. I loved it so much I recorded it twice- in 1990 and 1994. It was about the same sort of character. A legend in his own share house kitchen. Never looking you in the eye, always off somewhere else. Waiting for his real life to start. I’ve been that type of person myself. The video was directed and shot by Donna McRae and Michael Vale. They thought up the whole visual idea. Based around an early French film maker called George Melies.
In 1996, you won the ARIA for Best Male Artist, in which you slyly declared yourself ‘King of Pop’ (referencing 70’s teen magazine, Go-Set’s pop award… I still remember that, by the way – pure brilliance). How relevant do you think awards like the ARIAs are to our music industry in Australia?

Well they’re pretty good if they recognise people’s work . Pity it’s just bought and sold by different TV channels. I always thought it’d be better to be exclusive and behind closed doors- for insiders only. Then the TV channels would have to report it on the News – either fights or gossip. Make it more of a glamorous – forbidden thing. Would be more fun for the players too. I haven’t been near one in decades.
The relationship you have with your wife and musical partner, Clare Moore, is a rare and enviable one. What’s your secret to a happy, creative partnership? How much do you influence each other with your respective musical projects (Clare’s résumé is amazing!) ?

Clare’s playing keys on a lot of these dates though she’ll be behind the kit at the SolBar. We have experienced a lot of stuff. We know what each other is talking about. I love playing with the Dames too and can’t wait to do another Clare Moore album. We do some film and TV soundtrack work together (though not as much as we like) and Clare is amazing with that stuff. Editing and playing keys and organising the pieces for the timing of the film. She’s great with harmony and also keeping Stu and Stuart informed of things. That’s important, communicating with each other. The guys have to leave their lives behind when we go on tour, we take ours with us.

What is the one main thing you want your audience to take away with them after a live Dave Graney performance (apart from a copy of the album, that is)?

Well, we’d like them to think they’ve seen and heard something unique. Something you can’t get anywhere else. We don’t do other people’s songs. It’s all my stuff. I like sensation, goofy stuff. Street language and grooves. So its kind of a balance between throwaway show business foolishness and madly ambitious flights of the imagination. Sometimes the two are the same thing and that’s really great.
And finally, from one hat aficionado to another, how many hats do you actually own?

Not enough. It’s hard to get hats to go with different outfits. I’ve only had one I really liked and that’s really stuffed. I need another one. They’re annoying, they give you an attitude.

The Point - Sunshine Coast

Talking to a young bloke at the paper in Mt Gambier.

Dave Graney was driving along the Coorong in South Australia when he was reminded of Max Harris, the celebrated modernist poet and unwitting protagonist in the Ern Malley literary hoax of the late 1940s.
Still endeavouring to escape the cloud of controversy, Harris had written a poem in the mid-1950s titled On Throwing a Copy of The New Statesman into the Coorong. Casting his eye along the same quiet country road that had inspired Harris’ poem, Graney contemplated the pre-ordained strictures of country life.
‘‘I was driving down the same road, driving down roads your mother and father might have driven down, thinking of your life, and your mind wanders to things,’’ Graney says. ‘‘Ephemeral and permanent kinds of things – you drive around on roads that are set there, and you can’t really drive off things that are set in your life.’’
Graney’s musings subsequently became Country Roads Unwinding, a song that would appear on his new album, Fearful Wiggings.

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In a departure from previous records with his band the mistLY, Fearful Wiggings is largely a solo acoustic outing, with input from Graney’s wife and long-time musical partner Clare Moore and guest appearances from Lisa Gerrard from Australian ambient dance group Dead Can Dance and British folk-blues artist Nick Harper.
The change in style and tempo from Graney’s previous records was more happenstance than deliberate strategy. ‘‘I had no definite idea at the beginning whether it was going to be with a band or not,’’ Graney explains.  ‘‘I really loved the last two albums by Bill Callahan [Apocalypse, from 2011, and Dream River, 2013] – they’re really minimalist and leave a lot of room for the vocal. I really wanted to explore that a bit.’’
 He contacted Harper, the son of renowned British folk musician Roy Harper, after hearing he had been playing Graney’s Rock’n’Roll Is Where I Hide in his live set.
‘‘Nick Harper grew up in that avant-garge British folk scene of the early 1970s, which I’ve immersed myself in,’’ Graney says. ‘‘He’s an incredibly talented, shamanistic-type of guitarist – he does things that he does beyond what you can learn in books, when you’ve done the 20,000 hours of tinkling around on a guitar that you’ve got to do. I was quite honoured by the fact he was playing one of my tunes, so I got in touch with him.’’
He is in the midst of a national tour that has taken him to some different types of venue: a chicken shop in Ocean Grove, a book shop in Canberra and a converted bank building in the old centre of Newcastle. For Graney it’s about ‘‘playing a different kind of show, for a different kind of album’’.
Later this year Graney and his band will head to Europe to play some shows (while in Europe, Graney and Moore will also find time to play in Harry Howard’s backing band, the NDE).   His Francophile leanings continue to evolve – the title of Fearful Wiggings is taken from the glossary to a book of French short stories. But Graney is particularly impressed by the honesty of French songwriters.
‘‘They have songwriters [who] write about middle-age people, singing about failure and not caring about anybody or anything. That sort of thing is just not allowed in American or English music – there always has to be some sort of corny positivism in English-language stuff,’’ Graney says.
‘‘But the French do not care – they express all sorts of pithy, misanthropic kind of things.  Everything’s allowed in an adult way – bitterness, schadenfreude and all those kinds of things.  That’s what I like about European lyrics.’’

