2017 reflection...
From Hashish and Liquor (via Keepin' it unreal) to this. It was a real
rejuvenating period and I was full of
artistic ambition and excitement. Coming from the band I guess. Stu
Perera really stepping out and having Stu Thomas in the band. Then
adding Mark Fitzgibbons' amazing chops. I love this album. All my favourite
records that we've made start from "the devil drives" in
1997. That and "the dave graney show" in 1998 were also real
artistic high points although I was in a much darker, beseiged, clossed
off frame of mind
then. I was like a punchy boxer.
By the time of "we wuz curious" I was in a much happier place. Playing
a lot more guitar got me back into performing music in a different
way. I love the r&b feels and the twin guitars and amazing keys on
this album.
Fave lyric ... "douglas was in bed with a young girl
/ mary walked into the room
he said "who are you goin to believe? me or your eyes?"
he lit a cigarette and stared / the girl got dressed and left / comforted
his wife made his bed and walked out himself-
are you fuckin' with me?"
released on REVERBERATION , June 2008. SOLD OUT _ NO LONGER AVAILABLE as a physical artefact
available
at itunes here
Front and back cover, Dave Graney and Clare
Moore, as imagined by the cruel artistry of Tony Mahony.
Track Listing
you had to be drunk
I come from the clouds
lets kill god again
junk time
I like to be haunted
only passin' through
I'm in the future now
bring me my liar
I was a country boy
punk dies
I needed someone to find me
cime and underwear
After the sprawling, spiralling,
duelling double disc that was "Hashish and Liquor" ,
Dave Graney and Clare Moore took to the road with a minimalist
, lyrical trio and recorded "Keepin it Unreal".
Finding themselves starving for a groove and a beat, they jumped into
a state of mind to produce the greatest album of their career, "We
wuz curious". They wanted upbeat r&b grooves. R&B as
in the chords and the licks and the beats. The flattened fives and the
blue notes. All tricked up for a night OUT.
They had started to play with pianist Mark Fitzgibbon on Hashish and Liquor
and wanted to work more with him in a collective situation. Stu Perera
on guitar had joined forces with them in 1998 as a 19 year old, straight
from college, and they wanted to get his jazz stylings on the tracks as
well. Stu Thomas on the bass and vocals wuld pull it all together.
They woodshedded the tracks
for two months at the Yarraville Mouth organ Band Hall in West Melbourne,
working out all the parts. They arranged it all and were DOWN ON IT.
They wanted to make a recording and BEAT THE DIGITAL ENNUI by forcing
a SITUATION!
A SENSE OF OCCASION! They went into Sing Sing South in September 2007
with their old school engineer Adam Rhodes. He hung so many mics
around
the drums room and the amps that it was gonna be impossible for any sound
to escape unrecorded. they laid down 8 tracks in a day/ Everything,
vocals,
guitars, drums and backing vocals. It was like a jazz session.
Then Dave Graney and Clare
Moore took the hard drive back to their Ponderosa studio and mixed it
over a month or so. It was finished by November 2007.
players involved
Dave Graney, electric and acoustic guitar, bass and organ.
Clare Moore, drums, perdussion,vocals, organ.
Stu D aka Stuart Thomas, bass, vocals.
Stu Perera, electric guitar.
Mark Fitzgibbon, piano.
bvs on "junk time" by Jane Dust and Elizabeth McCarthy. mastered by Greg Wadley
Cover illustration by Tony Mahony.
Recorded September 2007 at Sing Sing South.
Engineer Adam Rhodes.
Mixed at the Ponderosa October-November 2007 by Dave graney and Clare
Moore
Produced by Dave Graney and Clare Moore.
“We wuz curious” is , lyrically , probably the most
autobiographical work by Dave Graney with 5 of the songs starting
with the perpendicular pronoun “I”. It is also very much a “band” album
with each player of the Lurid Yellow Mist collective contributing
music for a song .
Within the songs, looking outwards , you could say in one place that its
a
jazz/r&b album, elsewhere its pumping electro , over there “yacht
rock” , elsewhere, wailing post punk. Lets call it a pop album.
It starts with “you had to be drunk” and this drops,
with a single hi hat swish, into a funk groove that is all encompassing.
It drives
along with a lazy , behind the beat feel around an irregular six bar
figaure that keeps both unwinding and winding up. Dave Graney, a teetotaller
,is
singing about his life in the lyric.
It then leads to “ I come from the clouds” where Dave Graney
lays down a bragging blues with a film noir twist. “I’m the man
from nowhere/ I’m a tail dragger”. The music could have come from
Graney and Moores first band , The Moodists and is perhaps the noise thats
always been heard by them way underneath all the soft and sexy sounds they’ve
drawn around them over the years.
