the Lurid Yellow Mist... the RDGS ...Keepin' it Unreal...Hashish...Liquor.....the brother who lived...how...?...what ..?...etc...etc...
Keepin' it unreal is the
name of the new cd , released by
Dave Graney and Clare Moore...featuring Stu D
Dave Graney and the Lurid
Yellow Mist has been our handle of choice from mid 2004
on. For our three or four or five or six piece band live shows. It's
a lot to do with shadowy reputation, blowhards, talk on the street , noise
etc. The Dave Graney Show was cool from 1998 on and then the upgrade
to Royal. We're always trying to make more sense of the situation
by adding a bit more dust and smoke....On the other hand...Hashish and
Liquor belong to Graney and Moore...and then they continue to Keep it
Unreal...Clear enough?
The Dave Graney Show
began playing in 1998. It was myself and Clare , coming straight from
the ten year story which was the Coral Snakes. The last album of
that period, "the Devil Drives" was our favourite and seemed
to be a good note to close that room on. A real artistic high.
We just let go and that was that.
Previous to that we had been on the rocket ride that was the Moodists.
So much of the Coral Snakes/White Buffaloes was a reaction to that.
Clare Moore and myself have never stopped playing in 27 years. We have
the continuity of going through all these different scenes . We never
stopped. Its out of respect to the other players that we occasionally
changed the name out front but , for us, its been a single, unified trip.
Back to 1998. We had seen Adele Pickvance playing with Robert Forster
a couple of times over the previous couple of years and we gave her a
call. She moved down to Melbourne. I saw Stuart Perera playing
guitar at a Victorian College of the Arts jazz / youth workshop that my
nephew was in. I asked him if he was keen on playing in a band and he
said yes. It was that easy to get the band together.
We started doing a few shows that year and we recorded half of our first
CD as a unit. (The other half was done by Clare and myself in our studio).
Billy Miller had previously worked on "feelin' kinda sporty",
the lead single from "the Devil Drives". Bill worked with Andrew
Duffield and Phil kenihan who were producing the first CD. (This cd, "the
Dave Graney Show" , came out on Festival Records.) Eventually Bill
started playing live with us as a second guitarist and singer. The full
five piece again recorded half of the second RDGS cd, "kiss tomorrow
goodbye". (Again, the other half was done by Clare Moore and
myself)
I guess the main difference between the Yellow
Mist, the DGShow , the RDGS and DG and the Coral
Snakes was the absence of a keyboard and also the fact that I was
playing guitar. We were a three guitar act.
pic tony mahony
Clare Moore, Stuart Perera,
Adele Pickvance, Sir David Graney and Bill Miller.
The Royal Dave Graney Show 2003.
art tony mahony
The Brother Who Lived available online. Click the image.
Click Here to go to a page where you can buy the latest albums as well as many long unavailable gems from the JB HiFi online Dave Graney Artist Catalogue.
The line-up was settled and we did shows
around Australia through 1999 and 2000. We also played , memorably, in
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City as well as New York and London . Clare
and Stuart and I did a 30 date tour of Europe with Nick Cave and the Bad
Seeds in 2001.
2002 saw us put out the third RDGS cd, "Heroic Blues".
This was done completely at our studio, "the Ponderosa"
and saw the RDGS play very subtly to my idea of making a "singer
songwriter" style record.
Early 2003 saw the Moodists do a show in Melbourne. One day, after
the other fellows had left rehearsal, Clare and I were mucking around
on a few of my newer songs. I had my new Canora Flying V ($150)
on about 11. We were exhilarated by the power of playing in the Moodists.
It was like plugging into a motherlode of energy. Mostly, my songs were
developed on acoustic guitar and , for the last few CD's from the Devil
Drives on, I'd kept the energy at that sly and sensual level. Just for
a stir, I started playing one of my new songs at this new volume and Clare
locked into a strong, disco beat. It sounded like something really new
to us. A further gig with the Moodists was a revelation to me in the power
of performing without hanging onto a guitar.
At the next RDGS rehearsal I announced that I was putting the guitar
down and we had to learn seven songs for the next gig. This seemed simple
to me but it was soon apparent that Bill and Stuart had to learn the chords
to EVERY song. I had driven everything on rhythm guitar and they had been
playing licks and solos here and there for the whole set. the arrangements
were held by Clare , Adele and myself. Anyway, everything was soon drilled
into place and we could do a show. We played all these new tracks into
life as well. They were all LOUD and BOLD and VIVID.
We went into Joe Camileri's Woodstock studios in early April to put it
all down before Adele left Australia for a Euro tour with the Go-Betweens.
Adam Rhodes, who had done all three RDGS cds up to now was engineering.
I wanted everyone to put everything down at the same time, no overdubbing
and no thoughts of "fixing it up later".
I was going to sing live as well, with speakers facing me and no headphones
on. Amazingly, we did the four loudest songs in this manner and it all
sounded superb Just for a stir, I told Adam I wanted to sing and play
the acoustic guitar to the last two songs at the same time. Again, this
actually happened! ( I know it sounds spectacularly easy but its hard
to buck against so many years of studio procedure. The demand is always
for separation and to eliminate each instrument from bleeding into anothers
mic. You have to fight City Hall every little inch of the way). I just
wanted to have a real studio experience instead of all the alienating
overdubbing and compiling shit it normally entailed .
Above is the story up to the recording of "the Brother who lived".
More recent developments can be found by following the trail below to
the sprawling double Hashish and Liquor.
And then on to the minimalist , lyrical Keepin it Unreal...
