Description

An amalgam of memoir and anthology, this collection shines a light onto the life and work of well-respected music writer and editor Donald Robertson.

There’s the experience of emigrating to the steel town where the desert meets the sea; the escape to Adelaide’s nourishing airs; the return to Britain to fathom why the family left; and the realisation there was no future in England’s dreaming.

Then the plunge into publishing. Rock ‘n’ roll stories of course; Springsteen, Split Enz, Sex Pistols, Simple Minds, and more. Slabs of Australian, and South Australian, rock history.

But also comedy capers with the Doug Anthony Allstars and Los Trios Ringbarkus; football fables with the Socceroos; travel tales of Haight-Ashbury and Swinging London; and recent reflections on Scotland as it struggles to be free.

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‘Resigned as I am to the fact that neither Redgum nor I will rate anything more than a passing mention in this book, truth compels me to say this: as a writer, Donald has always been able to find his way from the uppercase to the period with elegance, insight, erudition and what passes for humour among the Scottish.’ —John Schumann

‘The Messi of rock ‘n’ roll writers.’ —Peter Goldsworthy