Recent posts from the music life

A solo show I'm doing in an historical woolshed at Glencoe- near Mt Gambier. September 27th. Tickets here. 

August 12th

 Saw Robin Casinader play another masterful set of brilliant sounds in a Northcote bar (Open Studio).With his keyboard and MELLOTRON. A songbook with fresh tunes and others going back decades. Accompanied by Natasha on viola who had met him ten hours earlier. A clip from last year.



Robin played a song going way back to Plays With Marionettes, his band that was contemporary with the Moodists in early 80s Melbourne. It was a great tune! He played Salty Girls which he wrote and sang on the album "The Soft n Sexy Sound" with us in 1995. Sounded amazing!

Robin lives in Canberra and will hopefully play more regularly in Melbourne. Nobody else like him. Not with the skills and the sensibility. He was so relaxed in performance too. Loose but totally concentrated when playing. Not a lot of chat but when he did it was perfect for the moment. Julitha Ryan did a fine opening set. She did so even though Robin soundchecked until well past the time she was supposed to begin.
I know that would have been upsetting but as an audience member I enjoyed Robin taking so long to set up and the tension building. He should do it every time as an opening act...

(At a show in the same venue last year Robins' accompanist and co singer (Francesca) injured her arm the night before so he hired another mellotron and they did the gig as a Mellotron duo, facing each other, with Francesca doing her cello parts on the keyboard. Must be a jinxed room.)

 August 16th

Great night of music at the Northcote Social Club last night. On Diamond were so confident and spellbinding. Sometimes it was like the first version of PIL with Anne Briggs singing but they are really their own thing. The bass player nailing it all to the floor and the drummer swinging so loose and relaxed and Lisa Salvo and the guitarist swooping to and fro up in the heavens. In a music scene that is choked 95% tribute nights and the like this sort of act is so valuable.



Machine Translations were playing in support of a re-release of a 2002 album called HAPPY. Full of great pop moments and wilful artistry. Greg Walker is a favourite songwriter of mine. His voice and demeanour are very winning and his guitar playing and chordal divinings are mesmerising. He played an SG through and Ampeg amp as well as acoustic. With a great rhythm section and prog biker cat on guitar/keys/melodica and xylophone and two backing singers. They probably had never played the whole album before as it seemed to involve a lot of studio creativity/cutting and pasting. They played one of my favourite songs called The Monkeys Back which Greg introduced as having written about Australians keeping voting in John Howard and he said it was horrible that it was still relevant. Listening to it roll out was that feeling I used to get as a kid listening to the hopelessness in Neil Youngs On The Beach. Unbearable helpless feeling. 

"Monkey came 'a knocking
At your door
You know you should be careful
What you wish for
Now the monkey's back
We all get what we deserve
Roll out the plastic cheese
Flatten the earth
Now the monkey's back
He knows just how to please
That's how I'm living in this
Pile of leaves
Monkey at the wheel's got
Huge control
Bonny says it feels so
Safe and cold
Will she be lying when she says I do
Get on the monkey's back
We all get what we deserve
Roll out the plastic cheese
Flatten the earth
La la the monkey's back
He knows just how to please
That's how I'm living in this
Pile of leaves
Martyr of the roses
Black and blue
You know you should be careful
The things you do
'cause now the monkeys back
We'll all get what we deserve
Roll out the plastic cheese
Flatten the earth
La la the monkeys back
Now forget what you learned
That's how I'm living in this
Pile of earth"

It was a rush of ambivalent feelings listening and watching them play it. Very powerful. Anger and frustration.
They ended with another favourite, the beautiful chords, words and loops of "Be My Pillow".
I know its also retro having a band get into some old performing shape to play an old album again but some music is so rich and actually worth someone taking the time and trouble. Beyond nostalgia, it was all still ringing with me this morning.

The early 2000s were a pretty horrible period for music, continuing the dreadful slowdown that happened in the late 90's. Machine Translations were a highlight of the time and Greg has continued to put out fantastic music ever since. 




The only negative of the night was that it should have all started two hours earlier. Late gigs are silly.

Another great musical experience recently was getting to interview Peter Asher and Albert Lee on the radio show I do on Triple R . We also went to their Melbourne show and had a wonderful time. They mostly told stories of their lives in music but when this touches on experiences with -or parralel to - the Beatles, the Everly Brothers, Waylon Jennings, Elvis Presley, Emmy Lou Harris, James Taylor, Carole King, Linda Ronstadt and many others.... well, the names just keep on getting dropped.... so you roll with it...

Listen back here, the interview starts at about one hour into it....

The week before that, David McClymont - who played with us in the latterday Moodists (my favourite period of that band) - came in to talk about his new album which is available at Bandcamp.

You can listen back to that show here. Again, the interview starts at about one hour in. 

He continues to record new stuff and this song Centuries came out after the album.




Then he came over to our studio last week and we recorded a song with him. Well he then trashed it and re-arranged and re-wrote it so we will do it again. Will sound cool though!

Our new album ONE MILLION YEARS DC is mastered and in the pipeline for an October release.
It is also sounding GREAT to me. A strong collection of songs. Its all set in the end of the world - yes, the present day....

We are lining up some shows for September onwards. 

September 7th Dave Graney will be doing a solo show at the Homestead in Hobart.

September 8th Dave Graney will be appearing solo at MONA in Hobart.

September 27th - Dave Graney solo at PALOMINO NIGHTS. A show in SA at the heritage GLENCOE WOOLSHED. (Near Mt Gambier).Tickets here.

