Flogging My Back Pages in Adelaide
So many of my back pages were written in, or about Adelaide, that it seemed obvious to kick off any promotional activity about my book…
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How Roadrunner recorded our noisy history
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 Big Beat – the soundtrack
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).
‘You Need a Friend’—Roadrunner 1982
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
‘Two Cabs to the Toucan’—Roadrunner 1981
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,
‘We Have Survived’—Roadrunner 1980
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 new
‘The Nips Are Getting Bigger’—Roadrunner 1979
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 own
‘One More Boring Night in Adelaide’—Roadrunner 1978
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 Buttrose
The art of the Australian single 1975-80
When I returned to Adelaide in late 1977 after two and a half years away in the U.K., I brought home with me about twenty-five singles. I proceeded to do the rounds of my rather puzzled university friends to show them and play to them these artefacts from the sonic revolution I had just experienced. Most of them smiled politely and poured another cup of tea, but one old school
Roadrunner once
Around three years ago, David Nichols, a former writer at Australian Smash Hits, interviewed me on the phone for a book he was doing on that magazine. He asked about the rock mags I used to read growing up, how I got into the game and my impressions of Smash Hits. He was kind enough to send me a transcript to check, but ended up only using a small part. The