The Third Woman

About the album

Clare Moore is the currently the drummer for the Lurid Yellow Mist with partner Dave Graney, with whom she has played since 1979 in bands such as The Coral Snakes, The White Buffalos and The Moodists. Clare started playing music in the early 70’s as a drummer at Rock Masses in Adelaide, which were organised by Australia’s singing nun, Sister Janet Mead, who later hit the top of the charts with her version of The Lord’s Prayer. Clare then spent time playing in avant-garde rock bands around Adelaide before teaming up with Dave Graney and Steve Miller at the age of 16 to form the Sputniks and then the Moodists. This band, contemporaries of the Go-Betweens, the Birthday Party and the Triffids, spent most of their career in London and Europe. In 1988, Clare returned to Australia and spent the next decade as the driving force behind Dave Graney And The Coral Snakes, and then the Dave Graney Show, playing, writing, arranging, tour managing and eventually co-producing the music. The Third Woman is Clare’s debut solo album. Her songs are vivid stories, from the homely tale of two crosswalk attendants falling in love on opposite sides of the road (Lollypop Man), to the fantastic vision of Clare playing in a bar on a distant asteroid (Sirens Call To Arms). Hers is a voice that is sometimes exotic, sometimes prosaic, but always truly distinctive. Musically the record provides nods of appreciation in many different directions, from the sounds of 80’s synth-pop, to the grumpy romanticism of Serge Gainsbourg, to the gritty country of Bobby Gentry (whose version of Mose Allison’s Parchman Farm is covered here), to the sweeping soundtracks of John Barry. All eleven tracks were produced and played almost entirely by Clare (the only other players being Bill Miller and Dave Graney, who each contribute a little guitar). Special attention should be drawn to the album’s closing track, Yes! Fat Chicks, although really it draws attention to itself. If Mad Max had been written by Germaine Greer, John Waters and Valerie Solanas and produced for ABC Radio, it might have gone a little like this. Yes! Fat Chicks is the tale of two lusty women on the open road, preying on unsuspecting suburban P-Platers. There has been nothing like it before, and there will be nothing like it again, for Yes! Fat Chicks will go down in history as one of the most bizarre and compelling song ever recorded!