AustLit

'For some years, iconic Australian music writer Clinton Walker has been working on a book which documents a fundamental part of the history of Australian popular music – the extraordinary songwriting to emerge from the suburbs of Australia's major cities. 

'Suburban Songbook finally tells the previously untold story of the songs and songwriters who created what has become a celebrated feature of popular music around the world – the distinctive Australian song. This is a different view of Australian music history.  Rather than going in search of a Sound, it seeks out the Songs and their writers to find a fresh take on this old story – describing Australian pop’s most elusive leap, from the cover-version cargo cult of the 1950s to a true coming of age in the early 1970s.

'Drawing on extensive knowledge and research, as well as deep personal experience, Clinton plots a course through this crucial epoch that will please trainspotters, scholars and casual readers alike.  Knitted into a background of tumultuous social change, Suburban Songbook gets inside the compositions that helped shape the sound, paying long overdue credit to the often-obscure pioneers who toiled to set the stage for the full maturation of Australian music that followed Countdown into the 1980s.  This new book tells the story of some astonishing successes, from The Easybeats to Daddy Cool, from Johnny Devlin to Jeannie Lewis, but also reminds us about the wealth of unheralded talent which was just as important in forging a songwriting tradition we should all celebrate.' (Publication summary)

'Deadly Woman Blues, stunning, original and brimming with life, is the first of its kind. Part art book, part comic book, part biography and fully deadly, it is a unique graphic history of the black women who made Australian music. Traditional Indigenous music, spirituals, vaudeville, post-war jazz, country, gospel, soul, R&B and hip-hop have been made and re-made by these legendary women, some household names, some forgotten, some totally unknown until now. In this album of portraits, the long-awaited follow-on from Clinton Walker’s classic Buried Country, more than one hundred amazing artists are reborn. It’s as if a long-lost set of bubblegum cards has been found and remade for us, now.

'Starring Georgia Lee, Nellie Small, Candy Devine, Wilma Reading, Sibby Doolan, Ruby Hunter, Marlene Cummins, Tiddas, Carole Fraser, Christine Anu, Jessica Mauboy, Emma Donovan, Shellie Morris, Leah Flanagan, Crystal Mercy and many, many more singers and musicians, Deadly Woman Blues is a story full of tears and joy, always beautiful and heroic. ' (Publication summary)

'In the bitter autumn of 1932, as the world crashed into the Great Depression, Australian motor ace Norman 'Wizard' Smith sat on the remote Ninety Mile Beach in far north New Zealand, waiting for the wind to change; waiting for a chance to drive his streamlined super car the Enterprise to a new world speed record. He would be the fastest man on earth - a golden god! He waited and waited ...

'Norman Smith was an enigma. A contemporary of Bradman, Kingsford Smith and Phar Lap, he was dumpy and shy. But when he got behind the wheel he became the Wizard, his command uncanny, the speeds breathless. In league with engineer Don Harkness, who designed and built the Enterprise, he was pointing Australia toward a brighter future. Until somewhere along the line, things started going wrong.

'What really happened on that lonely beach? Clinton Walker lays bare the tragic fall from grace of Norman 'Wizard' Smith - an ordinary man lost to an extraordinary quest, and, until now, a forgotten figure.' (Publisher's blurb)

'In 2010, when Melbourne's music venue the Tote Hotel was forced to shut down, it incited a public outcry that Crikey called the year's 'most significant event in cultural policy'. Why does this most popular of the performing arts seem always to be so under siege? Australia's live music circuit has long been celebrated as one of the world's best, but if places like the Tote keep closing down, where will the next Nick Cave, AC/DC or Paul Kelly come from?

'Research shows that the venue-based industry has an annual output of $1.21 billion, creates 15,000 full-time jobs and draws audiences of over 41 million.

'Clinton Walker takes Platform Papers deep into the nether regions of sticky carpet, dodgy house PAs and moshpit etiquette, to defend the cultural vitality being lost and calls for a change to the regulations that stand in the way of restoration. Is it not time, he asks, to bring this most popular form of music in from the cold?' (Publication summary)

The bands that spearheaded the late 1970s punk scene in Australia ― the Saints, Birthday Party, Radio Birdman, and the Go-Betweens ― are among the most important of their time. 

Inner City Sound is the classic account of the explosive development of that scene. Original articles from fanzines and newspapers, together with almost 300 photographs, vividly portray the creative ferment of the period and the dozens of bands that sprang up in the wake of the pioneers. First published in late 1981, Inner City Sound soon fell out of print. It became a lost classic, so sought after that it has been bootlegged like the rare singles listed in its discography. This new edition contains 32 extra pages of articles, photos, and discographic data, which take the story through to 1985, when Nick Cave, the Go-Betweens, the Triffids, and others began to break through internationally.

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'To some, black skin and country music may seem unlikely bedfellows. But from early stars like Jimmy Little and Herb Laughton through Dougie and Wilga Williams to Vic Sims, Bob 'Brown Skin baby' Randal, Bobby McLeod, Issac Yama and Roger Knox. Aboriginal country music is a very real phenomenon. A long rich tradition that's still alive today in Troy Cassar-Daley and Archie Roach.' (Source: On-line)

'This is a stirring account of the impact of Australian Rules football on the life of the author and his family. Offering a sharp and original perspective on post-war Australian Rules, A Football Life is sometimes moving, sometimes confronting and always passionate.' (Publication summary)

'The definitive book on Australian punk and post-punk music, long unavailable, now reissued in a much-expanded new edition with 175 photos. Stranded offers the inside story of the emergence of the Saints, the Birthday Party, the Laughing Clowns, the Go-Betweens, Nick Cave, the Triffids, the Moodists, the Scientists, and many more great Australian bands, told by a writer who witnessed it all first-hand and is acknowledged as the leading chronicler of the Australian music scene.' 

Source: Publisher's blurb

'The definitive account of AC/DC's rise to fame, when the ribald lyrics and charismatic stage presence of singer Bon Scott, along with the guitar work of Angus and Malcolm Young, defined a new, highly influential brand of rock and roll. Drawing on many interviews and featuring a gallery of rare photos, Clinton Walker traces the band's career through the life of their original front man, from small-time gigs to international success, up to Scott's shocking death in 1980. AC/DC's undiminished superstar status (they're the fourth-bestselling band of all time), and their indelible influence on a succession of genres from metal to grunge to rap, ensure that Bon Scott's presence continues to be felt strongly. HIGHWAY TO HELL offers the full story of this seminal rock figure.' (Publication summary)

The first and only issue of "SSuicide ALLey" was the DIY creation of music gurus Clinton Walker and Andrew McMillan as part of the emerging punk rock culture.