Patrick Emery in the AGE/SMH July 2014

A story about FEARFUL WIGGINGS in AUSTRALIAN MUSICIAN MAGAZINE by Greg Phillips

TRACK BY TRACK with many interesting links in MESS and NOISE

A story in Rhythms Magazine about FEARFUL WIGGINGS

A story about FEARFUL WIGGINGS in TIM MAGAZINE

An interview on SYNFM late July 2014

Thoughtful blog from Melbourne

A podcast from Bob Osborne in Salford UK

August 3rd THE DAMES at the Post Office Hotel

August 17th - dave graney solo at the Drunken Poet in Melbourne August 22nd Happy Yess Club - Darwin


NZ TOUR- dave graney and clare moore
Wed 27th August: Auckland. .... Golden Dawn
Thurs 28th August: Wellington - MEOW
Fri 29th August: Christchurch - Darkroom
Sat 30th August:
Christchurch - 9.30am - appearance at Writers Festival
Sat 30th August - Dunedin - Chick's Hotel

imponderables! Darwin and NZ dates then Europe with Harry Howard

"one more fuckin' imponderable!" thundered Al Swearingen when the greasy mayor inquired as to why he seemed to dread the arrival of the telegraph in Deadwood."One more fuckin' imponderable."

2014 I have sometimes felt beset by many imponderables. Mugged by gangs of stinking imponderables. Still, we must go on.


The "Fearful Wiggings - in concert" dates shave been going very well. The music and the players have been the greatest. Mostly Stu Thomas on baritone and Clare Moore on keys and percussion - occasionally joined by Stuart Perera on electric. I've been playing two guitars through my Crate acoustic amp. This amp is a powerfully clear solid state box and I put my Maton six string and KYairi 12 string through one channel and my 1959 Ibanez Salvador archtop through a sansamp into the other channel. For the acoustics I also go through a BBE preamp and an Aphex acoustic exciter.


Playing older songs I haven't touched in years has also been enriching.

FYI we have been playing stuff like...
scorched earth love affair - 1995
you wanna be there but you don't wanna travel - 1991
where the trees walk downhill - 1981
chads car - 1982
the birds and the goats - 1995
I'm gonna live in my own big world - 1995
the sheriff of hell - 1997
I'm just havin' one of those lives - 1993
Mogambo - 1995

as well as a healthy serving of songs from FEARFUL WIGGINGS.

We started off in Castlemaine- a town where people go to avoid other people.They successfully avoided us - and our very good fellow travellers TEETH AND TONGUE.
Mt Gambier was a date at the City Band Hall. I was last in there three decades ago on a boyhood whim to play in the marching band. A beautiful 70s looking place out  on the east side of town. I always wanted to get back in there and a  local friend, BUGGO, helped me to achieve this.
We drove for many hours to get there and were greeted by a  welcoming group of people. Some looked familiar. One was a woman who insisted o hugging me and then wiped her nose, sniffed and said she was really sick and that she'd probably given me something. For some reason she took poor Clare aside and informed her she'd never heard my music and was not coming to the show and wanted to talk about a  party. It was positively Shakespearean. I mean she should have had two other crones by her side and all of them around a bubbling cauldron!

The night could have gone off the rails at any moment but never did. Quite a magical evening. BYO and all over before 11pm.  People brought eskies full of booze and sat around the trestle tables. Marvellous.