October 10th, 17th and 24th Dave Graney and Clare Moore will be playing with the mistLY at THE JAZZ LAB - 27 Leslie St, Brunswick
Melbourne.

Octber 25th and 26th Dave Graney and Clare Moore will be appearing at the JUNK BAR in ASHGROVE, BRISBANE.

Recently I

Recently I made an attempt to stay away from Social Media. Just wanted to try it after having a  funny feeling about being so exposed to whatever elements might be brewing about.

I have a song on this new album we are finishing called Finally I Come Clean where I was worrying about that kind of stuff. A lifetime of writing and singing words in public. I'm not the confessional type of writer/singer but I've still been out there - in the wind. So I went off of it just to see how it went. If I went near my computer or phone it would be just to look up something or work on Protools or write something. I don't really enjoy arguments online at all. Once I thought that Facebook might be good for actually keeping in touch with friends and family but I don't think so. Not for me anyway. Time and again I get so much more out of talking on the phone or in person with people. Same with music stuff, the faux intimacy of the internet is something I've written about in songs before. Such as in Matey From On High...



 In Finally I Come Clean its the idea that even if you were careful what you were saying, you never know what people are going to hear.


I had a great surge of energy and felt so positive spending less time with my head in that electronic soup bowl that is social media. It was great.

I drifted back over a period and still don't get much from it. Just goofy distractions. Narcissistic - yes. Staring into a stagnant pool or a dirty mirror. Crude images and distorted reflections anyway.



Then yesterday I saw this person air raiding me... or more acurately, using me to start/settle  an argument with..... the world/internet..... (They were framing it -me - around a picture of a new supergroup trio of Mia Dyson, Liz Stringer and Jen Cloher).

(Got to say I just wanted to collect all this here as I don't want to be arguing with them. Its such an illustration of how much time and energy social media can waste. I just wanted to get it all out of my head though...Also I'm referring to "them" as they talk from behind a snappy internet superhero nickname/persona...)

I got upset and involved as it was needless kind of slander.

They responded in the manner that suggested I shouldn't get involved any more. Just a dogmatic brain typing words.

Being called "nice" was bad enough but "privilege" seemed to be the worst. I know they meant MALE PRIVILEGE but fuck it. 

I got upset because its a kind of argument that swirls around the sloppy argumentative internet media world. All about gender and equality and stuff. All very good. But the people they are dragging into it are MUSICIANS. We all ran away to the circus. WHERE FREAKS BELONG. All this rational thinking and ordering of the world is nice. Very neat and tidy. But leave US the hell out of it.

Privilege. I am not here to defend Tex but both he and I did not come from the world of Private Schools and academia, WHERE MOST MUSICIANS AND ARTISTS COME FROM. In my case my mother raised six kids and my father painted public buildings for the local council and worked nights in a bar. 

Also, in the mid 90s Tex was undeniably involved in two of the hottest combos possible. The Cruel Sea were undeniable, as were the Beasts Of Bourbon. As were Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes AND THE CLOUDS. We all worked our arses off too.

There is another song on our upcoming album called WHERE DID ALL THE FREAKS GO. 

When the going can't get weird and the weird cant get going

when the going is only weird and the weird can't get going

where did all the freaks go? Huh?

How straight are weddings?

"It must be in a  church!" Though nobody knows a church

"It must be right - anything else would be just weird!"

where did all the freaks go?

When the going can't get weird and the weird cant get going

when the going is only weird and the weird can't get going

where did all the freaks go? Huh?

where's our green light?

where's our Kings Cross?

where's our Soho?

what's our sound?

How can we tell whats happening?

where did all the freaks go?

The Dave Graney and Clare Moore album is still on schedule. We have some shows lined up for October-November and will be announcing soon. 

promo cd cover...

It Don't Stop!

Well I guess IT will have to stop at some stage but while we can shake IT and make some noise we might as well, 'ey?
Though we are instituting a new kind of year zero attitude from here on in. No more setting our  moves to some other time code. No more values imported from outside. We'll be setting off our own timeline. Soon.
I'm referring in some ways to this second album for 2019 which will be finished soon. It will be a digital only release. It's an album that has eleven songs sizzling away at the moment. Just a few more finishing touches. Pretty much all instruments played by myself and Clare Moore.

 

Though we are having some touches put on by a special guest on an exotic instrument and once again, Will Hindmarsh and Emily Jarrett have added some amazing vocals to one track.
The projected title is Dave Graney and Clare Moore - ONE MILLION YEARS DC.
There will be no arguments entered into!
October is the month.
We will probaby sneak a song out before the whole thing is let out of our precious bag.

Thanks to everybody who came to our ZIPPA DEEDOO shows. We ended up in Adelaide at the Gov, a wonderful venue that we hope to return to at some stage.
Like our Caravan Club show, we played a set mostly from the last decade of music and mostly from ZIPPA DEEDOO and LETS GET TIGHT.

 

yeah, these were on stage at the end of the night, nestled under my 12 string.

