Review: 1001 Australian Nights by Dave Graney

Monday 23 May 2011 10:32AM (view full episode)

Patricia Maunder reviews Dave Graney's new memoir 1001 Australian Nights.

ARIA Award-winning Australian musician Dave Graney is a man walking to the beat of his own drum.

That's reflected in this book about his passionate relationship with music.

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Patricia Maunder

In an anecdote about one of his gigs, Dave Graney relays a between-song chat to the audience. I think it's pretty lucky if anybody understands anybody else at all, he writes, so I keep my talk pretty close to my own interests. At least I'll know what I'm talking about.

That's 1001 Australian Nights in a nutshell. It's one very individual individual's take on music, mostly his own. Much of this memoir is diary-like recollections of Graney's diverse gigs around the world, particularly over recent years: the towns, venues, audiences, the musicians and instruments he played with, the songs, his reflections on the more metaphysical aspects of these moments in time.

His profound understanding of and passion for music and the nature of performance raises these descriptions into something that's much more than the sum of their parts. It really doesn't matter if you have never seen Graney live, haven't heard much of his music, or aren't completely familiar with the who's who of Australian music that has played in his various bands. Though after reading this book you may want to rectify that. Deep and dizzyingly esoteric observations about the wider music world weave their way through Graney's recollections of his own contribution to it. Influences are as diverse as Iggy Pop, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jim Morrison, The Cramps and Tupac, among many, many others.

While Dave knows what he's talking about, truth be told I got a bit lost on this journey sometimes, but I just wanted to keep going because the guy behind the wheel has a unique take on life, and is able to express it with a distinct voice laden with poetry, satire, intelligence and a dash of surrealism. 1001 Australian Nights is essentially about Graney's relationship with music, little is revealed about his personal relationships. He often refers to his longtime partner in life and music, Clare Moore, but always by her full name, as if this is strictly business. Their one tender moment in the book is told from a distance, in the third person. But there are enough insights into his physical and spiritual journey to grasp where he's coming from, through growing up in smalltown Mount Gambier in South Australia; moving to Melbourne's bohemian St Kilda in the 1970's; London in the 1980's; some mainstream acceptance in the 1990's; then shifting back to the fringes to be true to himself and his craft. In some tenuous yet satisfying way, we get to know a man who has always haunted junk shops and secondhand book stores because he knows what he wants isn't on the main street, whether it's music, clothes or books.

Particularly interesting are his recollections of hunting out hardboiled crime novels by Dashiel Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard, James M Cain and naturally other authors few readers would know of, before they came back into print in the 1980's. It's clear this pulp fiction's informed Graney's own writing, which can display a taut, streetwise restraint and occasional crassness, but he's obviously read widely, the rhythms of the Beat writers, and their argot such as squares and cats, also get a look in.

But 1001 Australian Nights can't really be compared to any particular genre because Graney, as always, goes his own way, whether that be wickedly satirical dream sequences, a subjunctive sentence that runs for two and a half pages, generous use of exclamation marks or beautiful turns of phrase. He can be laugh-out-loud funny, particularly through wisecracks about people he doesn't respect. He can be amazingly humble and outrageously arrogant but it's not just a matter of attributing one to Graney and the other to his stage persona, because the dude with the pencil moustache, leather pants and high-kicks is happy playing concert halls or small-town pubs, as long as the music sounds good and the audience is into it. As he writes about one potentially ego-destroying gig. Hardly anybody is there but it sounds beautiful in that room. It turns out to be one of those nights that make you feel great to be a musician.

Undoubtedly 1001 Australian Nights is not for everyone but if you're willing to hitch a ride with Dave Graney, you're in for one hell of a trip.


Patricia Maunder


1001 Australian Nights
Dave Graney
Affirm Press


Sarah L'Estrange

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