“Lets Kill God Again” is song with direct power, both
lyrically and musically. The sort of song that jumps up on its feet, fully
formed.
God was dead when Dave Graney was a kid and he liked it. Musically, its
like something Prince would not be ashamed of and definitely a Dave Graney
song.
“Junk time”. music composed by Clare Moore when Dave Graney
asked for an “electro boogie”. “Junk Time” is a football
term for when “the gtame is over and the clock is winding down”.
Any achievement in this time is worthless.
“I like to be haunted” is a groove. A deceptively simple
musical figure that needs a tightly would band to play their parts just
right. You couldn’t do it on an acoustic guitar. The lyric is expansive.
Dave Graney is talking about presence. His own and that of others.
“Only passin’ through” has music composed by pianist
Mark Fitzgibbon. The band had woodshedded seven tracks for the session and
had completed them well before schedule. They were going to record Miles
Davis “In a silent way”, which they had been playing live,
but Dave Graney asked Mark if he had any music. He taught the band the
charts
and this is the result. Complex and highly layered with chords. Yacht
rock? Dave delivers another noir story about a drifter in a hotel room,
reading
a book and waiting for his life to really begin.
“I’m in the future now” is a rush of energy. Full
of the light, Brazilian textures that have characterized Dave Graney and
Clare Moores work for many years and mixed with Stuart Perera’ s slashing
rock stylings on guitar and Stu Thomas’s pop sense of r&b. Jazz
shark Mark Fitzgibbon shifts his gears on the keys. It moves. The whole
thing. The music and the lyrics.
Dave Graney starts the song like he’s speaking from “above”
and “beyond” and gives a us a glimpse of a life seen from a
new remove.A load has been lifted and moorings have slipped. We are in
new,
exciting waters and are enjoying the thrill and the rush.The music for
this song was written by bass player Stu Thomas aka Stu D and the words
by Dave
Graney. Stu Perera plays a solo at the end that would not be out of place
on a track by Steely Dan.
“Bring me my liar” is a long jazz tinged loping groove
written by Dave Graney and given incredible life by the Lurid Yellow MIst.
There is no other outfit making sounds like this or coming from this direction.
This song claims to come from “the real world” but acknlowedges
there are “so many real worlds”.
“I was a country boy” has music written by Stuart Perera
and is a very autobiographical song where Dave Graney sings very directly
about the direction he travelled from . A direction which has informed
his
character and demeanour. The music is kind of latin and it swings. Perera
lets loose with a blazing solo.
“I needed someone to find me” was written and played by
Dave Graney. Another noir story. This one is a glimpse into the world of
a writer/player or a theatre owner/player. A one man show. He has “the
greatest story to tell” but he needs someone to find him to start
the story.
“Punk dies’” is a funk groove played by Dave Graney
and Clare Moore, with Stu D contributing some bass. Its a song about a “flash”
which is what punk rock was for Dave Graney. It was there and it was gone
and occasionally you see it again. It dies. (As opposed to punk lives”).
Its supposed to.
“Crime and underwear” ends the album with another very
personal and autobiographical song which Dave Graney unwinds and teases
out over six minutes. Its a song about losing the power to write and communicate
and then getting it back, only with a new awareness of how delicately balanced
the whole shithouse is. The title comes from the American newspaper mogul
of the early 20th century, William Randolph Hearst, who told his writers
to focus on two things, Crime and Underwear.
Significant revolving doors they went through to get the momentuum
to make this masterpiece?
The 2006 and 2007 minimalist trio shows around Australia by Dave graney,
Clare Moore and Stu D which gave them the consciousness of playing music
froma jazz perspective. Not getting hung up ojn reproducing a "sound"
but putting familiar tunes through different musical setups and configurations.
Playing in bars, cafes , bookshops, shearing sheds, houses, parties, theatres
and pubs. Putting out LARGE in small attacking commando groups.
The "Point Blank" theatre show tuned to snare drum tighness
by Dave Graney, Clare Moore and Mark Fitzgibbon over the years 2006 and
2007 at the Adealaide and Melbourne fringe/Cabaret festivals. Hard Core
performances.
"The Bewdy of Speed" show/art event at the Back Box
- Victorian Arts Centre Nov 2007.
The month long hit out as dark house jazz band at the Blue Diamond in
August 2007. Three sets from 11pm to 3am four Saturdays in a row to the
richest dancers in Melbourne.
The September 2007 trip to play on the Cocos Islands, 2500 kilometres
past Perth into the Indian Ocean. Who wouldn't dig that trip?
