1999

The Dave Graney Show

Flinders Uni Tavern

December, 1998

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Is this Dave Graney ? Sans purple safari suit ?  Sans mohair trilby ? Sans that killer band the Coral Snakes ? Well… yes. It is a time of change for the former, self-anointed King of Pop, and a testing time at that. Dave Graney is making some career moves and it is important that he gets them right. Important for him. And, as admirers of his quirky, literate talents, important for us too.

After a succession of albums – let’s not, just for once, call it “a body of work”- Graney has covered some territory. He has lived on the plains, he has been hunter and prey, he has been lured by the tropics. He has even been there when he didn’t wanna travel. He has been soft and sexy and, on one single occasion, kinda sporty.

Song writers have mid-career problems rather like novelists and auteur film makers. Several generations ago Dave Graney, like Paul Kelly or Deborah Conway or Nick Cave, would have been a poet about to publish a volume of selections from his back catalogue. Just as Elvis Costello and Graham Parker are the Auden and Spender of their time, and new talents now would rather be Jarvis Cocker or Beth Gibbons than a new poet on the Faber list, so many of our best writers publish on vinyl and CD.

Which means that the temporary boom time which popular music accords those who succeed is abberant rather than usual. By pop star criteria, most performers are in commercial decline after a third or fourth album. Especially in Australia where it is so hard to build an audience and even harder to keep one. So we should consider-and nurture- the maturing, adventurous work of musicians over thirty in the same way as novelists and arthouse directors. Otherwise we face a drastic reduction in species and unfettered cultural imbecility. The forces of Globalisation would have the whole planet, at any given time, buying the same ten CDs – and the list of last year’s best sellers suggests that when the big media companies do have their way, we have a popular diet so low in protein it is life-threatening.

So here’s Dave Graney with a cut-down band touring a no-frills album – and bloody good on him. It is a hard row to hoedown. The turnout at Flinders Uni is what you might call bonsai and they don’t seem to recognise anything which predates The Devil Drives . But Dave is unfazed. He is relaxed and good-humoured, reminisces on his brief encounter with tertiary studies, checks the room for any of his Coorong cousins and takes the band into some vintage repertoire.

It is momentarily unsettling. Graney, long-term devotee of Serge Gainsbourg, and lounge lizard before the craze, has always liked to sing it soft and soulful. But is this reallyThe Night of the Wolverine ? It sounds like The Wolverine from Ipanema .  The band is still getting settled. Partner in life, Clare Moore on drums, Adele Pickhaver on bass- Dave is now an EO employer- and Stuart Perera, adept but restrained on guitar. Graney is up front crooning and strumming his acoustic Maton. In his t-shirt and Ed Harry slacks he looks like a Mitre Ten manager on holiday. No hat, no mutton chops or Mexican moustache, no crushproof, babypoo-coloured bri-nylon threads. This is Graney unvarnished, unplugged and no longer hands free. The Jackie Chan arm and kick movements, the reptile backing band -all gone. And now what’s this they’re playing?Three Dead Passengers in a Second Hand Ford from Ipanema ?

He switches to new material from The Dave Graney Show,  the current CD from Festival. No Pockets in a Jumpsuit. Graney code for no pockets in a shroud. You can’t take it with you. Especially on stage. Sometimes even the President of the United States has to stand naked. “There is nowhere to hide/ you can’t go back/ you can’t go forward.” No pockets in a jumpsuit. It is an impossibly arch  metaphor but Graney, ever persuasive, can take us there. It doesn’t quite hit the mark tonight though. Dave still needs the pilgrims to draw a little closer so he can sell his snake oil. Your Masters Must be Pleased With You is, similarly, too new and understated to find its critical mass.

So it is Feelin’ Kinda Sporty that gets the show on the road. The band is louder, Perera slashes some more voltage, the crowd starts to bob about and stand close in. Now Dave can mix those spells and potions, weave some stories, run a bit of narrative, you know what I am saying. And now, even the new stuff has some edge -Aristocratic Jive, with an eerie girlie chorus from Moore and Pickhaver, and the Keating-esque I’m Gonna Do You You Slowly. “I’ve seen the future and you’re not there.”

Graney snarls some, but the wit is self-reflexive. And who else has such an ear for the nuances of masculine bluff and counter bluff. Steeped in the tropes of noir fiction, its downbeat despair and laconic nihilism, Dave Graney is smart enough to know where it is he fits. He is not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be. He writes about Warren Oates but he is really Kevin Spacey. He is the gimpy one, lurking among the usual suspects. But then, hey, who is Keyser Soze?  You know what I am saying ?

As he revisits the canon, that lycra-draped body of work, Dave reminds us of those terrific Graney signatures –You’re Too Hip, I’m Gonna Release Your Soul, The Stars, Baby, The Stars, and Rock and Roll is Where I Hide. There are other strong contenders from the new CD – Between Times, a ballad inspired by James M. Cain. The vocal arrangements from Clare Moore are distinctive, though the live take, without a synth, lacks the lushness and complexity of the recorded instrumentation. On the album, if you listen closely, you can even hear the postman ring twice.

For a cheery encore Dave gets out his blue slouch hat and the band goes hard onYou Wanna be There and The Sheriff of Hell. The intro to The Birds and the Goats gives the former King a chance to wonder, one last time, about the family values of his country cousins and the set ends with You Wanna be Loved. It has been a soft and sexy show, the absence of the Coral Snakes is evident- Gordy Blair’s ruminating bass, Rod Haywood’s tough guitar, Robin Casinader’s cascading piano.

This is like Paul Kelly immediately after the split with the Messengers. It’s a nervy time all round and none of us is easy about the change. But this is Dave Graney’s Show and his new work, like all of his output, takes some listening space to settle in. But it is no time to start getting snickery and writing King of Pop obits. It’s like I said with novelists. The Dave Graney Show isThe Glass Key not The Maltese Falcon, The Little Sister not Farewell My Lovely . And we do want to be there even though Dave is making us travel a little further than last time. You know what I’m saying ?

The Adelaide Review, No.184, January 1999. p.31.