Editor | Donald Robertson |
---|---|
Editor | Stuart Coupe |
Editor | Allan Coop |
Editor | Alex Ehlert |
Editor | Bruce Milne |
Staff writers | Giles Barrow |
Photographer | Eric Algra |
Categories | Australian music magazine |
Frequency | Monthly |
Format | Tabloid |
Publisher | Donald Robertson |
Founder | Stuart Coupe and Donald Robertson |
Founded | 1978 |
First issue | March 1978 |
Final issue Number | January 1983 48 |
Country | Australia |
Based in | Adelaide |
Website | http://roadrunnertwice.com.au/ |
Roadrunner was a monthly Australian music magazine based in Adelaide, South Australia. The magazine was founded by Stuart Coupe and Donald Robertson and forty-eight issues were published between March 1978 and January 1983. [1]
The magazine was inspired by the punk rock/new wave movement of the mid 1970s and took its name from the Jonathan Richman song Roadrunner. In its first year (1978) Roadrunner was produced by an editorial collective that included Coupe, Robertson, Allan Coop, Alex Ehlert, Bruce Milne and Clinton Walker and was only distributed in South Australia. Robertson became editor and publisher and secured national distribution from issue 10 (February 1979). [2] Issue 23 (February 1980) of the magazine forms part of the Festival Records collection at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum as an example of how rock music magazines helped to promote overseas recording artists. [3]
In the first edition of the Australian Music Directory (1981–82), [4] Miranda Brown commented that Roadrunner offered its readers, ‘the vitality that established papers often lack.’ She went on to say: 'The paper has a strong nationalistic bent and though its coverage of the English scene is extensive, most of the copy is written by Australians abroad or here. Roadrunner articles tend to be rough-edged and experimental, with a minimum of editorial intervention. The approach is personal and highly committed and the magazine was the first to treat Australian music as a force with its own history, geography and ideologies, although the other major rock papers quickly followed suit.’
In Dig—Australian Rock and Pop Music 1960–85 [5] David Nichols says: ‘Adelaide’s Roadrunner was without doubt a quality publication. Edited and published by Donald Robertson—the survivor from its founding co-operative—the paper attracted a number of important and interesting writers from around the country who recognised it as a valuable forum. Roadrunner, whose cover price was similar to the imported magazines such as NME and Melody Maker , exhibited considerable bravery. It had no qualms about running a five-page exploration of (Mushroom Records’) Michael Gudinski’s business interests. It also gave invaluable early coverage to new Aboriginal groups such as No Fixed Address, even before they made the classic film Wrong Side of the Road – indeed it put them on its cover. [6] That all this was achieved from Australia's smallest mainland state capital is testament to the talent and dedication of Robertson and his writers.’
The magazine hit financial difficulties in mid-1982 and relocated to Sydney for a final issue, which was published in January 1983. The final issue saw a change to a full colour, glossy format that anticipated the emergence of Countdown Magazine (1982–87) [7] and the Australian version of Smash Hits. [8]
Notable contributors included: Keith Shadwick, Stuart Matchett, Ross Stapleton, Scott Matheson, Peter Nelson, Adrian Ryan, Keri Phillips, Craig N. Pearce, Larry Buttrose, Chris Willis, Toby Creswell, Mark Mordue, Richard McGregor, Richard Guilliat, David Langsam, Jillian Burt, Dennis Atkins and Elly McDonald.
In May 2017, the University of Wollongong in New South Wales made all 48 issues of Roadrunner available in a digital archive. [9] To accompany this release, publisher Donald Robertson published a brief history of the magazine. [10]
In October 2019, Roadrunnertwice published The Big Beat: rock music in Australia 1978-1983, through the pages of Roadrunner magazine, [11] a 544 page anthology of the magazine in a limited hardcover edition of 500 copies.
Cold Chisel are an Australian pub rock band, which formed in Adelaide in 1973 by mainstay members Ian Moss on guitar and vocals, Steve Prestwich on drums and Don Walker on piano and keyboards. They were soon joined by Jimmy Barnes on lead vocals and, in 1975, Phil Small became their bass guitarist. The group disbanded in late 1983 but subsequently reformed several times. Musicologist Ian McFarlane wrote that they became "one of Australia's best-loved groups" as well as "one of the best live bands", fusing "a combination of rockabilly, hard rock and rough-house soul'n'blues that was defiantly Australian in outlook."
Gaucho is the seventh studio album by the American rock band Steely Dan, released on November 21, 1980, by MCA Records. The sessions for Gaucho represent the band's typical penchant for studio perfectionism and obsessive recording technique. To record the album, the band used at least 42 different musicians, spent over a year in the studio, and far exceeded the original monetary advance given by the record label. In 1981, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording and received Grammy nominations for Album of the Year and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.
The Reels was an Australian rock band which formed in Dubbo, New South Wales in 1976. It disbanded in 1991, and reformed in 2007. Its 1981 song "Quasimodo's Dream" was voted one of the top 10 Australian songs of all time by a 100-member panel from Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) in 2001. The Reels had top 10 Australian singles chart successes with covers of Herb Alpert's "This Guy's in Love with You" and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising". Rock music historian Ian McFarlane described the group as "one of the most original and invigorating pop bands to emerge from the Australian new wave movement of the late 1970s."
Smash Hits was a British music magazine aimed at young adults, originally published by EMAP. It ran from 1978 to 2006, and, after initially appearing monthly, was issued fortnightly during most of that time. The name survived as a brand for a spin-off digital television channel, now named Box Hits, and website. A digital radio station was also available but closed on 5 August 2013.
