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Dig: Australian Rock and Pop Music, 1960-85 by David Nichols
A comprehensive and highly readable history of the first quarter-century of Australian rock and pop music, this book will appeal to everyone with more than a passing interest in rock 'n' roll. Those whose knowledge of Australian rock and pop does not extend far beyond the Easybeats, AC/DC, Little River Band, and Nick Cave will discover a wealth of music beyond those star names; while even those familiar with the work of the Missing Links, Pip Proud, Radio Birdman, and the Moodists will learn much about the scenes and connections that produced these bands and dozens more.
Generously illustrated and meticulously sourced, Dig combines scholarly thoroughness (endnotes, index) with populist flair: Nichols is an unfailingly witty and engaging guide. He surveys the fertile and varied landscape of Australian rock music in seven broad historical chapters, interspersed with shorter chapters on some of the more significant figures of each period. The result is a compelling portrait of a music scene that evolves in dynamic interaction with those in the United States and the U.K., yet always retains a strong sense of its own identity and continues to deliver new stars to a worldwide audience.
Generously illustrated and meticulously sourced, Dig combines scholarly thoroughness (endnotes, index) with populist flair: Nichols is an unfailingly witty and engaging guide. He surveys the fertile and varied landscape of Australian rock music in seven broad historical chapters, interspersed with shorter chapters on some of the more significant figures of each period. The result is a compelling portrait of a music scene that evolves in dynamic interaction with those in the United States and the U.K., yet always retains a strong sense of its own identity and continues to deliver new stars to a worldwide audience.
- GenresMusic
Paperback
First published May 12, 2015
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About the author
David Nichols
10 books6 followersDavid Nichols is Associate Professor in Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He previously worked as features editor of the Australian edition of Smash Hits, and his music writing has appeared in a wide range of periodicals in the USA, Great Britain, and Australia.
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August 29, 2022
David Nichols has created a long but readable overview of the Australian Rock and Pop music industry covering 25 years from 1960 to 1985. The book was truly a labour of love having taken Nichols nearly a decade to write. As a document of the music industry of this time it is without peer.
It is difficult to communicate how comprehensive Dig is. Of course, Nichols covers the big acts, AC/DC, Cold Chisel, Australian Crawl, etc and at the other end of the spectrum devotes plenty of pages to alternative and ‘Little’ bands, say the Jetsonnes, Essendon Airport or **** ***** (cough cough) among literally hundreds of others. Yet he also finds space for a couple of paragraphs on the execrable sub-genre of sporting ‘anthems’ such as ‘C’mon, Aussie, C’mon’ and Mike Brady’s ‘Up There Cazaly’ (p334).
And it’s not just musicians and songs. Nichols covers key peripheral enablers, artist management and booking, venues and recording studios, record labels and media such as television shows and importantly the role of the music press. He also covers the impact of emerging technology such as the proliferation of product on cassette in the early eighties
The structure of the book has long chapters discussing the various eras, The Mid to Late-Sixties, Early to Mid-Seventies, etc. interspersed with chapters on selected bands, some well-known such as the Bee Gees and Skyhooks, others with lower profiles such as the Missing Links, Pip Proud or The Moodists (a band for which Nichols seems to harbour a particular affection).
While I read the book from cover-to-cover and the book works well as a narrative story (albeit a complex one with much promiscuous personnel swapping between bands), its comprehensiveness means that it has great value as a reference book. The index and footnotes are very thorough, although the lack of a bibliography suggests that the publishers ran out of patience after 9 years, or thought that the book was already too long to include the additional pages that a bibliography would demand. To Nichols’ credit, for those acts big enough to have had books written about them (such as AC/DC) he reviews the relative merit of the books and directs readers to the most valuable of these within the text. Nevertheless, ‘Dig’ would have been made even better by the inclusion of a separate bibliography.
The book is compiled from interviews with key players (not always musicians) and publications such as books and contemporary magazine articles. Nichols blends articles about musicians with (often humorous) quotes from magazine letters pages by fans and critics. These letters give a real sense of the cultural setting in which the music was made. To give an idea of how extensive his references are, the chapter on the Early to Mid-eighties has no less than 622 notes on sources! And that does not include interviews.
Your enjoyment of the book will likely depend on how well the author covers the bands and genres of music you enjoy. It’s pretty clear from the content that Nichols is most interested in exploring ‘alternative’ music scenes, not unreasonably as mainstream acts are going to be well covered by other publications including books focused on a specific band. So, for example, Nichols dedicates a total of 4 pages specifically to Midnight Oil (3 in Chapter 11, 1 in chapter 16) 2 pages to the Angels, but 7 pages to the fabulous Laughing Clowns. For me that balance is about right. While he comprehensively (there’s that word again) covers the scenes in each state’s major cities Nichols is most familiar with the Melbourne music scene. As a proud Melbournian, familiar with the music scene (both alternative and mainstream) in the early-eighties I reckon he’s got that right as well!
The other element that is likely to impact on your opinion of the book may be how you feel about Nichol’s forthright critical assessment of the Australian music you love. His assessment of ‘Good Times’ as the Easybeats ‘worst single’ is followed by an even more vitriolic put down of the Jimmy Barnes/ Michael Hutchence 1987 version as ‘awful’ (p133). Gee Dave, tell us what you really think! And I quite like the Masters Apprentices ‘Turn Up Your Radio’ which Nichols dismisses as ‘unbelievably awful’ (p 252). However, in the end I would rather see a strong opinion with which I can disagree than bland platitudes about an artist or song, or worse still every old song lauded as a ‘classic’.
