Notes from Pig City - Archive of author and journalist Andrew Stafford

Sunnyboys say goodbye, with love

Music / June 7, 2023 / 5 minutes of reading

In an era where every Australian band who found an audience in the 1980s has reformed, the reunion of Sunnyboys will go down in history as one of the least expected, and most warmly received. The beloved Sydney power-pop quartet peaked early, releasing a classic debut album in 1981 before flaming out like a comet, derailed by overwork and lead singer Jeremy Oxley’s long struggle with schizophrenia.

After a reunion in 1998, no one expected the original quartet – singer, guitarist and songwriter Jeremy, his bass-playing older brother Peter, guitarist Richard Burgman and drummer Bil Bilson – to ever play again. That they did, Burgman insists, was a miracle: “There were about 150 to 250 things that had to go right. And if any one of those hadn’t, or if anyone along the way had said no, it wouldn’t have happened.”

It all went right in 2012, when the band reunited to play a show at Sydney’s Enmore theatre with the Hoodoo Gurus, performing under the name Kids in Dust to defuse expectations. Since then, they’ve seen their slim catalogue reissued, released multiple compilations, played a sold-out show at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall and many more sold-out tours – the very last of which begins next week, on the Gold Coast.… Read more..

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Frog-hopping up the charts

Environment, Music / June 7, 2023 / 4 minutes of reading

A range of amphibious grunts, clicks, squeals and screams from more than 60 species of Australian frogs has landed at No. 3 on the ARIA album charts – with hopes of knocking off Paul Kelly and Taylor Swift to take the top spot.

Brought together by the Bowerbird Collective (musicians Anthony Albrecht and Simone Slattery) under the banner Songs Of Disappearance, the project is raising funds for the Australian Museum’s FrogID project, with the aim of bringing attention to the plight of Australian frogs.

Recorded by experts and citizen scientists, it reprises last year’s project – an album led by a symphony of Australian bird calls – which peaked at No. 2.

While Australia holds the dubious honour of being host to the worst mammal extinction rate of any country on Earth, our frogs are also in dire straights due to habitat loss, climate change and chytrid fungus disease.

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Paulie Stewart: paying it back with punk nuns

Music / June 7, 2023 / 5 minutes of reading

Paulie Stewart was 48 years old and had been on the waiting list for a liver transplant for more than 500 days when, at death’s door, he was visited in Melbourne’s Austin hospital by Sister Helena, a young nun from Timor-Leste sent to comfort him on his journey to the other side. A priest had already read him his last rites.

Stewart, singer of Melbourne punk band Painters and Dockers and Australian-East Timorese reggae ensemble the Dili Allstars, thought Helena’s appearance must have been an omen. His association with Timor-Leste spanned decades, sparked by the murder of his brother Tony in 1975 by Indonesian forces in Balibo.

Sister Helena, familiar with both the Allstars and the story of the Balibo Five, was just as gobsmacked to see Stewart on his deathbed. She vowed she would get him a new liver. In his new memoir All The Rage, Stewart writes that he thought Helena must have got into the altar wine a bit early that day.

The next morning, a nurse rushed into the ward. A compatible liver had arrived. Sister Helena and the nuns of East Timor had been praying all night.

A former altar boy, Stewart lost his faith in 1975 when a nun told his shattered family they should be happy that his brother was with Jesus.… Read more..

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Vika and Linda: No Bull

Music / June 7, 2023 / 5 minutes of reading

There’s a moment in the 2013 music documentary 20 Feet From Stardom where legendary singer Darlene Love reflects on the time when she was working as a maid, cleaning other people’s houses while her festive classic Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) would be playing on the radio. It was a small but powerful reminder for Love that her true vocation was singing.

For years, Linda Bull – the younger half of Australia’s singing sisters Vika and Linda – has taken the lead singing Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) in Paul Kelly’s band around Yuletide. Every time she does, she thinks of Love. “The good thing that I took from that movie was look where Darlene is now,” Linda says. “She had the last laugh over Phil Spector.”

In No Bull, the new memoir co-written by the two sisters, they tell of the times when they too went back to day jobs after being dropped by their record label in 2001. Not that they were scrubbing floors: with no previous retail experience, Linda founded a kids’ clothing store, Hoochie Coochie, while Vika took catering and secretarial work between her own gigs.

Nothing in the music business can be taken for granted.… Read more..

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Jack Ginnivan: kiss here, lemons

AFL / June 7, 2023 / 9 minutes of reading

Here are five things you will see when you check out Jack Ginnivan’s TikTok profile:

Kane Cornes’ head (Ginnivan’s choice of avatar);
“Just a guy who doesn’t know what’s what’s, lemons” (his bio);
A 15-second clip with the “KISS HERE” filter over the top of Ginnivan’s face. Collingwood defender Nathan Murphy leans in from off camera and plants pecks on Ginnivan’s cherubic features, while a sped-up version of the Smiths’ Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now plays in the background;
Ginnivan resting his head on the shoulder of teammate Tyler Brown, “my pre-game cuddle guy”;
Emojis, and lots of them: rainbows, unicorns, hearts, flowers, teddy bears and more.

If you believe the “lemons”, Collingwood forward Jack Ginnivan is the most polarising player in the AFL. He wears the most eye-watering peroxide job since Jason Akermanis. He chirps at opponents and shushes their fans. Early on, he drew so many free kicks the AFL clarified its rules around head-high contact. Now he can’t buy one. His shorts are a size too big.

This week, Geelong’s Patrick Dangerfield – the president of the AFL Players Association board, with 301 games, a Brownlow Medal and eight All-Australian awards to his name – took the highly unusual step of breaking the unofficial players’ code of silence after Ginnivan pinned him in what he alleged was a chicken-wing tackle in the qualifying final, an incident missed by the match review officer.… Read more..

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The Chats: Get Fucked

Music / June 7, 2023 / 3 minutes of reading

Let’s start with the title. The Chats don’t care what you think, and even less (I hope) what the Guardian thinks. This band did not give a continental about what Karl Stefanovic thought when they ran around the set of the Today Show. This is entirely as it should be for a reprobate punk band from Pig City, aka Brisbane (via the Sunshine Coast).

That said, there are some signs of growing pains on Get Fucked, the follow-up to 2020’s High Risk Behaviour. In some ways, this album is to the Chats what Leave Home was to Ramones: it’s tighter, with better playing and a tougher sound, but lacks some of the naive charm that made their debut so endearing. They have also lost guitarist Josh Price, and he takes a little of the Chats’ humour with him.

New Josh (Hardy) is a killer, though. His playing sets fire to Struck By Lightning and Panic Attack, songs that crackle with all the nervous energy of their titles. The singer and bass player, Eamon Sandwith, stretches out a bit more lyrically, too, reminding us that, at the height of the Black Summer bushfires, he gave us the Christmas in Hawaii song I Hope Scott’s House Burns Down.… Read more..

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