Full Coverage: A History of rock journalism in Australia (Samuel J Fell, Monash University Publishing)

While blogs and websites thrive, Australia’s print music press is now largely a thing of the past. But what a past! Built around extensive interviews with many of the key players, Samuel J Fell’s Full Coverage is an oral history of the publishers and the personalities that brought Australian music out of the pubs and into the mainstream. Fell loosely divides the history into three main eras: the 1960s with Go-Set and beyond, the 70s and 80s with the dominance of RAM and Juke, and the late 80s into the 21st century with the rise and dominance of the free street press. Personal feuds and magazine rivalries are rife, advertisers drive hard bargains, and it goes without saying that the publishers cashed in while the writers were left working for love, not money. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in a nuts-and-bolts history of the Australian music scene, detailing an often-overlooked side of the business that was essential in building and maintaining a local industry that today has changed beyond all recognition. In the final pages, Fell wonders what happened to the Sunshine Coast street paper Tsunami. I was there at the time: it was bought by the Geelong-based Forte group around 2010 and shuttered a year later—just another victim of the changing conditions Fell charts here so well.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Anthony Morris is a freelance reviewer, novelist, and podcaster. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Category: Reviews