The twentieth-anniversary celebration of an Australian music cult classic, now with a foreword by Eamon Sandwith from The Chats
From cult heroes the Saints and the Go-Betweens to national icons Powderfinger and international stars Savage Garden, Brisbane has produced more than its share of great bands. But behind the music lay a ghost city of malice and corruption.
Persecuted by the Bjelke-Petersen government and its toughest enforcers - the police - Brisbane's musicians, radio announcers and political activists braved ignorance, harassment and often violence to be heard.
Since its first publication in 2004, Pig City has become a much-loved cult classic, providing an enduring soundtrack and history lesson for a new generation of fans and musicians alike.
This edition includes a special Pig City playlist- https-//open.spotify.com/playlist/69tpZDJeRiVzILIJb1i2P4?si=3ba7249d08074b2e
About the Author
Andrew Stafford is a freelance journalist and author. Pig City, originally published in 2004, is his first book. The second, Something To Believe In (2019) is a music memoir. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Age, Griffith Review and, exclusively, on his Patreon page.
Industry Reviews
'Passionate in its detail and fair in its judgement, Pig City tells the story of Brisbane from the seventies to the noughties better than any book I know.' Robert Forster
'Pig City completely blew the doors off the Brisbane music scene for me when it was first released twenty years ago and opened my eyes to a scene that grew and flourished during a particularly shameful time in Queensland's political history. It is still an absolute must read for any Australian music lover today.' Myf Warhurst
'Twenty years on, Pig City reminds us of how deeply the political undercurrents impacted the cultural output of Brisbane's artists, and how the pioneers of the scene (unknowingly) laid the platform for the bands to come.' Bernard Fanning
'Pig City is the definitive document charting the ragged grassroots and weeds of the Brisbane music scene narrative - from the 70s through the street level struggles of the Bjelke-Petersen government's police state, to have it land in the cultivated pop neutrality of Savage Garden. Andrew brings rake and hoe to clear the way through it all and provide the avid reader a music scape of revelations.' Regurgitator
'Pig City burst onto the literary landscape like a meteor: unexpected, urgent and HOT... Many have attempted to follow the model of academic rigour blended with lively prose and timely memoir, but few have succeeded as well as Stafford. An Australian classic.' Clare Wright
'Pig City had a profound impact on Violent Soho, and on all of us as individuals. It gave us a sense of pride in the musical history of our city, so much so we started putting our postcode (4122) on everything - Mansfield, Brisbane!' James Tidswell
