davegraney.com

Dave Graney with the Coral Snakes
THE LURE OF THE TROPICS

Recorded live in mid 1991, released mid 1992.
Engineered and mixed by Chris Thompson. Released at first on Torn and Frayed through Shock records, remixed by Tony Cohen and available only through this site.Cover designed by Tony Mahony.

Track listing (as on the remixed/ re released version):
"I caught my heel in a crack of time"
"A million dollars in a red velvet suit"
"Beautiful nightmare"
"You wanna be there but you don't wanna travel"
"Jesus what'd I do"
"Warren Oates"
"Robert Ford"
"The lure of the tropics"
"Everything flies away/Rave on"
"In the misty morning/My life on the plains"
"Morning dew"
"just the bullshit"

CD available via Bandcamp.

Gordy Blair had returned to Britain in August 1991, intending to come back later.
We began playing with Andrew Picouleau on the bass and also without him as a semi acoustic four piece (Myself, Clare Moore, Rod Hayward and Robin Casinader). We called these performances, "the soft'n'sexy shows".
We played all through 1991 and 1992 in this fashion. Predominantly at the Lounge and the Punters Club and the Esplanade in Melbourne and the Hopetoun and the Annandale in Sydney. We never played outside these two cities.
Clare, Rod and Andrew also played many shows backing Robin doing all his material. This was known as "the Vanishing Lady". We seemed to build up a little momentum as, first "I was the hunter..." came out and then, "the lure of the tropics. "

Towards the end of 1992 I signed a publishing deal with Polygram music (now headed by Roger Grierson) and used the advance to finance the recording of "Night of the Wolverine". It was going to have to be cheap so we recorded what we'd been working on as "the soft'n'sexy shows" and got Andrew in to guest on bass.
On Saturday December the 19th we played at the Lounge, on the Sunday we recorded 9 songs at Metropolis, on the Monday and Tuesday we recorded two more songs and then mixed the whole lot at Atlantis.
Adam Yazxhi, who had worked at MDS, who imported "My life on the plains" and "I was the hunter..."into Australia, was now setting up a small label at Mercury and wanted to put the cd out. The title track was an attempt to make something in the style of Lou Reeds' "street hassle". That was a long story song which featured a sweet middle section where Bruce Springsteen came in to read a few lines of lyrical stuff. In the middle of ours, Tex Perkins from the Cruel Sea came in and did something similar, "the king of Adelaide".
Tony Cohen was a physical wreck as he was simultaneously working on the Bad Seeds live album and the Cruel Sea's "Honeymoon is over".
As this record came out we began to play outside the inner cities of Melbourne and Sydney, opening for the Hunters and Collectors through a national six week tour. We then did the same with the Cruel Sea and then by ourselves.
We did about 85 shows around Australia through 1993. "Night of the wolverine" was re released in 1996 in Australia with a different cover. It was also released in 1996 with the new cover in the UK on the label "This way up".
Two singles, "3 dead passengers" and "you're just too hip, baby" were released.

Dave Graney with the Coral Snakes
NIGHT OF THE WOLVERINE

Cd released mid 1993 on ID/Mercury.
Produced by Dave Graney, the Coral Snakes and Tony Cohen. Recorded at Metropolis and Atlantis, mixed at Atlantis, Melbourne. Cover designed by Tony Mahony.
Video for "you're just too hip, baby" devised and directed by Tony Mahony.

Track listing:
"You're just too hip, baby"
"Mogambo"
"Night of the wolverine 1"
"I'm just havin' one of those lives"
"I held the cool breeze"
"I remember you (you're the girl I love)"
"three dead passengers in a stolen secondhand Ford"
"That's the way it's gonna be"
"Maggie Cassidy"
"you need to suffer"
"Night of the wolverine 2"
"Out there in the night of time"

Available at itunes July 2015 as an expanded edition with seven of the original demos for the album done by Dave Graney in 1991 ona four track cassette.

Dave Graney with the Coral Snakes
YOU WANNA BE THERE BUT YOU DON'T WANNA TRAVEL
This was the first record I had ever experienced making with the palpable feeling of not only an interested audience but also, "industry expectation". We worked with Tony Cohen again. We thought we would have more time and our aim was to make a record that we could tour. A record that was big and loud.
We had already recorded "Warren Oates" and "You wanna be there.." but thought that they both could be realised better in an actual studio setting. We began in early January and spent about four weeks in all on the record. The band was full of creativity, in April, as the record was going into production, we were asked to record some extra songs as a give away disc and came up with seven extra tracks. They included a cover version of "Pillow Talk" by Sylvia Robinson and "32-20 blues" by Robert Johnson by way of the Charlatans (from San Francisco). (It also included a song, "Late , Late , Late" written and sung by Robin Casinader. A gem from the "Vanishing Lady" set)
"I'm gonna release your soul" was the first single and for the video, Tony Mahony came up with an idea to do a one shot clip. This involved a lot of things going right on the day and we kept the very last run through. The record debuted high in the top forty in Australia and we toured relentlessly nationwide for the rest of 1994. In all we played 83 shows for the year, mostly in the period June to December. We also did a lot of tv for the first time, (the Midday show, Denton, Jimeion, Take 40 tv, Hey Hey it's Saturday, Live and Sweaty).
"You wanna be there..." was re-released in 1996 with a different cover and a different track listing, (The songs, "let me tell you about yourself" and "a new life in a new town" were dropped and "the confessions of Serge Gainsbourg" added).

The first few thousand came with an extra disc called "Unbuttoned". This contained the following tracks:
"The confessions of Serge Gainsbourg"
"It's your crowd I hate"
"Late, late, late"
"the lady from Bangkok"
"Pillow talk"
"java la grande (celestial boogie)"
"32-20 blues"

The cds before these?

Universal released a 4 disc set of recordings June 2013. Now deleted. There were a few hundred copies in a warehouse but according to music business practice, these were destroyed even though we offered to purchase them.