THE NEXT THING (1984)

My second book, The Next Thing, was published by Kangaroo Press, and like Inner City Sound, edited by me, shepherded to completion by Carl Harrison-Ford, and featuring original photos by my then shooting-partner Francine McDougall, who I recall I gave part of the miniscule advance to. I was so anti-gonzo at the time that it was a collection of straight Q&A interviews, with the bands I thought worth covering by the writers I thought up to it, given of course that they wouldn’t be paid. Their number included Frank Brunetti, Mark Mordue, Toby Creswell, Peter Lawrance, Richard Guilliatt, Stuart Coupe and the late Michael White. The front cover illustration, by Judi Dransfield, was my choice from a number of expressions of interest I solicited from artists of my acquaintance including John Nixon and Noel McKenna. The book was launched with a great gig at the Chevron Hotel in Kings Cross and it reasonably failed to match the impact of its predecessor, though it did generate some of my first TV appearances like the one below. Read a couple of additional contemporary press reviews here and here.

When the expanded second edition of Inner City Sound was published in 2005, a couple of my interviews from The Next Thing - with the Birthday Party, and the Triffids - were cannibalised over to it for part of its add-ons, and you can read them there. Other interviews from The Next Thing - with Ed Kuepper, Chris Bailey and the Sunday Painters - you can read in my Backpages section respectively here, here and here.

Author photo by Francine McDougall

From Stiletto magazine; click through...