The Mutton Birds
Cartoons Club

Dave Graney ‘n’ the Coral Snakes
Flinders Uni Refectory

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

There are plenty of bands with unappetising names but there can be few less prepossessing than the Mutton Birds. They could have chosen something a bit more… lyrical. Even the Shearwaters sounds better. But, no. Just plain old muttons. A salty seabird and a possible sheep joke, that’s how they like it. And always have. Lead singer and principal composer, Don McGlashan has never been one to play it easy. From his beginnings in punk band, The Plague, to that arty mix of music and video, The Front Lawn, and on to his present band, the Mutton Birds, he has liked to do things differently.

Interestingly, for all their apparent lack of chic, the Mutton Birds have great commercial potential. Like other New Zealand bands. such as the original Split Enz and The Chills, they have a nervously haughty, take-it-or leave-it approach to performance. But, listen to the music. It is tuneful, stylishly crafted pop that only improves with acquaintance. When the Mutton Birds played at Womad (unfortunately eclipsed by Gil Scott Heron’s indulgently late running set) they made a strong impact with songs from their two albums- the eponymous first, and Salty, featuring such instant classics as In My Room, Queen’s English and Anchor Me.

At Cartoons for the launch of their excellent new CD, The Envy of Angels, the Mutton Birds are not in what you’d call full flight. The turnout is small and, although there are pockets of noisy devotees, many look like they’ve got a free ticket to a blind date. The band, now based in London and enjoying good recognition there, senses this and it seems to gradually depress them. You get the feeling they’ve decided that this is not a night to win the hearts and minds of Australians. There is an air of weariness and a whiff of contractual obligation, not helped by the fact that McGlashan has to valiantly front everything while the rest of the quartet goes into desultory withdrawal.

Opening with the title track of the album is also a bit sudden. Envy of Angels is a divine song. Poetic and elusive, with haunting minor chord progressions and trickling rhythms, it signals a set of songs which are the band’s best to date. McGlashan sings it in his sweet high tenor with harmonies from bassist Alan Gregg. Unfortunately the sound mix is ghastly, the bass booming intolerably and any vocal subtlety is all but buried. A cluster of new work follows- Straight to Your Head, April, She’s Been Talking. Then the creepy anti-gun song they first recorded back in 1992 : replete with elegiac euphonium, A Thing Well Made.

Trouble with You should have sounded brilliant, guitars from the Yardbirds, the vocals blending like early Hollies, or maybe even the Byrds minus Gene Clark. The band toils but the mix is too rough, even for a low tech guitar band like this. Don’t Fear the Reaper, the Muttons’ revival of that little pearl from Blue Oyster Cult, is a winner even against technical odds. And, even though new guitarist, Chris Sheehan,looks like a recent graduate from the Marc Hunter School of Pouting. He plays well but with an indifferent manner. The band seems to be missing foundation guitarist David Long, who in London reported homesick and headed back to the Antipodes.

The Mutton Birds play Anchor Me with tender voice and The Heater with creditable, if murky wattage. For encores there’s While You Sleep, another lambent tune from the new release and they close with Nature. It is not a great gig by any means but we get a tantalising glimpse of what they can do. With the demise of Crowded House and the Finns in retreat there is definitely a place for something Beatle-ish, something with a bit of XTC and UK Squeeze, even a touch of REM. The Mutton Birds have all of that. Listen to their album. Better still, buy it. They really are the envy of angels.

Never one to be bashful in live performance, Dave Graney plays to rapturous regard at Flinders Uni on a cold Thursday night. With the Coral Snakes in excellent form, Dave, in his Melvin Van Peebles blaxploitation pimp hat and duck-egg blue regency fop suit, tours us through his fine new opus, The Devil Drives, with additional servings of those soft ‘n’ sexy sounds from the recent past. He is nearly over his King of Pop hubris although there is plenty of encouragement from the crowd for all that naughtiness.

Opening with Feeling Kinda Sporty, Dave keeps the hat until the first chorus and then he’s down to the sideburns and Bon Brush moustache. He croons blithely through I Don’t Know You Exist and I’m Gonna Live in My Own Big World. He makes a joke about the Bolivar stink then luxuriates into a breathy Barry White voiceover for The Birds and the Goats. Dave is playing frilly acoustic guitar with cascades of percussion and piano from Clare Moore and Robin Casinader and those ever-steady bass lines from Gordy Blair.

Dave puts on his Mt Gambier souvenir t-shirt and slips into something uncomfortable. You’re Too Hip For Me Baby. He makes risible remarks about the Sturt football club and twirls the fingers of his right hand in King of Pop benediction. He plays the crowd like a stage hypnotist. Like the young Franquin, or Martin St James before the legals. Night of the Wolverine gets a reflective treatment while the standout track from the new album, Pianola Roll is fuller, with choppy cross-rhythms from Clare Moore. The set closes with the old groover, I’m Gonna Release your Soul and, Dave-turns-Faust, The Sheriff of Hell.

The last several Graney albums have at times verged dangerously on cheesey, ultra-lounge atmospherics. But, live and sweaty, Dave and the Snakes can still cut the rug. Among the encores, It’s Your Crowd that I Hate , is punctuated with incendiary pedal riffs from guitarist Rod Hayward while The Stars Baby, the Stars has Casinader’s keyboards in full attack. Graney ‘n’ company may be soft ‘n’ sexy but they haven’t forgotten those old wolverine blues. Don’t be fooled by that black silk bolero top and the Herb Alpert fanfares. Dave Graney may be at the height of his affectations but he still not afraid to be heavy.

The Adelaide Review, July, 1997.