UQP author built Pig City on rock and roll

University of Queensland Press has released a 10^th anniversary edition of author Andrew Stafford’s cult classic, Pig City.

Stafford, a music writer and self-confessed political junkie, has updated the text of his musical history of Brisbane and included what he describes as a “scathing new introduction”.

In the introduction he said he assessed the changing shape of Brisbane and the troubling developments that had affected the music scene since Queensland returned to conservative government.

Pig City charts the shifts in musical, political and cultural consciousness that have shaped Brisbane’s history and identity.

From the Saints and the Go-Betweens to Savage Garden, Custard and Powderfinger, Brisbane has produced its fair share of great bands, and yet behind the music lay a ghost city of malice, violence and corruption.

Stafford said that the influence of the police during the Bjelke-Petersen government era had been immortalised in Brisbane’s song writing, including ‘Pig City’, a one-off single by a one-off band called the Parameters.

“Although this song was barely heard outside of Brisbane, it became something of a rallying cry for those who stayed behind to fight the good fight at a time when everyone else was bailing out of the city,” he said.

“I decided to name the book after that song.”

Ten years after the book’s first release, Stafford said that the current climate under LNP Premier Campbell Newman was “eerily similar” to the Pig City era and its strange intersection of art and politics.

“It is an enduring tale, and a cautionary one, too, of how easily and quickly a liberal democracy can decay into a quasi-fascist state,” he said.

“We weren’t supposed to be back here.”

Pig City is a culture-driven coming-of-age story about a town and the unforgettable music it produced.

Stafford has worked as a freelance writer, university tutor and occasional environmental consultant. Because none of these things is especially lucrative, he can also be found behind the wheel of a cab.

Pig City is out now.

MEDIA: For review copies or to arrange an interview with Andrew Stafford contact Meredene Hill, +61 7 3346 7932, meredeneh@uqp.uq.edu.au.