Stuart Coupe

Last updated

Stuart Coupe (born 11 September 1956) is an 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; [1] and the author of books including The Promoters, Gudinski, Roadies, and Paul Kelly. [2]

Contents

Coupe is a former manager of the Australian bands Hoodoo Gurus and Paul Kelly and is currently a presenter on Sydney radio stations 2SER and FBI Radio. [3] He is also known for his writing as a reviewer of crime fiction for the Sydney Morning Herald and for founding the Australian crime fiction magazine, Mean Streets.

Biography

Stuart Coupe was born in Launceston, Tasmania, where he grew up with his parents Pat and David Coupe and brother Martin. He attended Scotch Oakburn College Launceston and Launceston College, Tasmania. During his school years, he developed a passion for music and writing and had an interest in film, screening films supplied by the Sydney Filmmakers Co-operative to Launceston audiences. He was a squash player of note representing Tasmania in the Australian National Squash Championships in Perth in 1973 and Adelaide in 1974. On completing high school he studied to be an English speech and drama teacher in Launceston in 1975, and then moved to Adelaide and enrolled in an Arts degree Flinders University at the beginning of 1976. He did not complete the degree, dropping out of uni to move to Sydney for a writing job in 1978.

Coupe has been married twice, divorced once, has four children and is a major fan of the Sydney Swans football team.

Journalism and Publishing

Coupe started music writing in high school publishing one issue of a school newspaper, Labyrinth, at the age of 15. In 1977 he was one of the editors of Empire Times, Flinders University’s student newspaper. In 1977 he started a punk rock fanzine, Street Fever, with Donald Robertson, which folded after one issue. In early 1978 he cofounded the Adelaide what’s on guide, Preview, with Dennis Atkins, Kim Krummel, Terry Plane, and Phillip White. That year, together with Donald Robertson and others, he co-founded the Adelaide-based music magazine, Roadrunner (Australian music magazine). After co-editing and writing for the first 5 issues of Roadrunner, Coupe moved to Sydney to join RAM (Rock Australia Magazine) where he worked as a staff writer for 18 months. In 1980 he was Sydney editor of TAGG (The Alternative Gig Guide) and a year later started writing the Rockbeat column for The Sun-Herald, which continued through to 1991. During the eighties and nineties, Coupe was also a freelance music writer for The Age, The Canberra Times, Rolling Stone Australia, Vox (Melbourne), Nation Review, Australian Playboy, Sydney Shout, On The Street and Drum Media (now known as The Music (magazine), and he was also the first editor of Triple J radio network’s JMAG. Coupe is frequently asked to participate as speaker and panellist at music industry events and conferences including Mumbrella Entertainment Marketing Summit 2016 and Australian Music Week 2019. [4]

Music Labels

In 1980 Coupe, Roger Grierson (ex-Thought Criminals), and Warren Fahey founded the independent GREEN Records, which released artists including: The Allniters, Beasts of Bourbon, Do Re Mi, Drop Bears, Lime Spiders, New Christs, North 2 Alaskans, Spy vs Spy (Australian band), Super K, Tactics (band) and The Johnnys. In 1996 he was involved with setting up early Internet start-up, Velvet, an online music and music news subscription service that folded in the first year.

In 1999 Coupe and Jules Normington (a co-founder of Phantom Records) set up the Laughing Outlaw music label focussing on new and emerging Australian artists and a selection on overseas acts. After 16 years he left Laughing Outlaw in 2015 by which time it had released over 150 CDs from artists including writer Andrew McMillan, Anne McCue, Black Cab, Dusty Ravens, Emma Swift, Jason Walker, John Kennedy, L.J. Hill, Mic Conway, New Christs, Perry Keyes, the Widowbirds and Clinton Walker’s Inner City Sound compilation. In 2005 Coupe also opened and ran the Laughing Outlaw record shop in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Lewisham, which closed in 2014.

Band Management

In 1983 and 1984 Coupe was the first manager of Hoodoo Gurus and toured the United States with the band after the release of their first album, Stoneage Romeos. From 1984 to 1990 he was the manager of Paul Kelly (Australian musician) during the time Kelly released the albums Post, Gossip, Under The Sun and So Much Water So Close To Home. During these years Coupe also did stints as the manager of X (Australian band), the Flaming Hands, Drop Bears, The Amazing Woolloomooloosers and the Danglin’ Bros. He later managed Ian Rilen, Dan Brodie and Perry Keyes. In 2021 Coupe announced that he was managing Australian singer and songwriter Allison Forbes who was nominated for four Golden Guitar Awards in 2020. [5]

Publicity and Tour Promotion

Coupe’s involvement in the Australian music industry has included providing publicity and tour promotion for Australian and international bands from the early 1980s to the present day. He worked on publicity for the tours by The Clash, The Cramps, Gary Glitter, The Dead Kennedys, The Gun Club, The Teardrop Explodes and Jonathan Richman.