I'm Talking are an Australian funk-pop rock band, which featured vocalists Kate Ceberano and Zan Abeyratne. They formed in 1983 in Melbourne and provided top ten hit singles "Trust Me", "Do You Wanna Be?" and "Holy Word" and a top fifteen album, Bear Witness, before disbanding in 1987. The group reunited in October 2018, and went on a 2019 tour as well as a series of small venue shows.
Kids in the Kitchen are an Australian pop, funk and new wave band which formed in 1983. They enjoyed chart success with four top-20 hits on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart, "Change in Mood" (1983), "Bitter Desire" (1984), "Something That You Said" and "Current Stand". The related album, Shine, reached No. 9 on the Kent Music Report Albums Chart and was the 16th-biggest-selling album of 1985 in Australia. A second album, Terrain, followed in August 1987 but did not chart and the group disbanded in 1988. Kids in the Kitchen supported the Australian leg of Culture Club's 2016 world tour.
Glenn A. Baker is an Australian journalist, commentator, author, and broadcaster well known in Australia for his vast knowledge of Rock music. He has written books and magazine articles on rock music and travel, interviewed celebrities, managed bands such as Ol' 55 and promoted tours of international stars. In the mid-1980s, Baker took the BBC's "Rock Brain of the Universe" crown three times. Baker was the Australian editor of Billboard for over 20 years. He won the inaugural Australian Travel Writer of the Year award in 1995 from the Australian Society of Travel Writers, and he won the award again in 2000.
No Fixed Address (NFA) are an Australian reggae rock group whose members are all Aboriginal Australians, mostly from South Australia. The band formed in 1979, split in 1984, with several brief reformations or guest appearances in 1987–1988 and 2008, before reuniting in 2016 and performing several times since then.
The Radiators are an Australian pub rock band formed in September 1978. Mainstay members are Brian Nichol on lead vocals, Stephen "Fess" Parker on guitar and Geoff Turner on bass. In 1989 they were joined by Mark Lucas on drums. Their most popular albums are Feel the Heat and Scream of the Real, which both peaked in the top 25 of the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart. Their best known songs are "Comin' Home", "No Tragedy" and "Gimme Head". Rock music historian, Ian McFarlane described the group as "an archetypal, hard-working pub-rock band capable of delivering tightly crafted, well-executed, hard-hitting metal-pop anthems backed by a playful sense of humour. The band toured constantly, racking up over 2500 gigs by the early 1990s".
Guilty Until Proven Insane is the fourth studio album released by Skyhooks on 13 March 1978. It was the first album to feature Bob Spencer, who replaced guitarist Red Symons in early 1977. Spencer had played in Sydney rock band Finch and would later become a member of The Angels.
Australian pop music awards are a series of inter-related national awards that gave recognition to popular musical artists and have included the Go-Set pop poll (1966–1972); TV Week King of Pop Awards (1967–1978); TV Week and Countdown Music Awards (1979–1980); the Countdown Awards (1981–1982) and Countdown Music and Video Awards (1983–1987).
Larry Philip Buttrose is an Australian writer, journalist and academic. He is the ghostwriter of the Saroo Brierley memoir A Long Way Home.
Rock Australia Magazine or RAM was a fortnightly national Australian music newspaper, which was published from 1975 to 1989. It was designed for people with a serious interest in rock and pop, and was considered the journal of record for the Australian music scene, along the way producing some of the country’s best writers on music and popular culture.
"I Hear Motion" was the first single from The Pleasure of Your Company, the third studio album by Australian new wave rock band Models.
Stuart Coupe is an award-winning Australian music journalist, author, band manager, promoter, publicist and music label founder. A renowned rock music writer, Coupe is best known for his work with Roadrunner, Rock Australia Magazine, The Sun-Herald, and Dolly; the music labels, GREEN Records and Laughing Outlaw; and the author of books including The Promoters, Gudinski, Roadies, and Paul Kelly.
Neil Spencer is a British journalist, author, broadcaster and astrologer who lives in north London. He edited the New Musical Express (NME) from 1978 to 1985 and was a founding editor of the men's magazine Arena and of the jazz/art magazine Straight No Chaser. He writes regularly for The Observer, specialising in astrology, music and other aspects of popular culture. According to his website, his work has also appeared in The Independent, Mojo, Uncut and Elle, among other publications.
"Are You Old Enough?" is a song by New Zealand rock band Dragon, released in August 1978 while the band were still based in Australia. It was released as the first single from the group's fifth studio album O Zambezi (1978). The song peaked at number one on the Australian Kent Music Report, becoming the group's first number-one single.
The Numbers were an Australian power pop band formed by siblings Annalisse and Chris Morrow in early 1978. They issued two studio albums, The Numbers, which peaked at No. 29 on the Kent Music Report Albums Chart, and 39.51. The group disbanded in 1984, the Morrows formed another band, Maybe Dolls, in 1991.
Cha is the seventh studio album by Australian band Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, but first and only to be credited as Jo Jo Zep. It is also the final studio album by the band until Ricochet in 2003. The album was released in November 1982 and peaked at number 28 on the Australian Kent Music Report. David Nichols called Cha primarily a "latin-based dance record".
Music magazines have been published in Australia since the 1950s. They peaked in popularity during the 1970s and '80s, but currently, there are still several national titles, including local editions of Rolling Stone and the classical music-focused Limelight, among others.
{{citation}}
: |author2=
has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{citation}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)