Other shows that we did like this- at venues where people set up shows in off the main tracks type rooms - were really great. Always surprising. The Piping Hot Chicken Shop in Ocean Grove, which is actually a  chicken shop. Smiths Alternative Bookshop in Canberra.


The more we drifted toward "normal" rock'n'roll joints- the less enjoyable it was. More uptight generally. Dead zones.

The record was album of the week on Triple R which was a great honour and a great lift for us. Community radio in general has been very supportive.

We have more dates to do and then Clare Moore and I will be playing in NEW ZEALAND - see below- and then accompanying Harry Howard and Edwina Preston to Europe. We play bass and drums in Harry Howard and the NDE.



I am hoping to do a few shows of my own in Europe. I'll post the dates soon.

Clare Moore's band , THE DAMES, are playing a  rare show on Sunday 3rd August at the Post Office Hotel.


Harry Howard and the NDE  are also playing at the Post Office Hotel on August 9th.


Thanks to everybody who has come to a  show or bought a cd.

Fearful Wiggings track by track - in concert tour and new clip

Was very pleased and honoured for FEARFUL WIGGINGS to get "album of the week" on Triple R in Melbourne last week. This is what they said, also the best review the cd has had so far as well!

 "The latest installment from iconic Melbourne musician (and Triple R broadcaster!) Dave Graney is as compelling and unique as ever. On this record we hear the distinctive vocals and poetically concise lyricism Dave is known for presented in new and ever more expressive sonic form. Throughout the course of the album Dave Graney and partner Clare Moore explore everything from sparse folk, jazz, to adventurous art pop, all with a richly textured ambience."
Simon Winkler - Triple R 

 Here is a track by track guide to the album.

A woman skinnies a  man up

There was a conversation with my cousin Garry, who’s a stock and station agent in South East Sth Australia. He often says funny things. He was describing how a friend behaved when a woman was around. “She skinnied him up…” The music is a kind of boogie that I’d been goofing off on for years. No bass. I saw a documentary about the Californian country singer Buck Owens and he said he hardly used any bass on his trademark “Bakersfield sound” country records so as to give more room for the vocals. I love the sound of 60s country and where the voice sits, way out front, so that was  a big thing in my approach to the whole album.

  

Everything was legendary with Robert

A mutated Bo Diddley beat with acoustic and electric guitars and bass xylophone. This is the single. The music sounded like  a tv theme tune to me, which is to say , I thought it was high quality and really catchy. It’s like a Ray Davies type of a  song as far as the lyrics go. 

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How Can You get Out of London?

The second line is “how can you get London out?” We lived there for five years and had to leave suddenly. A kind of a “what if?” shadow life runs through my mind occasionally . “What if we’d stayed there?”  I love to read books about London. It’s in my mind a lot. The music is a kind of Latin groove, again. Clares voice has no reverb. Dry and straight like those British folk records I’ve been immersed in for years.

Country Roads, unwinding

Aside from London, I am obsessed with country roads and down beat country towns. They’re disappearing, really. Just villages with old people and a few antiques shops.  I know, I do a lot of driving. Clare plays the vibes on this track. it was finished very early in the piece. Just fell into a sweet spot pretty easily.

A fellow called Heath Britton came up to me after a solo gig in Adelaide and said he had some footage of the drive between Mt Gambier and Adelaide. He kindly sent it to me and I used it for this clip. It was sent on a disc at 4X the speed and I only used the part of the drive between Mt Gambier and Millicent.


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Flower of the earth

I got very ill in Paris in 2008 and almost coughed my lungs up on a metro train and then on the street. Thought I was popping my cork. A lot of blood can scare you. When it’s coming out of you. I had been trying to learn French and read, slowly, a  lot of old books. One was French Vietnamese poetry and there was this proverb saying “ man is the flower of the earth”. I thought that was a wonderful thing to be said at a time when the persons country was being “bombed into the stone age” by the Yanks. A lot of bad French grammar in the lyrics of this song.  I wanted to say “Man!Woman! like Eric Burdon did in the New Animals. I pulled the beat together and liked the groove of the chords. Augmented or diminished chords. Kind of a “cha cha cha” feel in the bass line. Like all those great 30s feels that a lot of classic disco had.

Fearful Wiggings

Nick Harper played guitar on this song. He’s a UK singer and player. Son Of Roy harper. I’d been listening to all this UK folk and he grew up totally IN that world. He got in touch once because he liked some of my songs and even played one at his gigs. He asked me to sing a song on his 2013 album , “Riven”. In return , I asked him to play on a couple of mine. An amazing guitarist. I’ve never met him in the flesh. Hopefully some time this year. The lyrics of this song are very personal. It was originally called “the ballad of Graney and Moore”. That was either a bit too high flown  or a bit too rootsy or earthy.

