Dave Graney and longtime collaborator Clare Moore preview their new album with "Hits Are The Worst." Check it out.
Here's the scoop...
"Hits Are The Worst" is the first single from Dave Graney and Clare Moore's forthcoming album, LABURNUM OF THE MIND due April 30th. The song? A Doorsy groove with a very late 60s chordal deal and flow. Kinda like Brian Auger, Traffic or The Zombies. The vocal mixed right up front. The words? Hermetic. The music, “flash and expensive but dumb, loose and goofy too. Highly illogical..”
Check it out below. Read more about Dave, Clare and the title reference to "Laburnum" – which may be puzzling for those living outside of suburban Melbourne – on Backseatmafia.com right here.
Clare Moore and Dave Graney (of The Moodists notoriety) are releasing their pandemic project In A Mistly this Friday.
Here's the scoop...
A rock album. Guitars, drums, bass and vocals. Some vibes and keys –oh and some saxophone.
Four songs recorded with the mistLY- i.e. the band with Stu Thomas on bass and Stuart Perera on guitar and eight songs on which Dave Graney and Clare Moore play all instruments. And three songs on which Dave Wray plays sax.
“This is the album we meant to do before Everything Was Funny. Restrictions on movement around Melbourne delayed it, but we kept the songs back that we wanted to play with the mistLY. ”
Starts with Silver Bullets, a song about feeling so good you know you’re bound to screw things up pretty soon. A couple of songs – The Old Swagger and How Can I Be Old - about being old – or just noticing that situation being in effect. Tang is a song about the virtual life and the virtual (lack of ) sensory experience set to a tight new wave beat. Everybody has at some time or other has said- or been told - We Need Cash (She Said).
And everybody, on walking around their city has come across a once familiar (now suddenly alien) corner or block and asked What Used To be There?
The whole album is very 70’s in tone. Two songs about rock music culture, the almost rockabilly Thanks To the Women For Dancing and the swinging, blue and black leathery Velvets MC.
The musically rich (accidental) trilogy of We Get Life, Now You Must Die and Where Are You In The Underworld?
The album ends on a Roxy Music like long tail with the R&B glam jazz groove out of You Are The World on which Dave Wray blows his horn clean out.
Get a copy of In a Mistly via Bandcamp right here. Watch the announcement clip below followed by "Tang".
The wonderfully woozy Ballroom Blitzed is off Dave & Clare's new album Everything Was Funny out now
Here's the scoop...
This is the fifth official album release (out of roughly 30- plus a dozen others) credited to Dave Graney and Clare Moore. Their last studio release was ONE MILLION YEARS DC in 2019.
“funny like Warren Beatty funny…”
“I liked it-it was funny!”
“if there was somethin’ funny goin’ on
that’s what I tuned into and took away
that was my take away…”
A wild and willful yet very focused set of songs. All instruments played by Dave Graney and Clare Moore. Produced by Dave Graney and Clare Moore.
“I don’t need a pandemical lockdown to happen to write some songs. Same way I never read any”war poets.” If they need a war to write something it’s not really worth it!” Dave Graney
Though of course there was a pandemic and there was a long lockdown in Melbourne and of course it seeped into the music.
Dave Graney and Clare Moore had planned two albums for 2021, a rock album with their band the mistLY and then something like this one – something more unbuttoned and freaky. Then a second long lockdown happened and it was impossible to rehearse let alone record with the band so the two changed tack and got freaky in their own studio with keyboards and drums and new guitar tunings and time signatures and here we are with EVERYTHNG WAS FUNNY. They were also able to do some live dates around Australia in between travel restrictions and on one trip to South Australia, a visit was made to Dave’s second cousin in Dismal Swamp, Kristyn Jones, who had had an idea for a portrait shot. There’s the cover of the album.
Lyrical tracks, trails and themes involve a further Rolling Stones mythological piece (The Anita Effect), teenage biker gangs (I Knew the Wild Angels), American cultural firefights (Wilco Got No Wilco), tobacco scenes, alcoholic scenes, iconic female rambling singer scenes and two instrumentals – one very Russian and another kind of Dublin/Miami.
Be in no doubt though, that something funny was going on! There was something funny about that guy. She’s a funny girl! Somethin’ not quite right! Everything Was Funny!
Get a copy of Dave Graney & Clare Moore's new album Everything Was Funny via Bandcamp right here. Watch the video for "The Ballroom Blitzed" below.
Pals from their Moodists days, Dave Graney & Clare Moore reconnect with guitarist Malcolm Ross for a swank live recording.
Here's the scoop...
Dave Graney & Clare Moore with Georgio Valentino & Malcolm Ross is the second of three “from the vaults” releases from Graney and Moore in the year of our pandemic, 2020. (Follows Dave & Clare's previous live recording In Concert with Robin Casinader which came out in May).
Songs recorded live in Hull and London in the UK as part of a tour in late 2017. Dave Graney on acoustic guitar and vocals, Clare Moore on keys, backing vocals, drums, Georgio “The Dove” Valentino on bass and Malcolm Ross on electric guitar and lap steel.
Songs drawn from across Graney and Moore’s career and three songs from Malcolm Ross. 17 Songs delivered live in a performance masterclass from a slow burn semi acoustic pop beginning to a blazing electric raveup to finish with all kinds of side roads along the way. A one off recording from a one off band.
Dave Graney and multi instrumentalist Clare Moore were in The Moodists from 1978 to 1986. Then the White Buffaloes/Coral Snakes 1987-1997. Then the Royal Dave Graney Show and Lurid Yellow Mist to the mistLY. Malcolm Ross played with Graney and Moore in the latter days of The Moodists and early (London lineup) of the Coral Snakes. Previous to that he had played in Postcard Records bands Josef K and Orange Juice. Georgio “The Dove” Valentino is an international man of mystery who currently lives in Athens. Previously he had worked out of Brussels, Detroit and St Augustine, Florida.
Recorded at O’Rileys in Hull Oct 9th 2017 and the Betsey Trotwood, London Oct 11th and 12th 2017.
Mixed at the Ponderosa in Melbourne May 2020 by Dave Graney.
Get it right here. Check out a couple of performance clips from Dave & Clare's UK tour of 2017 followed by the track listing.
Dave Graney & Clare Moore with Georgio Valentino & Malcolm Ross
1. Clinging To The Coast 03:52
2. Everything Was Legendary With Robert 04:18
3. A Boy Named Epic 04:39
4. Twilight Of A Villain 06:01
5. Heroic Blues 05:10
6. Happy Boy 04:20
7. You Need A Kleek, Klook 04:45
8. How Long Does the Raunch? 05:14
9. All Our Friends were Stars 04:16
10. Robert Ford On The Stage 04:27
11. My Avenger 03:50
12. We Need A Champion 03:51
13. Night Of The Wolverine 6 05:37
14. I Been Trendy 04:15
15. How Can You Get Out Of London? 04:24
16. As Good As It Gets 05:28
17. Rock n Roll Is Where I Hide 07:00
Most songs written by Dave Graney. Copyright Control except except Happy Boy (Ross/Weddell), My Avenger (Ross, Weddell, Malinen) and As Good As It Gets (Brogan,Clark, Condie, Fowler, Ross).
