“We Need a Champion” by Dave Graney & Clare Moore

Recidivist Melbourne rock and roller Dave Graney and multi-instrumentalist Clare Moore have carved out careers as musicians over 4 decades, with The Moodists, Coral Snakes and beyond. “We Need a Champion” is from a recently released live album recorded on a 2017 UK tour where they played with Georgio Valentino on bass and Malcolm Ross (Josef K, Orange Juice) on electric guitar. We all need a champion right now.

Graney and Moore were in Melbourne “garage jazz-punk” band The Moodists from 1978 to 1986. The Moodists also included Mick Turner (subsequently The Dirty Three) and moved to London around the same time as fellow Melbourne band The Birthday Party.

Line-up changes saw Graney and Moore joined by two former Orange Juice members (David McClymont and Malcolm Ross) before The Moodists split, re-grouping as The Coral Snakes in London and back in Melbourne from 1987-1997.

Following the Coral Snakes came the Royal Dave Graney Show and Lurid Yellow Mist, subsequently abbreviated to the mistLY… which brings us up to date, and to this song, “We Need a Champion”, which was originally released on the 2012 Dave Graney & the MistLY album “You’ve Been In My Mind”.

[As an aside, Ross and Moore here also appear in Kylie Minogue’s band on Australian TV when she was promoting her “Impossible Princess” album. They play on this clip of the Kylie-does-“Madchester”-“Baggy” single “Some Kind of Bliss”]

Keep listening after “We Need a Champion” for a version of the classic louche lounge rock of “Night of the Wolverine” too, the stone-cold fair-dinkum Coral Snakes’ classic Australian rock’n’roll song. Graney’s a storyteller and an entertainer, his songs often inhabited with characters and detailed retelling of incidents, imaginary or true.

Another more recent favourite is “Everything was Legendary With Robert” (from his 2014 “Fearful Wiggings” album) introduced with the warning “It’s got nothing to do with Robert Forster of the Go-Betweens OK. I don’t want to hear anything more about them, alright?”

Graney and Moore are working musicians, frequently on the road, playing here there and everywhere. The COVID19 pandemic has clipped their wings, but they have managed to maintain a live schedule of sorts with performances every Thursday 8pm AEST via Stageit.com

“Feel You More Than The World Right Now” by Spinning Coin

Spinning Coin at Lynn Park, Glasgow, 04/08/2019 – photo by Owen Godbert

Now here’s a sure fire way to cheer up a grey damp day in Dunedin, NZ…. some new Spinning Coin from Scotland’s rain city Glasgow. Their 2nd album “Hyacinth” was released yesterday  and here’s the second song “Feel You More Than The World Right Now”:

Their first album “Permo” was a hyper-jangly melodic 21st century update of that 1980s/ 1990s Glasgow guitar pop sound.  Following “Permo” the group had a slight line-up change, drafting in Hairband‘s Rachel Taylor on bass and vocals (and songwriting duties), and the new album “Hyacinth” reflects a broadening songwriting approach while retaining all the essential elements that made them so appealing from the outset.

This particular song stood out on first listen because of the sparkling light shining out from the first seconds from those hyperactive jangling guitars. Sean Armstrong’s  wavering croon takes on the attitude of Edwyn Collins in early Orange Juice, pumps it full of lighter-than-air gasses, and blasts it into space in a flower-filled rocket-ship.  Free-wheeling, ebullient, beautiful, and just a little bit loopy.

The LP of “Hyacinth” is released on The Pastels Stephen McRobbie’s Geographic Records imprint in the Domino Records stable. It’s also available mailorder via Monorail Music in Glasgow and Norman Records.

 

“Too Hot” by Tight Knit

The third 7″ single on Glasgow underground pop label Not Unloved is another beaut. It’s from Tight Knit and it’s “Too Hot” (with “Want You” on the flip side).

Tight Knit traveled from Australia to Glasgow in the time-honoured tradition of Australasian underground pop bands seeking their fame if not their fortune in Glasgow. By chance a CD-R of their music came to the attention of Not Unloved, which had previously released excellent 7″ singles by Vital Idles and then Current Affairs.

By “time-honoured tradition” I’m thinking of the Go-Between here, visiting Orange Juice and releasing a single on the legendary Glasgow label Postcard Records in the early 1980s. [As a side note, Orange Juice were previously called the Nu Sonics and the catalogue number of this single is NUSONIC003, and of course Not Unloved is a song by another Glasgow band we know and love; The Pastels].

I’m also thinking of The Bats, from Dunedin & Christchurch, NZ, who found themselves in Glasgow in the late 1980s as well while touring the UK and Europe, and recorded half of their “Daddy’s Highway” album there in a basement flat.

