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.
How do you review a band who, 20 years ago, purported to end their career with a song called TISM Are Shit? As pre-emptive strikes go, it brooks no critical retort. Now – in a song called Old Skool TISM – the artistes formerly known as This is Serious Mum would have us believe that […]
TISM: Death to Art Read More »
Emily Wurramara had the world at her feet. The Indigenous singer-songwriter, then based in Brisbane, had recently released her debut album Milyakburra, named after her community on Bickerton Island in the Northern Territory. It had been received with warm reviews and escalating interest. Then, one night in 2019, her life came crashing down around her.
Emily Wurramara: Nothing to Everything Read More »
Let’s say you were a fan of Powderfinger and/or Something for Kate, two of the most successful groups from the post-grunge 1990s Australian music scene. What would you expect an album made by their respective frontmen, Bernard Fanning and Paul Dempsey, to sound like? Acoustic ballads? Mid-paced, fire-up-the-lighters arena-rock anthems? Well, it’s happened. And Fanning Dempsey
Fanning/Dempsey: The Drought and the Deluge Read More »
It had been three months without a peep, and the ecologist Matt Herring thought Gloria had perished. He had captured the elusive bird on 22 October 2023, on a property north of Balranald in New South Wales – the first Australian Painted-snipe to be fitted with a satellite tracker. But contact had been lost, and there
Tracking the Australian Painted-snipe Read More »
It is one of the great opening lines, by anyone: “Each evening the sun sets in five billion places, seen by 10 billion eyes, set in five billion faces.” The words are from Heavenly Pop Hit by the Chills, a band from Dunedin, New Zealand. There’s a good chance you know it, but there’s also
Martin Phillipps 1963-2024 Read More »
For some artists, a hit single can be a monkey on their back – especially if it’s a cover of another artist’s song. This is not the case for Christine Anu, who will almost certainly always be best known for her version of My Island Home, the 1987 Warumpi Band classic originally written for the group’s
Christine Anu: Tying threads together Read More »