Ep 25: Festivals go to war – show notes

Show notes, links, music and other stuff for Ep 25: Festivals go to war

Read more: Ep 25: Festivals go to war – show notes

This episode was named after the Whitlams song But Now Pay Later (Charlie no.2). They never performed at any of the festivals covered here, although the story is they formed at the 1992 BDO. The title just worked more than any subtextual tie in.

Photo notes

I’ve been posting photo notes on socials. I figured I’ll put them here because god knows what some billionaire might buy next.

1 Big Day Out 1995 poster
2 The program cover for Alternative Nation
3 The Michaels. Coppel and Gudinski above. Gudinski and Chugg below.
4 Summersault poster
5 Pav with the Beastie Boys at Summersault
6 Ken West and Vivian Lees
7 Big Day Out 1996 poster
8 Kylie Minogue and a member of her band I think
9 A poster for Starbait, which was ultimately cancelled
10 A poster for the Unpopular exhibition, which was showcased Pav’s personal collection of memorabilia

Alternative Nation

Amazing for 1995, theres quite a bit of YouTube footage of Alternative Nation. Not just from one show either. Some enterprising clever people filmed some of the performances on shaky handicams from the stands or in the crowd. It’s terrible quality. Maybe someone can upscale AI it.

Heres a promo for Alternative Nation

You can look up heaps of live concerts online.

The Stuart Coupe book The Promoters was a big help with the Alternative Nation stuff. Michael Chugg’s memoir – Hey You In The Black T-Shirt was also invaluable.

Michael Gudinski also passed away in 2021. Like the other Michaels, Alternative Nation was really just a blip in a long successful career. Gudinski in particular was responsible for so much support of Australian music. He is right celebrated in books (including a very good memoir by Stuart Coupe) and a recent documentary. I’ve not seen it, but it doesn’t look like Alternative Nation is covered. I’ll have more to say about Michael and Mushroom records in the final season of Just Ace.

Summersault

Steve Pavlovic curated an exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. It was called Unpopular. Here are some photos I took.

One of the Summersault performers was Sourpuss, a band born from Melbourne’s legendary Rock ‘n’ Roll high school. I’m hoping to tell the story of that school somewhere in season 4. There’s a little bit of Summersault footage across YouTube.

The Big Day Out

There’s lots of the Big Day Out online. That includes a lot of the Channel [V] footage from over the years.

Ken West wrote a memoir before he died in 2022. He published a few chapters online. You can find it here.

Inside The Big day Out was an excellent podcast series about the Big Day Out, produced by Double J. You can find it here.

Music heard

  • Idiot Box 1 – You Am I
  • Live Forever (instrumental) – Oasis
  • Under The Bridge (instrumental) – Red Hot Chili Peppers
  • Closer (instrumental) – Nine Inch Nails
  • This Is A Call (instrumental) – Foo Fighters
  • Connection (instrumental) – Elastica
  • Boy Of Air – The Clouds

Video playlist