In the late eighties he formed the band touring company, BBC, with Bicci Henderson and Rob Barnham, and later dropped the name after objections from the British broadcaster, the BBC. Under the auspices of BBC and later with promoter Keith Glass, Coupe was the promoter of Australian tours for Lucinda Williams, Rosanne Cash, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Tom Russell, Dave Alvin, Ted Hawkins, Guy Clark, Chris Whitley, Harry Dean Stanton, Dick Dale, and Link Wray.

Coupe was also involved in promotion and publicity for international crime fiction writers. He and Keith Glass brought Elmore Leonard to Australia in 1993 and James Elroy in 1995. He went on to arrange Australian appearances for Kinky Friedman, Andrew Vachss, Ed McBain and P. J. O'Rourke. In the 1990s Coupe also appeared at writers festivals interviewing Walter Mosley, Michael Connelly, Lawrence Block and Ken Bruen.

In 2016 he resumed providing publicity services for a range of international and Australian acts including P.P. Arnold, Alejandro Escovedo and Steve Poltz, the Out On The Weekend music festival and numerous Australian artists.

Books

Coupe has authored, co-authored, and edited a number of books since the early eighties. His first books were music encyclopedias, The New Music (1980) and The New Rock’n’Roll (1983) co-authored with Australian rock writer and historian, Glenn A Baker. He later published The Edge Ultimate CD Guide (1989) and an authorised biography, Craig McLachlan, the official book (1990).

In the early nineties, Coupe and Julie Ogden edited three anthologies of crime fiction: Hardboiled: Tough, Explicit and Uncompromising Crime Fiction (1992); and Case Reopened (1993), where crime writers were commissioned to write fictional solutions to real unsolved Australian murders and mysteries; and with Robert Hood Crosstown Traffic (1993), crime fiction that switched genres during the story.

Coupe co-authored Triple J’s Internet Music Guide,(1998) with Richard Kingsmill. Coupe’s more recent books include The Promoters (2003), Gudinski (2015); Roadies (2018); and Tex (2017), co-authored with Tex Perkins. In 2020, he published a biography of Australian musician, Paul Kelly (Australian musician). [6] [7] Also in 2020 came Coupe’s book length collection of interviews with James Burton, Ron Tutt, Glen D. Hardin and Jerry Sceff who were Elvis Presley’s TCB Band. The book is entitled On Stage With Elvis Presley (SEG Publishing). [8] Coupe’s interview with Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg was included in Conversations With Allen Ginsberg, edited by David Stephen Calonne (University Press Of Mississippi). [9]

Broadcasting

Coupe’s first foray into broadcasting was presenting the music program, Funk To Punk, on Sydney community radio station, 2SER in 1981. He was co-presenter with Bruce Stalder of the Sunday night Album Show on Sydney commercial radio station Triple M in 1987.

In 2003 Coupe began presenting a music program called Lyricism on FBi Radio in Sydney. He went on to present other programs, including Out Of The Box and Tune Up. He is one of the station’s longest serving broadcasters and is currently the presenter of Wild Card at midday on Tuesdays. In 2013 he filled in as a presenter of the roots and world music program, The Planet, on ABC Radio National while its regular presenter, Lucky Oceans, was on leave.

Since 2013, Coupe has presented the weekly roots-based music program, Dirt Music, on 2SER, the first hour of which is syndicated nationally by the CBAA on community radio stations across Australia. In 2015 Dirt Music was awarded best 2SER music program.

Bibliography

Books:

'The New Music', Stuart Coupe & Glenn A Baker (Bay Books, 1980)

'The New Rock’n’Roll', Stuart Coupe & Glenn A Baker (Omnibus Press, 1983)

'The Edge Ultimate CD Guide', Stuart Coupe (Century Magazines, 1989)

'Craig McLachlan, the official book', Stuart Coupe, (Century Publications, 1990)

'Hardboiled: Tough, Explicit and Uncompromising Crime Fiction', (anthology) edited, Stuart Coupe & Julie Ogden (Allen and Unwin, 1993)

'Crosstown Traffic', (anthology) edited, Stuart Coupe, Julie Ogden & Robert Hood (Five Islands Press, 1993)

'Case Reopened', edited, Stuart Coupe & Julie Ogden (Allen and Unwin, 1994)

'Triple J’s Internet Music Guide', Richard Kingsmill and Stuart Coupe (ABC Books, 1998)

'The Promoters: Inside stories from the Australian rock industry', Stuart Coupe (Hachette Australia, 2003)