Then Clare Moore and  I had to concentrate on some material for a Scott Walker tribute that we'd agreed to be involved in. That was harder for me as I'm not really match fit as far as boning up on other peoples songs and arrangements go. I had said "yes" to it in a joyful spirit of can do and then I had to face the reality of how many lyrics there actually were in the songs I'd chosen. Clare was playing drums as well as vibes for about 22 songs. Steve Hadley on bass (who had asked us to be involved), Bruce Haymes on keys, Shane Reilly on pedal steel and guitars and Jack Howard on trumpet. The singers chose the material, whatever they knew or thought they knew, and away we went. Ended up having two rehearsals in the week of the gig. We played the Thornbury theatre and the Caravan Music Club. The singers were myself and Rob Snarski, David Bowers, Moogie Morgan and Alyce Platt.

I opened proceedings with Boy Child and Plastic Palace People and later on did Black Sheep Boy, After the Lights Go Out , Blanket Roll Blues and the Old Mans Back Again, Moogy did Mathilde, My Death, Ne Me Quitte Pas, Amsterdam (in french) and Jackie . Alyce Platt did a different arrangement of Amsterdam in English. Rob Snarski did The Amourous Humphrey Plugg, Lady Came From Baltimore, The Worlds Strongest Man and Duchess and David Bowers did My Ship Is Coming In, The Lights Of Cincinatti, Montague Terrace In Blue, No Regrets and the Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore.
I played extra guitar on several and did backing vocals, percussion and emcee'd the show. The music was played in two sets.
I introduced songs and generally talked people through it, presuming they would be knowledgeable Scott Walker fans, i.e, a tough crowd.
Each song had a lot of finicky arrangement and textural touches. Lots of concentration involved. It was surprising to realize that each little package of sound was rarely more than two minutes long because inside them they were so intricate and detailed.
This was the second tribute/homage show I'd been involved in other than the Bowie In Berlin nights we did in 2018.

There has been talk or more shows down the track, who knows?

Then I went back into the studio. We are organizing some shows for later in the year in NSW and Qld.

A review of ZIPPA DEEDOO in the i94bar.

I'm at the first 100 of an 800 page John Cowper Powys novel. Set in 14th century Wales. Owen Glendower.
I've watched four episodes of THE LOUDEST VOICE, the dramatized story of Roger Ailes and Fox news. Never have I watched a show with such absolute turds as the lead characters. Russell Crowe is pretty good as AILES but its hard to cheer on a guy who has had such a profoundly shitty influence on the USA and so, the world.

Oh yes, we had an election too somewhere in there. Like most people, I'm still getting over that. And hoping the Labour Party doesn't chuck itself out of the bath in haste to become attractive to swinging zombie voters. In the UK a tiny bunch of people make Boris Johnson their leader, in the US its Trump, voted in by a percentage of a third of the country . In Australia we have someone leading a  real pack of inept, thoughtless bozos- but we have compulsory voting?!@#&^%#@!




I'm still interested in doing shows outside of pubs and clubs. 

I am up for some PARLOUR GIGS. It's a system or portal where you can book artists to come play in your PARLOUR - House - Apartment - Back yard etc. I have done a few of these with a mic and guitar plugged into my acoustic amp.
Click here for more details.

2 Melbourne then Adelaide then

 

This was our second ZIPPA night in Melbourne. We played North at the Northcote Social Club May 26th and then this show Southside at the Caravan Music Club.

In the week before the gig, Clare Moore and I did an interview with Raf Epstein on ABC Melbournes Conversation Hour. You can stream it here. 

Sean McMahon played an opening set with his band. Excellent people.

We played a long set, probably  75-80 minutes. Its a great room and there were seats, tables and stools all around the place. Great audio and lighting. If you didn't get there, you missed a classic night.

I started the show alone on the stage with the curtains opening and me playing part of a new instrumental piece on my archtop. As I got to the second chorus Stu, Stuart and Clare walked on and we moved into I Wanna Get Lost Again. 

We played straight through with songs from recent albums and earlier as well as ZIPPA DEEDOO. 

pic Graeme Tressider.

At the end I asked if there was anything people came wanting to hear and somebody called out for RUNAWAY, (The Moodists) which we then played. Somebody else wanted us to play Three Dead Passengers In A Stolen Secondhand Ford and we did that as well. We closed with CODINE.

 It was a very wintry day and we had a really fantastic time. Many old friends showed up and I thank them all.

On July 12th we head to Adelaide to play a final ZIPPA DEEDOO tour show at the Governor Hindmarsh. We have the Sunday Reeds opening. Tickets here.

Work is progressing on a new album. Settled on a title and Tony Mahony is working on a  cover.  

It's sounding great! Credited to Dave Graney and Clare Moore. October, I hope. 

On the show I do at Triple R I just got an album by a band who proudly say its "their first for twelve years".  Strange, they must be very rusty, you would reckon.

"the Serge Gainsbourg/Lee Hazelwood/Jim Morrison/Scott Walker/Skip Spence/Ern Malley/Lenny Bruce of Australian music.
A genius songwriter with effortless presence and command, and yet also an invisible chameleon, a reflecting surface, an anonymous conduit.
Anyone who saw his and Clare Moore’s ATP sets last year will not want to miss these.
Dave is one of the all time greats. I learned much of what I know from him. Rock and Roll is where he hides”. Stewart Lee


"You can dip in almost anywhere into the vast Graney catalogue and find something deeper and more satisfying than the pop fizz of the day. But if you are starting out, this album and attending a Graney gig on an extensive Australian tour in the next few months is an excellent place to begin".
Noel mengel - MusicTrust.com
"This is your Guernica, your Imagine, your XYGTHO Phase 3, your Raging Bull. Everything you have created before has culminated in this true masterpiece of recorded music. Life, Death, Pathos, Humour, Groove and above all Aplomb = Zippa Dee Do what is-was that-this? Congratulations to you, Clare and the mistLY and thank you for an album that will be on regular rotation in my shack for the remainder of my days".
Grame Tressider

