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| The book previously known as Rock Country, to which I contributed a piece, has been re-released by publisher Hardie Grant in a new paperback format with the new title The Best Music Writing Under the Australian Sun. To see more go here; to hear a radio interview with editor Christian Ryan go here, and to read a Beat magazine item, go here Fiona Capp wrote in a capsule review in the Fairfax press: "'All music carries memory in it. Is that perhaps what music, songs, concerts really are, a kind of rehearsed eternity?' Maureen O'Shaughnessy's soulful phrase 'rehearsed eternity' echoes through this marvellous book in which a diverse range of Australian writers and musicians revisit key rock-music moments and explore the way they continue to reverberate. Clinton Walker sets out to dispel the stigma of uncoolness surrounding the Bee Gees. Why, he asks, do the brooding dark lords get all the kudos? Why does happy have to be so unhip? Keir Nuttall's encounter with Chrissy Amphlett after years of fandom is both hilarious and poignant, a fitting salute to her distinctive brand of in-your-face toughness and vulnerability. Like the Bee Gees, the best pieces in this book are not trying to be cool, they're celebrating the passion that drives people to make music and the way it transforms ordinary lives." |