'Gudinski: The Godfather of Australian Rock', Stuart Coupe (Hachette Australia, 2015)

'Tex', by Tex Perkins with Stuart Coupe. (Pan Macmillan Australia 2017)

'Roadies: The Secret History of Australian Rock’n’roll', Stuart Coupe (Hachette Australia, 2018)

'Paul Kelly: The Man, The Music And The Life In Between', Stuart Coupe (Hachette Australia, 2020)

'On Stage With Elvis Presley', Stuart Coupe (SEG Publishing, 2020)


Book Chapters:

'How to write Crime Fiction', edited by Marele Day (Allen and Unwin, 1996)

'Dear Santa', edited by Samuel Johnson OAM (Hachette Australia, 2018)

'Dear Dad', edited Samuel Johnson OAM (Hachette Australia, 2019)

‘Allen Ginsberg: The Last Australian Interview', edited by David Stephen Calonne (University Of Mississippi Press, 2019)

Awards and achievements

Related Research Articles

Skyhooks were an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in March 1973 by mainstays Greg Macainsh on bass guitar and backing vocals, and Imants "Freddie" Strauks on drums. They were soon joined by Bob "Bongo" Starkie on guitar and backing vocals, and Red Symons on guitar, vocals and keyboards; and Steve Hill lead vocalist, Graeme "Shirley" Strachan became lead vocalist in March 1974. Described as a glam rock band, because of flamboyant costumes and make-up, Skyhooks addressed issues including buying drugs in "Carlton ", sex and commitment in "Balwyn Calling", the gay scene in "Toorak Cowboy" and loss of girlfriends in "Somewhere in Sydney" by namechecking Australian locales. According to music historian, Ian McFarlane "[Skyhooks] made an enormous impact on Australian social life".

<i>Gossip</i> (Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls album) 1986 studio album by Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls

Gossip is the double LP debut album by Australian rock group Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls. Produced by Alan Thorne and Paul Kelly, it was released on Mushroom Records in September 1986, which peaked at No. 15 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart, and achieved gold record status. There was commercial success for "Before Too Long" which peaked at No. 15 and "Darling It Hurts" reached No. 25 on the related Singles Chart. Gossip was released in different forms, initially as a double album with 24 tracks, it was edited down to a single 15-track LP for North American and European release on A&M Records, when released on CD in North America, it featured 17 tracks.

Richard Kingsmill is an Australian radio announcer, music journalist and currently Group Music Director of triple j, triple j Unearthed, Double J and ABC Local Radio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Gudinski</span> Australian music industry executive (1952-2021)

Michael Solomon Gudinski AM was an Australian record executive and promoter who was a leading figure in the Australian music industry. Born and raised in Melbourne to Jewish Russian immigrants, Gudinski formed the highly successful Australian record company Mushroom Records in 1972 through which he signed several generations of Australian musicians and performers ranging from MacKenzie Theory, the Skyhooks, The Choirboys, Kylie Minogue, and New Zealand's Split Enz to newer artists such as Eskimo Joe, Evermore and others.

Charles Shaar Murray is an English music journalist and broadcaster. He has worked on the New Musical Express and many other magazines and newspapers, and has been interviewed for a number of television documentaries and reports on music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sunbury Pop Festival</span>

Sunbury Pop Festival or Sunbury Rock Festival was an annual Australian rock music festival held on a 620-acre (2.5 km2) private farm between Sunbury and Diggers Rest, Victoria, which was staged on the Australia Day long weekend from 1972 to 1975. It attracted up to 45,000 patrons and was promoted by Odessa Promotions, which was formed by a group of television professionals, including John Fowler, from GTV 9 Melbourne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glenn A. Baker</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Freud</span> Musical artist

James Randall Freud was an Australian rock musician-songwriter. He was a member of Models during the 1980s and wrote their two most popular singles, "Barbados" and "Out of Mind, Out of Sight".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spanish Blue</span> 1982 single by The Triffids

Spanish Blue is the second single released by Australian rock group, The Triffids in 1982. The single was produced by Les Karski for the White Label Records imprint of Mushroom Records, owned by Michael Gudinski. The single was initially released independently by No Records but was re-released in October 1982 following the band's signing with White Label Records.

They'd recorded "Spanish Blue" when the spectre of the Gudinski organisation loomed, and they were summoned to the Mushroom/White Citadel. Gudinski liked "Spanish Blue". 'It was just that he wanted us to re-write it, and re-mix it,' McComb laughs. 'We ended up putting it out ourselves immediately they started dilly dallying because we said we wouldn't re-mix it. We thought that we couldn't just wait for people to decide what they wanted to do.'