I’m the Stranger in Town

Sadly, I have realized that this is how I have lived my life. As if I was just passing through – or if I was set to leave at any moment. Like the songs says “silly – I know”

The music is a bit of a groove I’d been mucking around on for ages. Didn’t want it to sound too straight and “bluesy” so I asked Clare to play it half time as if it was a hip hop track,. Just one mic on the drums.  There’s cicadas on it. I needed a lonely sound and walked onto my deck with a ZOOM and took them from my own yard. Summer sounds.

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Je est un Autre

A line Arthur Rimbaud wrote in a letter to a friend when he was seventeen years old. “I is another”. Translated differently sometimes but this has the correct clunky meaning. “I” is the person who is thinking “me” up and fronting it to “you”. Just me on twelve string guitar and some buried keys. 

Look into my shades

When I was coughing up blood in Paris in 2008 I had to see a doctor with x rays of my lungs. He came out all dressed in denim. The denim jacket slung over his shoulders. He had longish grey hair and mirror shades on, as he stared at the X-rays and waved me off with a  happy go lucky smile and shake of his head.  I went around the corner to have a coffee and was heaving up more blood into a bin five minutes later. The Doctor with the shades image stayed with me. The song is kind of an Isaac Hayes rap. A wounded, macho man groaning about his ills. The music is a lot of chordal work, stacks upon stacks of chords, set against a Bo Diddley beat. No bass until the last minute. 

I know you can’t see me

This is the purest moment of the session I did with Lisa Gerrard. She worked on the vocal eq for a long time. The reverb and it’s stereo pan. Just guitar and vocal and Lisa doing some ambient singing way in the distance. I can’t thank her enough for inspiration and fire. 

Everything is perfect in it’s beginning

This was all recorded at our studio. Funny, discordant guitar chords. I’d demo’d this a couple of years ago. Hard to get a  beat to the irregular timing. I figured something out with a hip hop boombox. Kind of prog chords in the chorus. Monstrous distorted guitars and some slide too. Lots of guitars. Clare hates too many guitars, but this was my album.

The lyrics are kind of proverbial. When things begin, they contain their end, so they’re perfect.

The Old Docklands Wheel

I wanted to write a really, really DOWN Downbeat song. Lots of music isn’t heavy enough for me. It’s too cute. Or shallow. I want things to be really heavy or sad if they’re gonna try for those depths. So this is a relentlessly downward spiralling song. A spiky, discordant folk blues song. Mentions “the artist Schiele”. It goes down and down and then falls a bit further. Then the singer notes, outside the window, “the old Docklands Wheel”…Melbourne people would understand...

This song is graced by the guitar stylings of Nick Harper too. He’s a demon.

I was there

Almost a duet with Clare Moore. We’ve been musicians for a long time. Some times we hear and watch people talking about situations and events that we were at and they’re talking about a completely different scenario. It’s become mythic. You can’t challenge myths. I’m trusting this could be a common feeling. That’s what you have to do when you write songs- trust that things and “vibes” you have deep within you could be common to others.

https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/fearful-wiggings/id844777824

The album is also available in digital - or with a  physical cd as well- from Bandcamp...
 http://davegraney1.bandcamp.com/album/fearful-wiggings

We're playing in a different style and tempo, many different songs from the past and in some DIFFERENT kinds of venues.

“In Concert” tour by Dave Graney 2014 – 

June 6th - lunchtime performance at Basement Discs - Block Place in the city of Melbourne
 

June 12^th Bridge Hotel - Castlemaine w/ teeth and tongue

June 20^th City Band Hall Mt Gambier w/ local band of brothers Blue Valentine 
 

June 21 and 22 Wheatsheaf Hotel, Adelaide 

saturday tickets here 

sunday (afternoon/evening) tickets here

June 27^th Royal Exchange, Newcastle - 

June 28^th Milton theatre, Milton NSW -w/ the Glammarays

tickets here

June 29^th the Bunker, Coogee - NSW

July 3^rd  Camelot, Marrickville - NSW w/ the Glammarays

tickets here

July 4^th  Smiths Alternative Bookshop Canberra -     

July 5^th  Rad, Wollongong NSW w/ Justin Frew's Loose Intentions

July 6^th  Six String Brewery Central Coast - NSW

tickets here

July 11th SS&A club - ALBURY NSW

July 12^th Deans Martian Café , Deans Marsh VIC

July 18^th Brisbane – Beetle Bar – July 18^{th QLD}

July 19^th Solbar, Maroochydore, QLD

July 20^th Byron Bay – The Great Northern 

July 26th - THE TOFF IN TOWN - Melbourne w/ the GlammaRays  

August 22nd the Happy Yess - DARWIN

MORE DATES TO FOLLOW.....Hope to see you there!

