Previews - More . . .
Angel Kissing
Moon
Author: Paul Bonney
ISBN: 0 646 27138 5
Publisher: Chief Spannerman
Address: GPO Box 3011, Sydney, NSW, 2001
The Best of Duncan Fry
Author: Duncan Fry
ISBN: 0 646 266 39X
Publisher: Connections Publishing
Address: PO Box 439, Epping, NSW, 2121
A collection of anecdotes from a life of rock and roll gigs lived largely
on the road. As one, or maybe two, critics may or may not have said but
who are nonetheless quoted on the back cover: "revolting, but strangely
hypnotic" - "totally tasteless - I loved every word of it".
And to quote the author: "an old fart remembers" road stories
and recounts observations of the Australian music industry.
The author is the survivor of many years spent on the road, firstly as a
musician, secondly as a touring sound engineer, and lastly as a director
of ARX Systems, a major Pro Audio manufacturing company. The author of the
audio textbook, "Live Sound Mixing", Fry decided to set down all
these stories before he becomes too old to remember them.
If you want to know what happens on the road with a rock and roll band,
"The Best of Duncan Fry" pulls the rug on the glamourized version
of "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll" and tells of the sex or lack
of it, drugs or the lack of them and the quest and use and abuse of them
and some of the rock 'n roll.
From performing to audiences with no interest in rock 'n roll in outback
one horse towns to a life on the road with vehicles that won't follow, to
beating the tricks of overcharging freighting companies in the United States
and staying out of Mexcan jails, this is a look at the industry that isn't
covered in the magazines in the newsagency.
The Age of Asparagus
Author: Jamie Oxenbould
ISBN: 0 646 26690 X
Publisher: Jamie Oxenbould
Address: 12/69 Curlewis Street, Bondi, NSW, 2026
A collection of cartoons from an author who declares himself to be "a
cartoonist, writer, actor and occasional table . . . (who) has never invented
a cure for cancer but can make potato cakes and once made a lamington in
the town of Scone (whose) ideas on the Lazy Susan are widely known and discussed
in kindergartens from here to there."
Raw Possum & Salted Pork
Author: Michael O'Rourke
ISBN: 0 646 25955 5
Publisher: Plowpress
Address: 4 Hinckley Place, Kambah, ACT, 2902
"Raw Possum and Salted Pork" describes the tours of north-central
New South Wales in 1830-32 and 1845-46 by the colony's surveyor-general,
Major Mitchell. This is possibly the first time that Mitchell's northern
journeys have been examined with an eye to his dealings with the Aborigines.
O'Rourke has endeavoured to factor the Kamilaroi and the Yuwaaliyaay into
the story. "It is idle," writes O'Rourke in the preface, "to
imagine their feelings or what they may have been thinking. But it is possible
to read the documents left by Mitchell and his deputy GB White in the light
of what has subsequently been recorded about Kamilaroi society and the language."
In Mitchell's journals, we read, if not for the very first time, then for
the first time intelligently, about the replacement of stone hatchets by
steel axes, the grass-seed economy of the Aborigines of the plains of north-central
New South Wales, their often substantial villages and the devastating spread
of smallpox.
Of the three essays in this book, the first two describe the British exploring
expeditions to north-central New South Wales in 1831-2 and 1845-46 led by
Mitchell, whilst the third deals more generally and briefly with the tide
of colonial settlement, the British invasion and its impact on the local
Aborigines.
This book sets out the tragic history of the annihilation of two nations
and looks at the combination of factors that were the causes. Very rarely
has colonisation ever had such rapid and devestating effects on the indigenous
population.
Whilst many Kamilaroi were shot, the numbers killed in this way, singly
and in massacres, cannot alone explain the devestation of the population.
O'Rourke looks at the effects of the smallpox pandemic of 1830- 33, the
effects of tuberculosis, measles and venereal diseases and then to the effects
those introduced diseases had on the survivors, causing as they did greater
death rates in women and then lower birth rates amongst the surviving women.
The reasons that the Kamilaroi, within one generation, were to almost completely
abandon hunting and gathering as their main source of livelihood for the
more easily gleaned wages and food rations of the squatters is discussed
in relation to the demoralisation of the population and the undermining
of male Aboriginal authority in the communities.
The effects of introduced herds - sheep and cattle - on the grasslands and
the indigenous wildlife is also canvassed.
In comparing the effects on population size of other colonial occupations,
the annual death of the Kamilaroi, averaging 3% of total population each
year between 1826 and 1856 is thrown into stark relief.
This description of Mitchell's travels with its fresh and much needed perspective
on the effects that colonisation had on the indigenous population is a welcome,
and overdue, addition to the history of Australia in the nineteenth century.
- If you'd like to purchase a copy of one of the books listed above please
contact the publisher directly. Their address is just under the title's
listing.
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