I was asked to reveal my most closely held secrets, the chords and arrangement tricks that I use. When I put out the book "It is written, baby" , I originally wanted it to be a songbook with the chords and flyshit set out but was talked out of it. A pity. I will do my best to communicate the primitive powers that I am doing battle with across the vast and untamed wilderness of the musical plane.
art tony mahony
I don't read music and can't really play piano. I write my songs on the guitar. Clare can both read and play as she studied piano for many years before picking up the drumsticks. If Bill Miller sits in a room with a radio on he enjoys calling out, commenting on the chord sequences. In other moments on the road, we can test his skills by mentioning any song that comes into our minds and requesting that he plays it. Invariably, he can. Stu D ( Stuart thomas) picked up the trumpet first but is in the Lurid Yellow Mist as bass player. He has released his own solo cd "Devil and Daughter", as well as many recordings with Kim Salmon and other bands such as the Brass Bed and Luxedo.He knows a lot of stuff about music and recording. Stuart Perera is probably the most decorated student of music, having studied theory and practice at many institutions over the last ten years of his life.This is a pretty sophisticated bunch of musicians to present a song to. Every body is coming at a piece of music from different directions, intuitive mostly but backed up with some solid sense of chord stacking.
In the Coral Snakes everybody's roles changed over the period of the band. In the early days it was a case of me presenting a song to everybody and the band "transforming " it (mostly I had pretty set ideas of arrangements and approaches). It was always a brilliant surprise to hear the chords hanging on the piano chords and underpinned by Gordy ,Clare and Rods instant search and isolation of the dynamics. In the latter days I was more involved in influencing the end result and Clare was champing at the bit to break the limitations of her role as "the drummer". Robin Casinader on the piano was the most academically trained player. His role was kind of a "professor". He played violin and keyboards. Rod Hayward played guitar and could play keyboards (again ,his father was a musician). He could probably read music but the eventuality to display this never came as Robin did all that stuff. Gordy Blair was also probably a good reader. He could play sax as well as the bass. Clare was the most interested in vocal harmonies.
The Tools at hand
In general, I write the songs on the guitar. In the Moodists I never owned
a guitar or wrote songs . I had previously learnt some barre chords on
a Gibson SG copy when I was a teenager. I sold this later on and never
progressed with it. Around 1986/7, while living in London, I bought a
Fender acoustic guitar from Robert Forster (from the GoBetweens) for $50
as he was moving back to Australia. I started to write songs more on this
as I was getting into a lot of late 60's songwriters such as Fred Neil
and Gene Clark. (The Moodists were into a lot of hard country and soul
but the music we made was relentlessly "modern" in its attitude.
Everything was of its own world, we didn't touch much of anything current
and did few cover versions).
I use a KYairi 12 string and a Maton acoustic to write my songs on. I
bang around on the same chords and licks for a year or so until I get
a feel for what kind of song it could be. Once I get some words around
and through the music I keep playing it more and more. Over the last couple
of years I've really been interested in getting a bunch of songs together
where the chords really dictated the sound of the music.I know this sounds
silly but so much of our time (and everybody else's) is spent on worrying
about the "texture" of the sounds available and the new music
technology has really widened the possibilities for everybody. Samples
of perfectly recorded vibraphones, zithers, sitars, bongos, tablas and
cellos are all out there within anybody's grasp. I'm trying to limit it
immediately with the chords. Thats what our next cd is going to be heading
into.
All these early songs are on the "My life on the plains " CD Minor chords and minor seventh chords were really apparent. They were really open and made a big sound. (The Em7th chord on a guitar is virtually all open strings , the B note on the A string being the only demand on your fingers.) We had a really melodic bass player in Gordy Blair and Louis Vause on the piano had a lot of room to play his weird inversions the more open the music was.In a strange way, all the earliest material was recorded on the next album "I was the hunter and I was the prey".There was about a 2 year break in recording until "Night of the wolverine" and in the meantime I'd gone nuts over the major 7th chord. (I'd first used this on the song "everything flies away" on "I was the Hunter" . In 1990 I was just really getting into the Barry White/Isaac Hayes mellow vibe). The title track was an attempt to get into a Lou Reed "Coney Island Baby" groove. Soft semi acoustic major 7th sounds with a virtually spoken vocal over the top. "You're just too hip, baby" is in E and is based around a suspended 7th 12 bar groove. I always try out chords in the old style 1-4-5 chord sequences as it's always been the lyrics that I want to have all the weirdness. "Mogambo" was my most sophisticated song to date with the chords all being 9ths so the vocal was following the notes a whole tone above the root note of the chord. This really suited the piano and allowed the vocal its own space to be really intimate. We'd done a lot of acoustic shows preceding the recording and learnt how to hold back the intensity in the playing.
art tony mahony
"The Dave Graney Show"
was written mostly in 1997 /98 and released in 1999.For us it was a natural
carry on from the previous record. 8 out of thirteen songs were recorded
by Clare and myself, the other 5 being done in a session with Adele and
Stuart. It begins with "Lt Colonel Cavalry" which is
built around B7th to C#7th F#min/sus in the verses leading to a bridge
with E/Emaj7/E7th/A7th to a chorus of D7th/D6th toGm/A#maj7/Asus. I was
really thinking of a grand "Macarthur Park" style thing.
Clare co wrote ""Twixt this world and the next, "I'm
a commander" , "am I wearing something of yours",
and "they wanted to be players". All possessing the most
brilliant, intricate chord structures we had ever attempted. "Between
times " was a song I had written back in 1987 but had never felt
sure enough about recording before. "Smile and wave"
was built around Amaj7th to Emaj7th, "I'm a commander" went
from Fmaj7th to a rising G#sus to A#sus to Csus. The chorus was built
around Dsus9thadd6th to Asus9th to A#7th to A7th. Recording and writing
and playing the record was great.
"Drugs are wasted on the young" has a verse going from C9th to Aadd9th to G6th to Dadd9th. The chorus is F/Fadd9th to G6th/Gadd9th.The middle 8 is D.
"Out of the loop" was written on a winter Sunday. We had played a show the night before and someone gave me a biscuit. I ate some of this the next day and then found myself playing variations around one chord on the guitar for what seemed like two hours.It's an E chord.I then went down to the studio and cooked up a whole track on the Logic Audio system, vibes,bass, strings, beats, I had it all flying. It's the only song I've ever written on keyboard. That biscuit was strong!
"Death by a thousand sucks" is built around A#maj7th to Cmaj7th/9th to Fsus/F7th/F6th. The chorus is Cmaj7th to Ebmaj7th/9th.
"Have you heard about the melbourne mafia" is based around Dmaj7th to Em7th to A and resolving on D.The chorus goes from G to A again resolving on D.