FEARFUL WIGGINGS album preview show in Melbourne this Friday May 2nd then EVERYWHERE

Cover pick by Tony Mahony. I bought the shoes the day before and the shirt a couple of days before that. Tony called as I was on a train into town, suggesting we do the cover shoot so its not really a  posed or styled shot.

I'd started the recording in early 2013, looking at being pretty occupied with the DAMES and HARRY HOWARD and the NDE for most of the year. Recorded all the songs on acoustic guitar with a few mics at different places as well as an amp in another room and a DI.

Didn't think of the final FORM of the songs, just wanted to work my way out from inside them.

Ran into Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance) at a film music event and she invited me to do the vocals at her studio in country Victoria.

 The full story of that session is here.

Then I got in touch with Nick Harper, a UK player who had asked me to sing on a song on his 2013 album RIVEN.
I'm on a track called THE BEGINNING IS NIGH

Both instances involved other artists reaching to me from out of nowhere. I was very touched and inspired. (Nick had dedicated his album to Killing Joke and me...)
Nick's guitar parts are amazing. (He plays on two songs)

I'd been listening to a lot of 70s UK Folk for years and really wanted that ambience. Nicks father, Roy, was one of the stellar architects of that scene.




I worked on the recordings through 2013 , adding vibes and bass xylophone played by Clare Moore. Otherwise it's all me on guitars , bass, keys and some beats. I was always reaching for the Bo Diddley feel - such as in EVERYTHING WAS LEGENDARY WITH ROBERT.




The clip was conceived, directed and edited by MICHAEL VALE and DONNA McRAE who had done an equally stellar clip for THE DAMES. We had worked on the film JOHNNY GHOST with Michael and DONNA and hope to continue thet association on their next project. They came up with the seance/ spiritualist elements and the George Melies tribute effects.

I spoke to a friend in the UK and he urged me to get it mastered outside of Australia. I looked around at records of recent years I'd enjoyed and settled on Roger Siebel at SAE in Arizona as I loved the two most recent Bill Callahan albums, Apocalypse and DREAM RIVER.

Here is the track listing...

1. A WOMAN SKINNIES A MAN UP
2. EVERYTHING WAS LEGENDARY WITH  ROBERT 
3. HOW CAN YOU GET OUT OF LONDON?
4. COUNTRY ROADS, UNWINDING
5. FLOWER OF THE EARTH
6. FEARFUL WIGGINGS
7. I’M THE STRANGER IN TOWN
8. JE EST UN AUTRE
9. LOOK INTO MY SHADES
10. I KNOW YOU CAN’T SEE ME
11. EVERYTHING IS PERFECT IN IT’S  BEGINNING
12. THE OLD DOCKLANDS WHEEL
13. I WAS THERE

The itunes version has three exclusive tracks that we recorded.

14  I need some scratch
15  Kiss tomorrow goodbye
16  Aristocratic jive.

If you pre-order the album , it costs $13.99

https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/fearful-wiggings/id844777824

We're playing in a different style and tempo, many different songs from the past and in some DIFFERENT kinds of venues.

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“In Concert” tour by Dave Graney 2014 –

May 2nd - album preview party the WORKERS CLUB, FITZROY w/ the OCean Party

May 17^th Baby Black Café Bacchus Marsh Vic

June 12^th Bridge Hotel - Castlemaine w/ teeth and tongue

June 20^th City Band Hall Mt Gambier

June 21 and 22 Wheatsheaf Hotel, Adelaide

June 26^th Brass Monkey , Cronulla -w/ the Glammarays

June 27^th Royal Exchange, Newcastle -

June 28^th Milton theatre, Milton NSW -w/ the Glammarays

June 29^th the Bunker, Coogee - NSW

July 3^rd  Camelot, Marrickville - NSW w/ the Glammarays

July 4^th  Smiths Alternative Bookshop Canberra -     

July 5^th  Rad, Wollongong NSW

July 6^th  Six String Brewery Central Coast - NSW

July 11th SS&A club - ALBURY NSW

July 12^th Deans Martian Café , Deans Marsh VIC

July 18^th Brisbane – Beetle Bar – July 18^{th QLD}

July 19^th Solbar, Maroochydore, QLD

July 20^th Byron Bay – The Great Northern

MORE DATES TO FOLLOW.....Hope to see everybody there. It's a FEARFULLY WIGGING time to be a touring musician. Be nice to have some company! If you're game.