"Dave Graney and the mistLY new album “Zippa Dee Doo What Is-Was That-This?” - guaranteed deep grooves, dangerous themes and hip-heating hot Rock action.
Get the good oil at Rocksteady Records"
Pat Monaghan

"This is described as a “rock and roll” album and in that it reflects music from the late 60s/early 70s (pre-punk if you will) that is a reasonable description but i’d say it goes beyond that basic description as there are modern elements, nods to jazz, the use of current technique, and of course the unique Graney/Moore stylings all present. It adds to and enhances a formidable body of work.
I commend it to you without reservation".
Bob Osborne - Analogue Trash Radio (UK)
“Graney has always been a raconteur – with equal doses of smooth, smug and wit. They say rock ‘n’ roll is a musical genre on the decline – but with this unusually titled album Graney has raised the rock ‘n’ roll flag and wears his love for the genre on his sleeve, meshed with some blues and psychedelia.
An album title that will cause confusion, but a set of songs that remind us of what a maverick Graney is. Liking his music will make you feel smarter!"
Brian Parker- Your Music Radar

”...brilliant show. Best band in this country by miles. Graney and Co. are totally unique. Whatever line-up, always amazing. And FUN!”.
Jon Schofield (musician)

"Just a quick note to say how much I’m loving the new album. Front-loaded with hits, and then a series of great band workouts. Superb.
Can’t decide which version of ‘Song of Life’ I like best. And ‘ULTRAKEEF' is a bloody classic. Am spreading the word on that clip.
And surely you’re catching up to - and have maybe even overtaken - Mark E. Smith in terms of output! Congrats, yet again".
Tony.
"Dave Graney gave me his new album Zippa Dee Doo whatis-was that-this. I saw the Mistly perform 'ultra keef' at one of the those marvellous Croxton Sunday arvo gigs. Fell in love with it and asked him if I could record it. Ending up recording a bit on the album, Dave mixed it. So many great f words on this track, very cathartic. A story about keef, everytime I've seen him play it the lyrics are different, genious".
Idge (Soundpark)

"Had this on high rotation today whilst driving from one place to another and back again. It’s a fantastic and thought provoking unique new album from Dave Graney and the mistly. A whole bunch of truly original well played weird, whack and wonder existentialist outsider art with the usual dash of wit and humour- oh and I can’t stop singing the hit song over and over in my head, “Bam! Baby I wish I’d been a better pop star” - excellent work guys - love it!- congrats".
andy jans brown
 
Dave Graney and Clare Moore CD Let's Get Tight available at iTunes and Bandcamp now.
"* #EzRepost @coiledsprings with @repostigapp
I can’t forget the bill that hot night at the Palace in St. Kilda many years ago…The show opened with a guy called Dave Graney, the song and dance man, the loveable rogue, ‘the love rustler’ with his Coral Snakes, and the serene Clare Moore keeping everything together in the back. Then the Cruel Sea shambled onstage with Tex Perkins, tearing a hole in the night, a bellowing, rancid Lizard King in a ripped Jaws t-shirt. Finally, the Bad Seeds, with Cave mounting the fold-back, capes flowing in an impossible wind, like some perverse southern gothic evangelist, braying to the raptured who were already certain to be damned, and didn’t care. The Palace heaved that night with sweat and obscenity. And we were right there, in Melbourne, at the molten core of the rock world, drinking in the magma. Not even a thousand beers as we poured out of there, and drifted over the tram tracks to the Esplanade, could calm us down and quell the charge. But it was the unstoppable Graney, in his natty jumpsuit, with his wit, and his ways, dipping into the slow chords of ‘Night of the Wolverine’, that we knew we’d found a poet, whose lines were etched like the statue of Carlo Catarni outside and had announced himself, that night, there and then, as a put-down-your-glassss superstar. xo
HandSolo
#davegraney #nightofthewolverine #recollections #thepalace #stkilda #melbournerocknroll #thecruelsea #nickcaveandthebadseeds #coiledspringsstudio“

The splintering

 

Ticket link

Its been a worrying time of hotels and strange, nagging discomfort...
I was in Darwin at a friends place a little over three weeks ago and enjoying some company and food when I moved in the deck chair and felt a splinter prick my right glute.
The next day I was in bed and realized it was still there and was able to retrieve it. I extracted it. Pulledit. Ouch! Drama! I know!
But I am a rocker. Also, I was raised on the much feared east side of Mt Gambier and played for the evan more fearsome East Gambier Football Club. It hurt like hell but I showed no sign of pain. 

 

We returned to Melbourne and I did a Parlour gig and then a show in Adelaide  where again, I slid into a bed larger than my own and felt the presence of something still in the right glute. More splinter! I did another show in Kyneton and then started to google the possibilities of splinters working their way through your body to your heart or worse and then, just as I was about to dial the ambulance, I heard of a product called MAGNOPLASM which draws out splinters. I scored some from a dealer in Upwey and applied it. A really hard GOO which is placed on a bandaid and then onto the affected area. A week later it came out .

In the meantime I had struggled through solo shows in Nambour and Brisbane. Just like the novel by Julien Green, EACH MAN IN HIS DARKNESS.

