Almanac Music: Brisbane or Bust

 

When I joined the FA community, I decided my Twitter identity would be the best pen name to assume for this esteemed publication. Twitter is a strange beast – a simple concept that always seems to be engulfed in an existential crisis. Recently local tweeps used the banner #WithoutTwitter to lament what their lives would be like without Jack’s media plaything. I chimed in with some tangential observations on various tweets in recent times as well, somehow feeling compelled to maintain a participant’s vantage point in this unfolding saga.

 

I have a range of interests that I indulge on Twitter with one of them that arouses a lot of passion being music. This post is a rumination on two issues I have been following closely emanating from Australia’s New World City. Both in their own peculiar fashion exemplify the dilemma of not being Sydney or Melbourne but certainly not being Adelaide. They are uniquely Brisbane.

 

Maurice Murphy, or Moz to the Twittersphere, led a campaign to rename a park in suburban Oxley as Ed Kuepper Park. By submitting an online petition to the mandarins of Brisbane City Council and enlisting support from politicians at local, state and federal level, this richly deserved honour culminated in an unveiling of the plaque a couple of weeks ago. Ed and his family and friends enjoyed a warm summer’s afternoon basking in the glow that a local boy who grew up down the road from the park had a landmark that now appears on Google Maps. I played my part by signing the petition because I am firmly of the belief that what Ed has done with The Saints, The Laughing Clowns and all of his other solo and collaborative work over the years places him at the apex of the Australian music industry with just a few peers worthy of that status. So well done Ed and Moz.

 

Another tweep north of the Tweed doing great things in the music world at the moment is Andrew Stafford. Andrew is in the process of writing a book ruminating on his lifelong love of music as a consumer and journo. In a series of posts on his Patreon page, Staffo has regaled us with tales of growing up in Ringwood before moving to Brisbane as a teenager and the soundtrack of that journey. There are lots of name checks instantly recognisable to any Gen Xer but it is the way he brings the stories to life with his enthusiasm that give them a sparkle and verve. We all remember bands and records we loved in our formative years but we don’t often have the pleasure of reminiscing through the eyes of a trusted chronicler. Technically, he could be writing this stuff from anywhere so what’s the peculiar Brisbane angle? We should all feel a sense of gratitude that it was through Andrew’s breakthrough tome that the most apt moniker for Brisbane imbued itself in the collective psyche. For this scribe certainly, forget New World City it will always be Pig City.