FEARFUL WIGGINGS at itunes for pre-order. Only $13.99

pre order FEARFUL WIGGINGS - 3 extra tracks for $13.99

FEARFUL WIGGINGS is out in May .

itunes version will contain three extra exclusive tracks. If you pre-order it it will cost only $13.99.


Click here to pre-order the album

An album preview show will be at the Workers Club in Melbourne May 2nd.

Tour dates nationally in June, July and August.

Stu Thomas Paradox sings LEE HAZLEWOOD - March 22 in Melbourne (last night)

Here are some photos from the Stu Thomas Paradox sings LEE HAZLEWOOD show March 22nd at the Flying saucer Club. Stu dressed the stage with some paintings he'd done. He approached this seriously and meticulously!

Stu Thomas also plays bass with the mistLY. His voice was perfect for Lee. Sometimes his register was so low it was like he was showing off.

 The show was all about LEE. Only one or two of the LEE and NANCY SINATRA hits. A fanstastic song he did with Ann Margaret called SLEEP IN THE GRASS.

Clare Moore was on keys and vocals. Amazing performance and playing. Skills!

 Phill Collings played so deftly and quietly. Setting the tempo and shifting the gears. What a  pro!

Eduardo Miller played the bass. In a very happy frame of mind as he learned the Sts were in the lead in the football.

It was a punt by Stu. Just wanted to actually play all the songs and not worry about accentuating the HITS or whatever. People were there who were HIP to the material. A real night for music LOVERS.

Here's a Lee song they did "PRAY THEM BARS AWAY"



and another- "After six"

Hello Comrades- been a while - some stuff will be happening soon...

2014 is marching on at quite a pace. I've been sitting on this new album since the start of the year, keen to get it out and start working.
The record is quite arty and minimalist, yet pop. I started it in early 2013 by putting down a lot of ideas on acoustic guitar. No actual songs in mind. No choruses or arrangements. I was trying not to think of the END, how they would  shape up. As it happens, they didn't change much.
I did the guitar with Idge at Soundpark. Then I ran into Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance at a film music event.


She invited me to record some vocals at her studio in the country. I think she imagined I'd turn up with a song or two but I had 14 on my hard drive.

She had these beautiful mics in her studio with deluxe valve reverbs. I was just singing in the room, with no headphones. Lisa sitting and advising her engineer about EQ and effects. An amazing experience.

I was there for a day and a half.

The rest of 2013 I was busy with the Dames, Wam and Daz and Harry Howard and the NDE.

I worked on it the rest of the year.  It's coming out in May. 13 tracks. I play guitars, bass, keys and made up some beats. Clare Moore played vibes, bass xylophone and sang on it a  lot.
I also had Nick Harper play guitar on two songs.


http://www.harperspace.com/

Nick's father is Roy Harper.A noted British musician.


Funny, I'd been listening to tons of UK folk from that 60s / 70s period and Nick reached out to me from deep within it. He'd grown up with all those figures around the house. I sang a song on Nick's album and he played on two songs on my album. He's a demon on guitar.
I was very humbled and amazed to see his cd , "Riven" was dedicated to Killing Joke - and myself!

Lisa was great to work with, however briefly. It had  a great impact on me. And my music. We'd been aware  of Dead Can Dance since their beginning - and before- in the early 80s Melbourne scene. We probably went to their first ever shows and saw Lisa play solo gigs at pubs like the Rising Sun In Swan st Richmond. We saw them again at their Melbourne show in 2013, thirty years later.

I spoke to a  friend in the UK and he urged me to get the record mastered properly. I looked up the figures who had mastered recent records I loved and did it with Roger Siebel in Phoenix Arizona, because I love the sounds on those last two Bill Callaghan albums.



We're going to be doing some shows soon. All around the place. Doing more of a set that chimes with this album.


Friday May 2nd we are previewing the album at the Workers Club in Melbourne
July 20 and 21st we are at the Wheatsheaf Hotel in Adelaide.  More dates to come.


A single , with accompanying video, for a song called "everything was legendary with Robert" will be Monday March 24th.