Andrew Stafford
Andrew Stafford is a Australian freelance journalist and the author of Pig City, a musical, political and social history of Brisbane, now in its third edition. In July 2007 the book was transformed into a key event as part of the Queensland Music Festival, headlined by the first performance by the original line-up of the Saints in nearly 30 years. His work appears in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, The Monthly and many more. He is also co-owner and founder of independent Brisbane label Pig City Records.
33 articles
List of articles in the library
Meat Loaf: He should have been a talk-show host
Interview by Andrew Stafford, Time Off, 25 October 1995
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In late 1995 I interviewed Meat Loaf for a Brisbane street weekly, Time Off, on the release of his album Welcome To The Neighbourhood. It was an ...
The Apartments: album's birth so traumatic 'it's a miracle it exists at all'
Profile and Interview by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 7 August 2015
Peter Milton Walsh had no intention of releasing the songs he wrote after tragedy struck. After 18 years he is ready to share them at ...
The Ramones: The enduring appeal of the Ramones
Retrospective by Andrew Stafford, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 21 April 2016
MY FAVOURITE QUOTE about the Ramones comes from Richard Hell, the New York provocateur who, along with Tom Verlaine, formed the art-punk band Television in ...
Serge Gainsbourg, Mick Harvey: Mick Harvey: Delirium Tremens
Review by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 23 June 2016
Two decades after Intoxicated Man and Pink Elephants, Nick Cave's right-hand man returns to Serge Gainsbourg's oeuvre to explore even stranger corners. ...
Coldplay's Chris Martin: Why Things Have Never Been Better
Profile and Interview by Andrew Stafford, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 7 December 2016
CHRIS MARTIN is up for it. Half an hour after soundcheck and a few hours before showtime at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium, the Coldplay singer, flanked ...
Midnight Oil: "A bloody-minded bunch of bastards": Midnight Oil's The Over Flow Tank
Sleeve notes by Andrew Stafford, (Sony Legacy), May 2017
THE PLACE: 8 Ormiston Avenue, Gordon, a leafy suburb on Sydney's Upper North Shore. The year: sometime in 1972. A teenaged Robert George Hirst hauls ...
Radio Birdman: Brutally honest doco cements legacy of volatile Sydney punk band
Review by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 9 June 2017
The '70s band battled poverty, depression and infighting. Descent into the Maelstrom shows how they also changed the face of Australian music. ...
Lorde talks second albums and night-time energy on the eve of Australian tour
Profile and Interview by Andrew Stafford, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 16 June 2017
I'M TOLD I CAN call her Ella: Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor is quite a mouthful. The single-syllable name by which she is better known, though, ...
Ed Kuepper, Laughing Clowns, The Saints: Saint Ed Kuepper to be honoured with renamed Brisbane park
Report and Interview by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 9 July 2017
Push for Brisbane to further celebrate its second seminal band as Ed Kuepper Park named in city's south-west. ...
Profile and Interview by Andrew Stafford, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 28 July 2017
A PIECE OF PAPER stuck to the entrance of the Coburg RSL in Melbourne reads "cash only (dark ages)". It's not much warmer inside than ...
Review by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 10 August 2017
A slow-burning masterpiece from a first-class songwriter ...
Review by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 2 September 2017
Piece by piece, Neil Finn's Out of Silence comes together in simplistic beauty. ...
Obituary by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 24 October 2017
The Easybeats guitarist and AC/DC producer wasn't just a star in his own right, but a behind-the-scenes industry giant. ...
The Beasts of Bourbon: Beasts of Bourbon's Spencer P Jones: hellraiser among Australian rock greats
Obituary by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 23 August 2018
Some were scared off by the guitarist's snarling delivery and reputation, but you'd be hard pressed to name a bad song. ...
The Go-Betweens: "It's a widely misunderstood song": How the Go-Betweens made 'Streets of Your Town'
Retrospective and Interview by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 19 September 2018
Is the winner of Guardian Australia's Songs of Brisbane poll about Brisbane? Even band members aren't sure. ...