Clare Moore and myself had also had a days and night out in the hitherto undiscovered area of reclaimed swamps and industrial land that is called DOCKLANDS. Apologies if the images are blurred but I was still dealing with THE SPLINTER and had not yet told Clare Moore of my perilous situation. It was all I could do to press the button on the phone.

We used to live nearby in Port and South Melbourne for a lot of the 90s. It was then quite empty and desolate, just the sort of cityscapes we love. We walked around the bottom end of Spencer st near the Waterside Worers Hotel which used to be the earliest place a hardened drinker could rush a growler in the city. Nearby was where I got a tattoo in 1981, because Chris Walsh and Tracy Pew and everybody else had done so...Yes, it was quality peer pressure.

We had a refreshing lemon squash in a pub that had been built inside a former police staation. People could dine in what used to be cells. The building was all in magnificent bluestone. We went two steps into what for a decade or more was a derelict hulk called THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE but was now a poker machine hotel. Two steps in and the security guard was barking at me to take my hat off. This was at 4:30 pm on a Monday afternoon. "Is this an RSL?" I asked. 

He replied "take your hat off..." 

"Do I have to respect the poker machines?" I asked.

"Take your hat off" was his reply. (Its for the security camers or facial recognition)

There was nobody in there but him.

We left and continued walking. We only wanted to look at what they'd made of the building. 

(It reminded me of the time I was refused entry to The Cherry Bar -a bespoke rock n roll cculture bar....- because I was wearing a  suit. The security had been told not to let "suits" in. ) 

We walked past the tower block which had caught fire recently. Cheap, flammable cladding. There was an inquiry and none of its recommendations have been taken up. Of course. Not.

Hopefully the entire area will become cheap apartments for vintage bohemians?

Still. The splinter was preying on my behind. I told Clare Moore of my parlous condition.She humoured me.

The show In Nambour  on the Sunshine Coast was just me solo. I borrowed Matt Walkers enormous metal guitar roadcase and took off with my 1958 Ibanez Archtop and a suitcase with pedal board and books and CDs in it.

I was wearing a grey showbiz coat with black satin collar. 

The car I hired was upgraded to a Toyota Landcruiser, like a yacht. It took me an hour to understand the electronic key and how you couldn't test if the door was locked if the key was in your hand or pocket as it automaticaly unlocked when that key was anywhere in proximity. This shit is TOO smart.

I played to a full house for two sets through an amp lent by the venue owner ( who is a member of the great SHIFTING SANDS) which was a Vase head through a Vox cabinet. 

Requests were for MORRISON FLOORSHOW, THREE DEAD PASSENGERS IN A STOLEN SECONS HAND FORD and ROCK'N'ROLL IS WHERE I HIDE. All of which I did. Someone had asked for DEEP INSIDE A SONG but I didn't feel like it. They'd asked for one of the others.

I had been worried about the Brisbane venue as I didn't think it was the right fit. We were to have been doing two nights there with the mistLY but at some point I cracked it and said I would do it all solo. Sometimes I get fed up with the amount of work - especially PR - that is put onto the musician to do for a show. Lots of venues are like this, I call them ROBOGIGS. Like Formule 1 motels. 

Anyway, I booked into my hotel and strolled up to the venue, the owner was heavily tattooed and looked beleagured with life. He asked me if I'd organized a door person. I left him with the idea he was to look into it. The venue looked like some sort of den in Amsterdam. I still felt pretty fresh.

I came back to the venue and spoke on the phone with an old friend outside on a bench in the sun as a rockabilly band pounded away inside. 

My friends Pascalle Burton and Ian Powne came along, Ian with a  Vox amp and Pascalle with a commitment to doing the door- and I hadn't even asked. What a champ! 

Pascalle and Ian are from a great Brisbane band called the Stress of Leisure.

 

picture Pascalle Burton

I played two sets to a pretty well full house. Brisbane people have a way of finding you. Venues chop and change so much its always stressful going up there to play. The young sound guy was great to chat to. He is from a band called REQUIN.

Requests were for FEELIN KINDA SPORTY and RAW POWER, the latter from a very drunk man.

I played songs from ZIPPA DEEDOO WHAT IS/WAS THAT/THIS? as well as lots of older songs, unrecorded songs and covers of the Rolling Stones TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE and CHILD OF THE MOON.

 

Picture Melissa Field

My audience is vintage and scattered and I love it when they are able to tune in and turn up. Its not easy in the modern, atomized world to keep in touch with anything.

Oh, the second splinter had come out in the afternon before the gig. 

We are playing in Melbourne this Saturday night. June 29th. This is the city where we live and where we play the least.  This will be a great room and a full rock'n'roll show. Not like those other shows, PROPER!

Saturday June 29th - The Caravan Music Club - Bentleigh Special guest Sean McMahon

 

July 12th - THE GOV - Adelaide.Special guests The Sunday Reeds

Oh, work is continuing for our second album for 2019 and it should be out in November.
In the meantime I am looking for a venue to do a loose night in. A Monday or Tuesday night. Just fooling around with songs. Unstructured. If you know of any, get in touch. No ROBOGIGS. No publicity unless the venue wants to do it.

Also keen to do PARLOUR GIGS.  Set one up here.