Anyway, back to this fine Tight Knit song… “Too Hot” is perfect honest garage rock from the Melbourne trio of Ange (guitar, bass and vocals), Caitie (guitar, bass and vocals) and Jamie (drums). The thrilling lead guitar bursts channel the kind of pure fierce electricity of Lou Reed’s lead guitar circa the Velvet Undergound’s “White Light/ White Heat” album.  With its combination of harmony vocals and those guitars, it’s the kind of song that would have set a volume of the Romulan Records 1960s garage rock series Girls in the Garage alight.

 

 

“Wallace Line” by Ha The Unclear

Ha The Unclear – “Alt-Pop/New Wave/Indie from South Dunedin based in Auckland, New Zealand” – are back with another brilliantly catchy single “Wallace Line”:

There’s a bit of an Orange Juice vibe about “Wallace Line”. Bouncy Afro-Beat guitar lines zing around over trebly rapid-fire strums, with glorious sugary vocal harmonies in the chorus.  Michael Cathro’s existential musings sung in that laconic but precise deadpan South Dunedin delivery tie it all together with a bow.

Ha The Unclear play at The Cook in Dunedin tonight.

“Raining on Hope Street” by Spinning Coin

Spinning Coin have a new single out soon, called “Raining on Hope Street”. It’s always raining in Glasgow.

Can’t find a Bandcamp or Soundcloud link and it’s another month before the 7″ will be available from their label Geographic Records via Domino Records but it’s too good not to share.

The song is quintessential Spinning Coin – all thin trebly raindrop splatter strums, unexpected chord changes and darting lead runs that twist around the multitude of melodic themes in the verse and choruses.

“Raining on Hope Street” may be about kind of lovelorn yearning of not being quite worthy or strong enough for someone –“If I had enough heart I’d give it to you” – and in their words and music evoke some of the similar emotional landscape of early Orange Juice and The Pastels while also channeling fiercer guitar skronk elements of early Teenage Fanclub.

The video is a visual treat of autumnal watery sunlight in Glasgow parklands, matching the spirit of the song to the psycho-geography of their city and its history of socialist independent pop music.

“Boyfriend” by The Goon Sax

Brisbane teenagers The Goon Sax are three songs into their debut album pre-release roll-out and there’s no let up in the simple perfect brilliance of their wryly-observed and playful pop song-craft – as demonstrated here by “Boyfriend”.

When The Goon Sax name first popped up last year I listened because they were on Chapter Music (The Stevens, Twerps, Dick Diver etc.). They sounded like the perfect and charming combination of a bit of naive pop reminiscent of the earliest Pastels, blended with that peculiarly Australian minimalist strum-pop of label mates Twerps.

But there was also a throw-back to the simple rhythm guitar/ bass/ lead guitar and vocal stylings of The Go-Betweens in their earliest form, circa “Send Me A Lullabye” or the Missing Link/ Postcard Records single.

Turns out there’s more than just a stylistic connection to the aforementioned Go-Betweens, but that genetic link shouldn’t be a factor in determining the worthiness of The Goon Sax or their debut album.

The three tracks so far indicate not just the rare talent for wry observational pop music with simple but memorable arrangements. They also show an unusual confidence in singing about stuff that teenagers would normally avoid sharing publicly and presenting themselves as coolly ‘uncool’ and almost celebrating their awkwardness. That was also one of the features of that early 80’s Glasgow scene with Orange Juice and The Pastels risking ridicule by establishing themselves as outsiders in an otherwise macho culture. Which was also why those bookish Aussies The Go-Betweens fitted in so well in Glasgow back in 1980.

The album “Up To Anything” is released on Friday (11 March) on Chapter Music – a Melbourne label with a 24 year history of releasing music from the fringes of Australian music culture. Here’s the video for the song too.

 

 

‘Straight to Hell’ by Rat Columns

Day 11 of unofficial Australian Music Month, because, you know, if it’s good enough for NZ to have a month of self-reflection, then it’s good enough for Aussie. Goodness knows they need all the love they can get these days. Look, here they are even turning against their own cultural icons:

So, as that tweet seemed to be directed at most of the catalogue of my favourite Australian labels, I thought I’d see what RIP Society (Deabeat Central) had to offer. This new release ‘ Leaf’ from Rat Columns caught my ear.

Don’t know if this is ‘deadbeat’ or not. It might just be a bit sad & subdued – therefore downbeat rather than deadbeat. But it is mighty fine guitar pop and has a little hint of Orange Juice/ Postcard Records pop (listen to track 3 ‘Pink Mist’) amongst the trebly clatter and subdued vocals.