Book review: Full Coverage by Samuel J Fell

Full Coverage: A history of rock journalism in Australia by Samuel J Fell.
Published by Monash University Publishing, September 2023.

Here’s a book that ticks a lot of boxes.

It fills a gap in the history of Australian publishing by chronicling the rise and fall of 50 years of rock music publications in Australia. In doing so it fills a gap in the history of Australian rock music too.

The author quotes dozens of editors and publishers, telling their stories of publications invariably borne on a wave of enthusiasm, riding a crest of expansion and readership and almost inevitably drowning in a sea of debt – usually to very patient printing companies.

There are success stories aplenty, from local street press publications such as Adelaide’s Rip It Up, Perth’s Five O’Clock News and Brisbane’s Time Off  to national journals: Go- Set, RAM, Juke, Rolling Stone Australia, Juice, and Mess + Noise.

Samuel J Fell, a widely-published music journalist, notes that while Go-Set was the first pop/rock paper in Australia, hitting the newstands in 1966, it was preceded by jazz and country publications.

He charts the 1980s rivalry between RAM (Sydney) and Juke (Melbourne),  and does not forget Adelaide’s Roadrunner.

The author collects anecdotes of journals running on the smell of an oily rag, papers backed by corporates, magazines created in spite (and haste).

The over-riding spirit of the book is to reflect that nearly every publication is driven by a love of Australian rock music, whether it be pop, pub rock, punk, indie, hip-hop…

Full Coverage is driven by that enthusiasm too and by a desire to acknowledge the enormous contribution that editors, publishers, ad sales staff, printers, photographers, designers, and writers – professional and amateur – have made to the culture of Australian rock music for half a century.

Full Coverage is available from bookshops and via Monash University Publishing.