Blues People slash Cabaret

I was asked to take part in an event as part of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. The event was one of a series called Liner Notes which are an unpredictable set of performances by a  chosen group of performers about a - usually - classic rock album. They have been running for a few years and Michael Nolan and Emily Zoe Baker who started it all up are really nice people so its usually fun.
I'd done one about five years ago, one of the earliest, around Bowis album Ziggy Stardust. You're basically asked to do something 'around" the album (or a particular song from it). To extrapolate, please. That time it was up in Brisbane and the crime writer Shane Maloney told a grim story of a drive into the country with his mates in the 70s with too much speed and only one 8 track cartidge in the car, Ziggy Stardust. There was some sort of stop to rob a petrol station involved as well. The audience laughed, maybe nervously, but still there was mirth. William McInnes had a few shandies and harangued the event and Bowie for a while. A mediocre performance/spoken word poet got up and did what they do. Michael did a great Bowie turn and I read out "the NAZZ" from fifties beatnik character Lord Buckley as I thought it was legit as Bowie sang "He was the Nazz!" in the title track of Ziggy Stardust. It's an exotic enough piece to carry an audience and it went over better than you'd think. Here is a  clip of the Lord Buckley himself doing it. I didn't have the command of the text to deliver it with such high energy but I rolled it out pretty straight.




I was asked to do a few others in years in between. One on the Doors but I demurred, saying I loved the Doors too much. Fleetwood Mac Rumours era? I hated that too much.

There was also the Bowie in Berlin shows early in 2018 where Michael Nolan was one of the singers and closed the show doing HEROES.

This time it was a show around the Blues Brothers, a film I must have seen once and didn't really like and the music of which seemed to be pretty badly reheated 80s style versions of classic songs. I felt like saying "yes" though as they are nice people and agreed to do a John Lee Hooker song, even though he isn't apparently on the album (but is in the movie).

The Adelaide Cabaret Festival itself is also a pretty unique thing.  Created in 2001 by Julia Holt who made it happen in an inspired way. Its still an area or vague meeting place of many types of performance where an audience allows itself to come in and be surprised. Kind of like the rock music scene once was. A large part of the audience just takes a chance on a show. It's really well funded and the venues are terrific. In the past we did our narrtive shows Point Blank and Live In Hell in Adelaide. There were other people like the Canadian Jane Siberry and the Parisian singer Caroline Nin doing shows regularly. At this festival it ws great to see people like Maude Davey and Stephen Oliver doing shows. Like any scene there was a lot of dross but it was an area which wasn't totally rigid in who was allowed in and what was or wasn't right to be there. I could do without all the gypsy jazz imagery and the burlesque, tattoos and perky, faux sexy shit but that's the general wallpaper of the scene I guess.

So I flew to Adelaide to do one song. No bags checked as luggage, just carry on stuff. I was to borrow a guitar and amp from the house band. It was  agreat hotel just walking distance from the Adelaide Festival Centre where we were to play to a  sold out room. The show started with the band all in black suits and bad wigs. They did a poor version of Booker T's "time is tight". I say poor only because the bass player didn't hit the unison groove with the guitar which makes it so tight and tense, he just played the root note and hung on it rather than drove it. So it wasn't tight as in tightly wound enough for me. Michael sang Minnie The Moocher in Cab Calloway tails and moustache and then changed into a Blues Brother suit and hat and introduced the show. I was sitting with chef, Maggie Beer and Festival director Julia Zemiro, who were both also going to do turns. Maggie was nervous as she isn't usually a musical performer. She spoke around Aretha Franklin. Author Andy Griffiths was the highlight of the showcoming on to Rawhide with a  bad cowboy hat and neckerchief and told  astory of reading his books to rooms of four hundred children, comparing it to the Blues Brothers getting stuff thrown at them in a Country bar. He talked of evil, horrible, funny  kids and even worse parents and read out some of the reviews they wrote of his work online. I hope he gets paid well in his day gig. He was terrific in this show.
Eventually I got up and as I walked on I felt bad about trying to play John Lee Hookers Boom Boom Boom and just talked into the mic about how it was true, white people couldn't really sing the blues. Except for Boz Scaggs and Michael McDonald. I threw those names in just for a stir but it was a cabaret audience, pretty broad and jusst wanting a night out. I confessed I didn't like the film. I knew the music in its original form and there was nothing in this revisionist stuff for me. (I allowed it was marginally better than The Commitments).
I talked of the difference between Keith Relf from theYardbirds singing "I'm A Man" as some sort of young mans sexual yelping and Bo Diddley or Muddy Waters singing it when they've been called "boy" for such a major part of their lives. Yeah I had to tell the audience that it seemed that I was there to bring the story down to earth. I talked about Chicago and  Detroit being a  magnet for African Americans coming up from the Southern states looking for the work in industry which Henry Ford had promised them in the 1940s. (The Blues Brothers being filmed mostly in Chicago). I also talked of Dan Ackroyd probably coming from Second City in Toronto across Lake Michigan to Chicago and Lorne Michaels from Saturday Night Live also being Canadian. Michael had mentioned Belushi writing the script at Ken Keseys house and so I started talking about One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest and how that was directed by Milos Forman whose films were all produced and financed by Saul Zaents who had the jazz label Fantasy records which had some pop acts which he used to make quick money and one of these had been Creedence Clearwater Revival and how he'd taken ownership of the publishing rights to all John Fogertys songs - to this day - and how John retired bitterly in his early thirties but came back in 1981 with Centrefield which included a song called Vantz Cant Dance for which Zaents sued him  and how all the other members of Creedence - including his own brother - sided with Zaents against him..... Yeah I took things to a dark place - a void.