As someone who was around the scene in the early eighties its hard for me to think of a band that is not namechecked in Dig, which includes many bands’ names that I never thought I would see in print outside the contemporary gig guides (the Benders, for example but there are many, many others). For me, the big omission is my beloved Serious Young Insects, a great live band that for a moment in 1982 threatened to be the ‘next big thing’ but had an underwhelming recorded output. Even if the Insects are disliked by the author, they had a higher profile than many of those mentioned in Dig and deserve at least a mention. Hopefully this lwill be rectified in the next volume when Nichols highlights the brilliant Peter Farnon’s contribution to Boom Crash Opera.
Dave Nichols originally intended to write a fifty-year history of the Australian rock music from 1960 – 2010. He realised that fifty years was too much to take on so this became the first of two volumes with the second volume 1985 – 2010 due to be published some time this decade. Wow.
It is difficult to communicate how comprehensive Dig is. Of course, Nichols covers the big acts, AC/DC, Cold Chisel, Australian Crawl, etc and at the other end of the spectrum devotes plenty of pages to alternative and ‘Little’ bands, say the Jetsonnes, Essendon Airport or **** ***** (cough cough) among literally hundreds of others. Yet he also finds space for a couple of paragraphs on the execrable sub-genre of sporting ‘anthems’ such as ‘C’mon, Aussie, C’mon’ and Mike Brady’s ‘Up There Cazaly’ (p334).
And it’s not just musicians and songs. Nichols covers key peripheral enablers, artist management and booking, venues and recording studios, record labels and media such as television shows and importantly the role of the music press. He also covers the impact of emerging technology such as the proliferation of product on cassette in the early eighties
The structure of the book has long chapters discussing the various eras, The Mid to Late-Sixties, Early to Mid-Seventies, etc. interspersed with chapters on selected bands, some well-known such as the Bee Gees and Skyhooks, others with lower profiles such as the Missing Links, Pip Proud or The Moodists (a band for which Nichols seems to harbour a particular affection).
While I read the book from cover-to-cover and the book works well as a narrative story (albeit a complex one with much promiscuous personnel swapping between bands), its comprehensiveness means that it has great value as a reference book. The index and footnotes are very thorough, although the lack of a bibliography suggests that the publishers ran out of patience after 9 years, or thought that the book was already too long to include the additional pages that a bibliography would demand. To Nichols’ credit, for those acts big enough to have had books written about them (such as AC/DC) he reviews the relative merit of the books and directs readers to the most valuable of these within the text. Nevertheless, ‘Dig’ would have been made even better by the inclusion of a separate bibliography.
The book is compiled from interviews with key players (not always musicians) and publications such as books and contemporary magazine articles. Nichols blends articles about musicians with (often humorous) quotes from magazine letters pages by fans and critics. These letters give a real sense of the cultural setting in which the music was made. To give an idea of how extensive his references are, the chapter on the Early to Mid-eighties has no less than 622 notes on sources! And that does not include interviews.
Your enjoyment of the book will likely depend on how well the author covers the bands and genres of music you enjoy. It’s pretty clear from the content that Nichols is most interested in exploring ‘alternative’ music scenes, not unreasonably as mainstream acts are going to be well covered by other publications including books focused on a specific band. So, for example, Nichols dedicates a total of 4 pages specifically to Midnight Oil (3 in Chapter 11, 1 in chapter 16) 2 pages to the Angels, but 7 pages to the fabulous Laughing Clowns. For me that balance is about right. While he comprehensively (there’s that word again) covers the scenes in each state’s major cities Nichols is most familiar with the Melbourne music scene. As a proud Melbournian, familiar with the music scene (both alternative and mainstream) in the early-eighties I reckon he’s got that right as well!
The other element that is likely to impact on your opinion of the book may be how you feel about Nichol’s forthright critical assessment of the Australian music you love. His assessment of ‘Good Times’ as the Easybeats ‘worst single’ is followed by an even more vitriolic put down of the Jimmy Barnes/ Michael Hutchence 1987 version as ‘awful’ (p133). Gee Dave, tell us what you really think! And I quite like the Masters Apprentices ‘Turn Up Your Radio’ which Nichols dismisses as ‘unbelievably awful’ (p 252). However, in the end I would rather see a strong opinion with which I can disagree than bland platitudes about an artist or song, or worse still every old song lauded as a ‘classic’.
As someone who was around the scene in the early eighties its hard for me to think of a band that is not namechecked in Dig, which includes many bands’ names that I never thought I would see in print outside the contemporary gig guides (the Benders, for example but there are many, many others). For me, the big omission is my beloved Serious Young Insects, a great live band that for a moment in 1982 threatened to be the ‘next big thing’ but had an underwhelming recorded output. Even if the Insects are disliked by the author, they had a higher profile than many of those mentioned in Dig and deserve at least a mention. Hopefully this lwill be rectified in the next volume when Nichols highlights the brilliant Peter Farnon’s contribution to Boom Crash Opera.
Dave Nichols originally intended to write a fifty-year history of the Australian rock music from 1960 – 2010. He realised that fifty years was too much to take on so this became the first of two volumes with the second volume 1985 – 2010 due to be published some time this decade. Wow.
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