There was a lot of love in the room for Roadrunner magazine and its anthology The Big Beat at Readings book store in St Kilda last night. A crowd of around fifty gathered to hear Pierre Sutcliffe (ex-Models) lead Phill Calvert (ex-Boys Next Door/The Birthday Party), John Dowler (Young Modern) and myself discuss the Australian post-punk scene and the role that Roadrunner played in it. Among the former contributors in
Print reviews ‘Roadrunner was the Chrysler of the Big 3 R rock magazines in Australia at the turn into the 1980s, trailing the GM and Ford of RAM and Rolling Stone, and like the Hemi-powered Plymouths and Dodges, it was wild and untamed, and it’s a blessing that there’s now a permanent record of it, all 500 pages of it and bound in a beautiful hard cover.’ — Clinton Walker — 12 November 2019
By Nathan Davies SA Weekend magazine, The Advertiser (Adelaide), 4 October 2019 To flick through the pages of The Big Beat – a bound collection of rock magazine Roadrunner – is to be transported to an Adelaide that no longer exists. An Adelaide of smoke-filled, sticky-floored band rooms still a decade or two from being transformed into soulless pokie dens. An Adelaide of photocopied band flyers sticky taped to Stobie
The soundtrack to the book of the magazine. One song from each issue of Roadrunner magazine, as featured in the book, The Big Beat: Rock music in Australia 1978-1983 (Roadrunnertwice, 2019).
To view and download issues, click on thumbnails below The concerted push to increase sales and advertising revenue following the establishment of a Roadrunner Sydney office in mid-1981 was only a qualified success. While ad sales saw a marked increase and newsagency sales nudged six thousand for the first time (with the end-of-year issue), most of the extra revenue was offset by the higher production costs of going full colour
To view and download issues, click on thumbnails below Roadrunner‘s first issue of 1981 (Vol 4 No 1) signalled some changes. First, the cover price went up from 60 cents to 80 cents. We attempted to offset this by a bumper subscription offer—two free albums (Vinyl Virgins, a Virgin Records Australia sampler and Tactics’ My Houdini) plus a year’s subscription (12 issues) for $15. The offer snared 61 new subscribers,
To view and download issues, click on thumbnails below Roadrunner’s ‘End of the ’70s’ double issue in December 1979 made a few people sit up and take notice. One of them was Paul Gardiner, publisher of Rolling Stone. Gardiner used to play the occasional game of squash with Stuart Coupe in Sydney and asked him if I might be willing to sell the magazine. He had just started a
To view and download issues, click on thumbnails below Roadrunner’s first national issue hit the newsstands in February 1979. The cover story on the riots and run-ins of Elvis Costello’s summer tour was by the hard-hitting Ross Stapleton, whose fascination with the behind-the-scenes machinations of the music industry was to yield a series of lengthy features over the following twelve months. As well as being engrossing exposes in their
To view and download issues, click on thumbnails below When I returned to Adelaide in late 1977 after two-and-a-half years in the UK, I came back with 25 singles—Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, Elvis Costello, Wreckless Eric, Tom Robinson Band, X-Ray Spex, The Rezillos, Slaughter & the Dogs etc. I moved into a small cottage at 14 Donegal Street, Norwood, owned by my old Adelaide Uni friends Larry
It was early 1975. I remember warm summer nights and nude swimming in the backyard pool of the house on Nottage Terrace. There were a few Adelaide locals but mainly twenty-somethings evacuated from Darwin after Cyclone Tracy struck on Christmas Day. A mix of English, Americans and Australians, more than a few fresh from India and the Asian hippie trail. They had been part of a little Darwin scene that
On the morning of Thursday 28 November 1918, the Imperial War Cabinet met at 10 Downing Street in London. Outside the weather was wet and windy and the temperature struggled to reach seven degrees Centigrade. It was the American holiday of Thanksgiving; but Americans were definitely not alone in feeling thankful. The armistices signed by the Allies on 30 October (with Turkey), 3 November (Austria-Hungary) and 11 November (Germany) had
Continued from A hundred years ago: great John Maclean comes home to the Clyde—part 1 Two days before the Imperial War Cabinet meeting of 28 November 1918, George Barnes drafted a memo suggesting the Cabinet (imagined above in a painting by Scottish artist Sir James Guthrie) authorise John Maclean’s release, ‘along with any others who might be in like plight for similar offences.’ ‘The continued agitation about John Maclean constitutes
Continued from A hundred years ago: great John Maclean comes home to the Clyde—part 2 John Maclean was released from Peterhead Prison on Monday 2 December 1918. That evening he addressed a meeting of supporters at the Meatmarket Street Hall in Aberdeen. The following day, accompanied by his wife Agnes, he travelled by train to Glasgow. Despite Maclean’s desire to ‘get right home’, word of his release had quickly spread
It was one of those Facebook memes. My good friend Greg Taylor invited me to nominate ‘seven books that had an impact’. Seven books in seven days. I accepted and after some thought, (and somewhat predictably) decided to go in chronological order. I enjoyed the exercise and thought it was worth collecting the results here. 1. The Children’s Encyclopedia. My parents bought me The Children’s Encyclopedia when I was
No account of the Highland county of Moray would be complete without a mention of whisky. There are 49 operating malt whisky distilleries in the Speyside region, the greatest concentration in Scotland. The clean air, the plentiful and pristine water of the Spey coming off the Cairngorm mountains to the south (plus natural springs) and proximity to the main barley growing areas of the country provide ideal conditions for