Charles Lothian Lloyd "Charlie" Owen is an Australian multi-instrumentalist and producer. He has been a member of The New Christs (1987–90), Louis Tillett and His Cast of Aspersions (1990), Tex, Don and Charlie, Tendrils (1994–99) and Beasts of Bourbon. His solo album, Vertigo and Other Phobias, was released in 1994 on Red Eye/Polydor.

Roger Grierson is a New Zealand born musician and music industry executive.

Peter Robert Corris was an Australian academic, historian, journalist and a novelist of historical and crime fiction. As crime fiction writer, he was described as "the Godfather of contemporary Australian crime-writing", particularly for his Cliff Hardy novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian Made</span> 1986–1987 Australian concert series

Australian Made was a festival concert series held during 1986–1987 in the six state capitals of Australia and featured local rock acts Mental as Anything, I'm Talking, The Triffids, The Saints, Divinyls, Models, INXS and even Jimmy Barnes. The series started in Hobart on 26 December 1986 and concluded in Sydney on 26 January 1987. Rock journalist Jeff Jenkins rated it as one of his 50 most significant events in Australian music history, "It wasn't a huge success, but it showed that an all-Australian festival could work." Australian Made was conceived to counter tours of international acts, like Dire Straits' 1985–1986 world tour, which were drying up funds for Australian groups. As from October 2010, the following artists have been inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame: INXS and The Saints, Barnes, Divinyls (2006), The Triffids (2008), Mental As Anything (2009), and Models (2010).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tracee Hutchison</span>

Tracee Hutchison is a writer and TV and radio broadcaster.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frontier Touring Company</span>

The Frontier Touring Company is one of Australia and New Zealand's largest concert promoters. The company was formed in November 1979 by Michael Gudinski as one of the first Mushroom Group ventures, with eight music industry partners; Gudinski has stayed at the helm since. The company's first tour was in 1980 and in the decades since has toured over five hundred acts. In 2013 according to Pollstar, the industry's trade publication, the company was listed as No. 1 Australasian Concert Promoter and at No. 20, internationally.

Michael Glenn Chugg is an Australian entrepreneur, businessman and concert tour promoter. As a promoter and manager he was a founder of Frontier Touring Company (1979–99) and Michael Chugg Entertainment (2000–present). On 8 June 1998, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia with the citation "for service to music and the performing arts, particularly in relation to the promotion of Australian artists and to fundraising for youth and children's charities". In 2010, he co-authored his autobiography, Hey, You in the Black T-Shirt: The Real Story of Touring the World's Biggest Acts, with journalist, Iain Shedden. In March 2014 on the 50th anniversary of his start as a promoter, Denis Handlin opined "Chuggy is noisy, wild, cantankerous, the oldest teenager I know and very often a nightmare to deal with. But somehow we all love him because he lives and sweats the business with 100 per cent persistence and passion". At the ARIA Music Awards of 2019 Chugg received the ARIA Industry Icon Award.

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.

Anthony Austin O'Grady was an Australian writer, music journalist, editor and producer. He created and edited Rock Australia Magazine from 1975 to 1981. He wrote articles for The Bulletin. In 1994 O'Grady co-created the Music Network. For 15 years he was an oral history interviewer for National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA). O'Grady authored the 2001 biography Cold Chisel: The Pure Stuff detailing the Australian band Cold Chisel.

Tana Douglas is an Australian author who is best known as the first female rock and roll roadie.

References

  1. McFarlane, Ian (1999). "Encyclopedia entry for 'The Thought Criminals'". Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop . St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN   1-86508-072-1. Archived from the original on 19 April 2004. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
  2. "Guest presenter - Stuart Coupe". ABC Radio National . Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 25 April 2013. Retrieved 6 September 2018.
  3. "Music's Mr fix-it". Sydney Morning Herald . Fairfax Media. 28 April 2003. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  4. "First Speakers & Artists Revealed for Australian Music Week 2019". The Music . Handshake Media Pty Limited. 17 September 2019. Retrieved 10 January 2020.
  5. "Allison Forbes | Australian Country Music Artist & Songwriter". Allison Forbes Music. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
  6. "Interview: Stuart Coupe on recording 200+ hours of interviews with Roadies for his book's ultimate, AAA pass". (The AU Review). 2018. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  7. "Roadies for INXS, Iggy Pop and others on the struggles of life on and off the road". (ABC News). 2018. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  8. Stig J Edgren, Jerry Schilling, Stuart Coupe (2020). On Stage With ELVIS PRESLEY. SEG Publishing. ISBN   9780578777467.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. Conversations with Allen Ginsberg. Calonne, David Stephen, 1953-. Jackson. 2019. ISBN   978-1-4968-2350-2. OCLC   1061091483.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. "ABIA 2021 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 12 April 2021. Retrieved 12 April 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)