Phil Collins: Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane
Live Review by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 20 January 2019
A notable hobble and diminished vocal range don't detract from an enjoyable night of nostalgia backed by a crowd that have been waiting for this ...
Phil Collins: Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane — life-affirming MOR ballads delivered against all odds
Live Review by Andrew Stafford, The Observer, 20 January 2019
A notable hobble and diminished vocal range don't detract from an enjoyable night of nostalgia backed by a crowd that have been waiting for this ...
Live Review by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 16 April 2019
That supple physique can't move quite like it used to, but the 71-year-old's voice is in unbelievably good shape. ...
Live Review by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 16 April 2019
Sydney Opera House: That supple physique can't move quite like it used to, but 71-year-old's voice is in unbelievably good shape ...
Aldous Harding: Chasing rainbows with Kiwi cult star Aldous Harding and her many voices
Interview by Andrew Stafford, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 25 April 2019
THE THIRD ALBUM by Aldous Harding, New Zealand's woman of a thousand voices, is called Designer. Its sleeve represents the title vertically – white on ...
The Chills: Martin Phillipps' triumph and tragedy told with extraordinary candour
Film/DVD/TV Review by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 14 June 2019
THE INDEPENDENT scene that emerged from Dunedin, New Zealand, in the early 1980s had all the strange qualities musical trainspotters around the world associate with ...
Obituary by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 2 August 2019
The punk rocker, author, raconteur and health guru, who has died from cancer, was a big man with a big voice and a hell of ...
Sleater-Kinney carry on with new album and new purpose
Interview by Andrew Stafford, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 15 August 2019
THE CENTRE Won't Hold, the title of Sleater-Kinney's ninth album, is taken from W.B. Yeats' 1919 poem The Second Coming, the words of which have ...
Live Review by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 27 August 2019
Watching the folk singer perform is to be touched by something deeply human and oddly universal. ...
Interview by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 29 August 2019
In Australia with his new memoir, the 'songwriting sociopath' discusses creativity and what Shatner taught him about coolness: 'He just does not give a shit' ...
Audio transcript of interview by Andrew Stafford, Rock's Backpages Audio, 30 October 2019
This is a transcript of Andrew's audio interview with Beck. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Interview by Andrew Stafford, Rock's Backpages Audio, 30 October 2019
Beck talks about his latest album, Hyperspace: working with Pharrell Williams; what the songs are about; on not being a slacker, and his working life; looking back at the '90s, and feeling outside of that periods's music; modern production processes; on his Record Club and Song Reader; writing for Johnny Cash; having no single musical home; his LA youth; losing his recordings in the Universal Studio fire; on not being a Scientologist, and it having no influence on him, and lastly how he sees his future.
File format: mp3; file size: 59.2mb, interview length: 1h 01' 41" sound quality: *****
Beck: "I think there's a misconception": Beck on Scientology
Profile and Interview by Andrew Stafford, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 22 November 2019
BECK LOOKS toasted. Under round vintage sunglasses and a broad-brimmed black hat, the cheeks of one of the most inventive, elusive artists of the last ...
Beck fears most of his music has been destroyed
Report by Andrew Stafford, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 26 November 2019
BECK HAS given details of his work that he fears may have been lost in a fire which ripped through a Universal Studios lot in ...
Crowded House: Dreamers Are Waiting
Review by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 3 June 2021
The band's first album since 2010 is full of beautiful details and deceptive tonal shifts – a slow burn but worth the effort ...
Amyl and the Sniffers: Comfort to Me
Review by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 10 September 2021
Frontwoman Amy Taylor crackles like a live wire with too much current in Melbourne punk band's electric second album. ...
Courtney Barnett on being forced to stop: "I felt myself opening up in a different way"
Interview by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 5 November 2021
A breakup, a pandemic and a homecoming left the singer with time to sit and think. Her new album radiates the calmness and kindness she ...
Comment by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 11 April 2022
David Malouf said poetry could never occur in Brisbane in the '70s and '80s. The Saints proved otherwise – and revolutionised the music industry. ...
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