Welcome to Notes From Pig City. This is my online archive for as much of my journalism as I can keep up with. Published pieces will be reposted here as soon as they can be. I also write exclusively on my Patreon page; those pieces are not republished here.
I’m the author of two books: Pig City (2004), a book about Brisbane, and Something To Believe In (2019), a music memoir. I'm currently employed by AAP. I continue to freelance occasionally for other publications, mostly Guardian Australia, where it doesn't conflict with my full-time gig.
I have a wide variety of interests, and they’re reflected by the number of tabs in the main menu. You can click through those, or the archive list at the bottom to find what you might be interested in, whether you’re a casual visitor or looking for something specific.
If you want to get in touch send me a message here.
Now it starts to get hard! This is where I start to become ultra-conscious of who and what’s getting left out. The songs get harder to put in any kind of order. And I haven’t made it any easier for myself – I found I’d written Nick Cave’s The Mercy Seat down twice in my […]
The Great Australian Songbook IV (20-11) Read More »
Following on from the previous thread, as the title suggests, here’s tracks 30-29. 30. YOTHU YINDI – Treaty (1991) Did this song start a national conversation, or just get people dancing? Actually, scarily, it managed to get politicians dancing, spurring some very awkward shuffling by certain members of the ALP after Paul Keating’s famous “victory for
The Great Australian Songbook III (30-21) Read More »
As promised from yesterday. I’ve tried to cover as many bases as possible in terms of decade and genre, avoiding multiple selections for the same artist. Without further ado, here’s the list from 40 to 31. 40. COSMIC PSYCHOS – Lost Cause (1988) It was Spinal Tap who pointed out the fine line between clever
The Great Australian Songbook II (40-31) Read More »
Here’s something I can’t resist. And truly, it’s a great idea. Take a bow, Murray Thorn, for conceiving and putting together The Great Australian Songbook: a 40-track feast of this country’s most emblematic tunes, spread across two CDs housed in a slipcase featuring lyrics, photographs and images of period memorabilia. Then there’s the songs. Have a
The Great Australian Songbook Read More »
It’s only three weeks ago that I ventured the opinion (along with many other commentators) that Julia had her mojo back, or at least was on the kind of roll that Labor hadn’t enjoyed for at least a couple of years. For the first time in her Prime Ministership, momentum seemed to be with her.
Wishin’ and hopin’ on gay marriage Read More »
It’s funny how, 10 years since the advent of the iPod was supposed to mark the death of the album as a conceptual art form, great albums keep magically appearing. They appear about as regularly as articles proclaiming (yet again) the death of the album. Cue Diana Elliott in yesterday’s Age. Given this isn’t exactly the first