I didn't write anything down, I was just talking.
Then I read some words from LeRoi Jones from his 1963 book Blues People where he said the idea of white people singing the blues "seems as violent an contradiction as a middle class person singing the blues".
I read some from Charlie Gillets "the Sound And The City" witha  quote from John Lee Hooker about how many different names he recorded under. I wanted to say how much fun he would have been having : John Lee Booker, Texas Slim, Delta John, Birmingham Sam, Johnny Williams, and His Magic Guitar. He also many nicknames over the years, including the Boogie Man, the Hook, the King of the Boogie, and the Crawlin' Kingsnake. All these records on different labels under different names.

Then I read a poem from Amiri Baraka, explaining that LeRoi Jones changed his name to this at some point. The poem was from his book, FUNK LORE. The title poem, which comes near the end of the book and is part of a series all subtly involving pianist Thelonious Monk.

Funk Lore (English)

Blue Monk
We are the blues
    ourselves
    our favorite
      color
    Where we been, half here
half gone
We are the blues
    our selves
    the actual
      Guineas
    the original
      Jews
    the 1st
      Caucasians
That's why we are the blues
      ourselves
    that's why we
      are the
      actual
        song
    So dark & tragic
      So old &
        Magic
      that's why we are
          the Blues
          our Selves
    In tribes of 12
      bars
    like the stripes
      of slavery
 on
      our flag
        of skin
We are the blues
    the past the gone
    the energy the
    cold the saw teeth
    hotness
    the smell above
    draining the wind
    through trees
    the blue
    leaves us
    black
    the earth
    the sun
    the slowly disappearing
    the fire pushing to become
    our hearts
    & now black again we are the
    whole of night
    with sparkling eyes staring down
    like jets
        to push
        evenings
        ascension
        that's why we are the blues
        the train whistle
        the rumble across
        the invisible coming
        drumming and screaming
        that's why we are the
        blues
        & work & sing & leave
        tales & is with spirit
        that's why we are
          the blues
          black & alive
          & so we show our motion
            our breathing
            we moon
            reflected soul
 that's why our spirit
           make us
            the blues           we is ourselves
            the blues

I just wanted to do something clean I guess. I'm no good at cabaret. I do my own thing.

Julia told a story about being dragged into a reality tv competition show to duet on Jailhouse Rock which is apparently in the film.
A person in drag with two dancers lip synced to Aretha Franklins "Think" . I don't consider this performing myself but people loved it. They were up for a night out. They were starving! There was also a performance poet who spoke rapped through something. I am bad at listening to poetry anyway so I couldn't tell good from bad. I like experimental theatre and texts but most of all like to read poetry from a book. I love people like Pascalle Burton who use sound as well as texts. I mean, she puts in the work,  has the skills but hones it all to a point. I guess most straight performance poetry is all kind of a limerick turn to me, or rapping. But not very good rapping. Hey, I am ignorant of "spoken word". ( Such a lousy, barely functional description of an activity). Writers are not necessarily performers anyway, and shouldn't be made to do so. There is that often quoted verse by Yeats...

The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

The next day I had a wonderful  breakfast in the hotel and flew to Melbourne where Clare Moore picked me up and we drove for 90 minutes to Kyneton where we played to a  full house in a cafe in the main street called Major Toms. Keys, percussion and guitar and voices. Two sets.
We caught up with friends before the show and during. Matt Sigley runs a great book and record shop called Long Story Short across the road from the venue. I bought a Barry Humphries album, one by Country Joe, Little River Band and Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band.
We ate some roasted Brussel Sprouts and Caulifower and then did the show.
After playing a  set and a half I asked what people wanted to hear and a man asked for No Pockets In A Jumpsuit (1998) which I hadn't been near for twenty years. It was all still in me!
We drove down the highway through an incredible fog and arrived home at about 3am. 

Friday June 21st the Bison Bar, Nambour DAVE GRANEY SOLO Saturday June 22nd - the Bearded Lady, Brisbane.DAVE GRANEY SOLO
Saturday June 29th - The Caravan Music Club - Bentleigh Special guest Sean McMahon

July 12th - THE GOV - Adelaide.Special guests The Sunday Reeds

More recovered texts. Words from an old drive.

More words I found while looking for something else. This was for a Brisbane magazine - now defunct - around the time of the album  You'Ve Been In My Mind. 2012-2013. After this album came the digital albums Play mistLY For Me, Night Of the Wolverine Demos, Once I Loved The Torn Oceans Roar - 90s demos part two, Fearful Wiggings, The Dames, Lets Get Tight, Two albums as members of Harry Howard And the NDE,

In the tradition of songs appearing years later with the same titles as albums in the past - we have recorded a song for release later this year called You've Been In My Mind. Its me on slide guitar and Clare on vibes with some magnificent mellotron by Robin Casinader. 

Thanks for the questions back then Dermot Clarke.

1. Your book’s been out for a year or so now. (1001 Australian Nights) Has anything changed?  New fans?  New doors opened?

People have been coming up to me and saying very complimentary and nice things. Just yesterday a music biz gent stopped me and barked " loved the book! I missed out on your career so it was good to catch up!" Things like that stay with me.

Other people sent very heartfelt letters and emails, as if we were old friends, and we were in some ways.

I am still doing some literary type events and write a column for the Melbourne (Adelaide) Review every month. 

In some ways it led to the title of this album, "you've been in my mind". 

