Inner City Sound

Various Artists
Inner City Sound
Laughing Outlaw, 2005

When I'm feeling lazy and this column is due, which is occasionally, it's easy enough to pick some random US or European underground record from the shelf and look it up on Wikipedia or All Music Guide. I don't just re-write the synopses on those websites, but they serve as a handy reference for discographies and links to archived interviews and articles. One of the most frustrating aspects of writing this column is that those resources rarely exist for all but the most obvious Australian bands and personalities. Compare, for example, US producer Steve Albini's extensive Wikipedia entry with Australian producer Lindsay Gravina's non-existent one, or that of the US band X with the Australian band X.

In the last six years there has been an avalanche of CD compilations and reissues of Australian underground bands, including Guy Blackman's Can't Stop It! series on post-punk, Tim Pittman's two double-disc Tales From The Australian Underground releases and David Laing's Do The Pop! garage rock compilation, which has been expanded into a series of three double-disc Do The Pop!: Redux compilations to be available this year.

One of the best things about these CDs are the liner notes. All three series have come with booklets bursting with hard-to-find biographies, anecdotes and gig posters covering each band and song on the discs. My favourite of the lot has been the companion disc to Clinton Walker's republished book on Australian punk and post-punk, Inner City Sound. It's a bit more hit-and-miss than the others but contains arguably the best tracks, from the early Rowland S Howard version of 'Shivers' to Machinations' 'Average Inadequacy'.

I finished this column in December with some thoughts on the best local releases of 2007 and in the process remembered how much I love writing about Australian music. It fucks me off, as people at the pub will know, that Australian music remains underrated and under-documented. So, armed with a few of Clinton Walker's books, Craig Mathieson's The Sell-In, Andrew Stafford's Pig City and the contacts of some wiser journos, I will be writing about Australian bands here much more this year. It's my New Year's Resolution.