I get squeamish when family or close friends mention my book, I scramble to change the subject. They have been in my mind. With around twenty five albums or so I have been opening my brain for a  long time. Its a public space!

2. The new album has a very specific tonal feel. In both production and playing. What were you aiming for?

Well we are in the same studio (Soundpark) and the same engineer (Idge) as our 2011 album of re-recordings "rock'n'roll is where I hide"  so we liked the situation and the approach. Hardly any overdubs, no layering , just panning the approximate placement of the different instruments.

I do most vocal takes once, maybe twice.

Recording songs the band knows their parts and getting a  performance. This time with unrecorded songs of mine. 

A pretty upbeat record. Where we master it, Greg Wadley is always getting out a Radiohead cd to use as some sort of a standard. I'm always telling him to get that shit away from my music. I make him play a  Bobby Womack best-of to tune his ears. 

My musical forms and feels are very much 70s rock. Southern rock, mid seventies Stones. Clean guitars and grooves. Vocals up front. West Coast in some ways with lots of singing.

I love to play electric guitar and love my 12 string. Worked a lot on getting a super clean sound out of a  solid state amp. 

Stuart  Perera's blazing lead is a real feature on the album. Stu Thomas is a great bass player. The album charges along for 6 tracks before we take a breath with "lifes a dream". That song is something I'm very mystified by, I think its something that , in a different music scene, all kinds of people could cover. I've only written a  few songs like that. 

The album does jump out of the gates, although a thing that interests me is, you’ll still throw in a not obvious chord change to keep us guessing.  You don’t go for the big major chord change – why is that?

 Well I did do that with the song "flash in the pantz" which I have been fooling around on for a  while. Its got big , blocked major chords and then flips to a suspended and a minor 7th in the chorus. So, in my mind I was looking for a very 80s, tightly wound and dampened feel for the verse. Something like the Cars or Midnight Oil. Then I wanted the chorus to be like something from a mad jazz musical, something like "its time" by Max Roach.

"we need a champion" is pretty much major chords as well. I am jealous of songwriters who can work with real primary colours. Ron Sexsmith and Robyn Hitchcock and Will Hindmarsh from GoGo Sapien.

Other songs on the album are more in my weird melange of what I would identify as Brazilian / jazz/ r&b chordings and voicings. I like music to be open.

Another quirk I’ve noticed is that your live shows have become Springsteen esque in length.  I don’t know how you do it. I’m a 45 minute man myself – would do less if I could.  What is it about the long show that excites you?  Life is short, there’s much to say?  Or a reaction against the more fashionable punk short sets.

I got too many songs! Over the last few years we've done two albums that were pretty retrospective in tone. "Supermodified" 



and "rock'n'roll is where I hide" . 

 
In the middle of that I had all these songs and was wanting to start to play them into shape. Usually just getting warmed up after 45 minutes!

A 3 hour gig would be great to do.

Tell me about Stu Perera.  An underrated guitarist if ever there was one. Beyond fashion.

 Stu joined us in 1998, after we finished with the Coral Snakes and Universal records. I saw him playing at a youth jazz workshop concert. I wanted to get a  band of teenagers. Got sick of talking to kids still at high school who were going to have to get their parents permission. Stu sounded great. I wanted to have a "beat combo" with clean and dry guitar sounds and simple songs. We did a great album for Festival called "the dave graneyshow" and he has been on every album ever since. A great guy. Loves jazz and Slash and plays all the time in bars in the inner city. Totally match fit.. He lived in his van in the street for about four years, holding down a job and doing gigs. Very well educated. He plays a left handed solid body Rickenbacker through a small Laney valve combo. He used to drive   a Morris Minor but has had his hot rodded Bedford van for a  while now.

 

And a final one.

Five decades of music.  It’s kinda insane.  One of the things that has always struck me is your and Clare is purity – you have committed to this life – no jobs on the side, etc.

Most people flake out.

What are you most proud of?  Come on, open up, brother.

Pride means hubris. An emotion I am rarely possessed by. I do love playing with the mistLY. I've leaned a lot from Stuart and Stu and Clare. Amazing players and very sophisticated sensibilities. Thats a bit of pride but mostly just happiness I guess.

Mostly proud of some of the songs I've written that I think could be played or sung by other people in other times. On this record I think there's "life's a dream" and "I'm not the guy I tried to be". On previous records there have been others of these "neo-standards". "Saturday night bath" on Hashish and Liquor 

and "don't mess with the blood" on Heroic Blues. 




The other songs on this album and the ones before it I am also proud of. They're highly tuned and stressed patterns of my own peculiar interests and blues. Very rich and strongly flavoured.

"mt gambier night" and "playing chicken" on this album.

My favourite songs I've recorded have usually ended the albums. Long, meditative pieces. Songs like "crime and underwear" from "we wuz curious" 

 
and "everything flies away" from "I was the hunter and I was the prey". 

So I'm proud of the people I play with and pretty much all of the work, some of it a little bit more than the rest. 

Cheers dave, I love the easy going, cocksure nature of the newie.  See you soon I hope.

Saturday June 15th-Major Toms, Kyneton(Graney and Moore)

Friday June 21st the Bison Bar, Nambour DAVE GRANEY SOLO Saturday June 22nd - the Bearded Lady, Brisbane.DAVE GRANEY SOLO
Saturday June 29th - The Caravan Music Club - Bentleigh Special guest Sean McMahon

July 12th - THE GOV - Adelaide. Special guests The Sunday Reeds