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Rolling Stone Australia

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Rolling Stone Australia
Rolling Stonelogo
Managing editorPoppy Reid
EditorTyler Jenke
Former editorsDan Lander
Simon Wooldridge
Rachel Newman
Elissa Blake
Andrew Humphries
Kathy Bail
Toby Creswell
Paul Gardiner
Jane Mathieson
Phillip Frazer/Alistair Jones
CategoriesMusic magazine
FrequencyQuarterly
Circulation180,000
PublisherLuke Girgis
First issueJanuary 1972
Company
CountryAustralia
Based inSydney
Websiteau.rollingstone.com

Rolling Stone Australiais the Australian edition of the United States'Rolling Stonemagazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture, published monthly. The Australian version ofRolling Stonewas initially published in 1970 as a supplement inRevolutionmagazine published by Monash University studentPhillip Frazer.[1]It was launched as a fully fledged magazine in 1972 by Frazer[2][3]and was the longest-surviving international edition ofRolling Stoneuntil its last issue appeared in January 2018.[4][5]

As of February 2019,Rolling Stone Australiareturned with a digital platform published byThe Brag Media,in an exclusive licensing deal withRolling Stoneowner Penske Media Corporation.

In June 2020, the magazine was acquired from theBauer Media GroupbySydney–based investment firmMercury Capital.[6][7]

History[edit]

The Australian version ofRolling Stonelaunched in May 1970 as a supplement inRevolution,a counter-culture magazine edited and published byPhillip FrazerinMelbourneas an offshoot of his teen-based pop newspaperGo-Set.[1][8]Go-Setintroduced a counter-culture supplement calledCoreon 13 December 1969, edited byEd Nimmervoll[1]who had worked onGo-Setsince 1966.[3]Frazer soon decided that the "Core" material deserved a stand-alone publication for older readers, and on 1 May 1970, Go-Set Publications launched the tabloidRevolution,co-edited by Frazer and Jon Hawkes.[8]From its fourth issue onwardRevolutionincluded a supplement ofRolling Stonepages under an agreement Frazer made with its Californian owner and publisherJann Wenner.[1]In August 1971RevolutionbecameHigh Times[8](before the US magazine of that name), which featured Australian underground cartoons curated by co-editors Pat Woolley and Macy McFarland.[1]Frazer leftGo-SetandHigh Timesearly in 1972 and, with his business partner Geoff Watson, launched the AustralianRolling Stoneas a fully fledged magazine, five years after the flagship started in the United States.[2][3]Rolling StoneAustralia was published fortnightly, devoted to music, politics, and popular culture, with a few local articles supplementing the major features from the parent magazine. In August 1972 Frazer launched an Australian counter-culture magazineThe Diggerwhich was published fortnightly, then monthly, and it wasThe Digger,and not the local editionRolling Stone,that fostered a team of star young writers like Colin Talbot, Helen Garner, Garrie Hutchinson and Robert Adamson, who rivalled the AmericanRolling Stone’s iconoclastic reputation for New Journalism.

The first edition [ofRolling Stone] I saw was just so quirky. It was basically a tabloid format, A3-sized, folded so that it looked the size of an A4 page. It was on newsprint and because it was folded you could have the huge image on the front cover. It was very simple, it was just the essence of hipness

— Bruce Elder,12 April 2002[9]

In 1975, before Frazer left Australia for the United States,[1]he closed downThe Diggerand sold the localRolling Stonelicence to a group of journalists led by formerFinancial Reviewwriter Paul Gardiner, with Jane Mathieson and Paul Comrie Thomson.[10]One thing this meant, perhaps most crucially, was that the magazine moved base from Melbourne to Sydney. The first Australian act on the cover wasSkyhooksin 1976, who reportedly hated the photo, but it did mark a broadening recognition of local acts in the magazine.[4]Together Gardiner, Mathieson and Comrie-Thompson builtRolling StoneAustralia up as a major player in terms of circulation, shifting about 35,000 copies each fortnight.[10]The magazine, however, lacked consistent local content. The Skyhooks cover was the exception rather than the rule, and an Australian band would not re-appear on the cover again until Men at Work in 1983 – and that was a relayed American story. The magazine also lacked the immediacy and the team of quality contributors that made its rivalRAMso much more successful in terms of relevance and quality. Certainly in no way in this phase, in the late 70s, did it develop a cast of writers the wayThe Diggerhad only a few years earlier, with only Bruce Elder staying on for the long haul, and P.D. Jack coming and going.

As the booms in local pub rock and punk rock started to take off,Rolling Stoneseemed increasingly irrelevant, an imported acolyte of all things West Coast with precious little acknowledgement of the blossoming Australian scene around it. The real mark of the magazine's change came in 1980, when it shifted from a fortnightly to a monthly. Paul Gardiner partnered with art director Andrew Penhallow and founded GAP Records, which quickly acquired the local licences for UK labels Rough Trade and Factory Records, as well as signing local acts (such as Pel Mel) – meaning that in addition toRolling Stonethe office was now putting out albums by Joy Division and Cabaret Voltaire. At the same time Paul Comrie-Thompson became a sort of advisor if not manager to Chris Bailey and his band theSaints.A handful of younger writers like Ed St.John and occasionalRAMcontributorsToby CreswellandClinton Walkertoo started freelancing forRolling Stoneand invigorating its pages.

The magazine shifted from its old office in North Sydney to the basement of the Gardiners’ home in Neutral Bay, and even as it continued to tinker, in the mid-80s, with its format, experimenting with design styles, colour and paperstock – and experimenting with a great many different contributors – it was finally starting to look like a viable competitor toRAM.In 1985,Rolling StonepublishedThe Big Australian Rock Book,a sort of A-Z survey of then-Australian music, edited by Ed St.John and written largely by him, Bruce Elder, Toby Creswell, Clinton Walker and Andrea Jones.

The final transformation began in 1986, when Toby Creswell was made editor. Ed St.John had by now left to become a record company executive, and Creswell was a journalist steeped in theRolling Stoneethos and tradition but crucially also possessed of a certain vision for Australian music, and it was he who shaped the magazine into its most successful and very Australian form in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Naturally it still relied heavily on its American parent for content, but with Clinton Walker especially as a star contributor alongside the copy Creswell himself generated, the magazine was now brimming with well-written local features and news stories, and incisive reviews.

In 1987, owners Paul Gardiner and Jane Maitheson pulled out of the business amid mounting debts and American indifference,[11]and the licence to publishRolling Stonein Australia was picked up by Creswell leading a consortium he’d assembled with an old school friend, Philip Keir, and Keir's wife Lesa-Belle Furhagen.[12]Shifting headquarters back to Sydney city, to Surry Hills right in the middle of a booming inner-city music circuit, and taking on staff that included most notably designer/writer David Messer,Rolling Stonewas then left, after the demise ofRAMin 1989, with the Australian music magazine market almost entirely to itself. In the face of competition only from the now-widespread, regionalised free street press with its preponderance of advertorial, and now with John O’Donnell as Creswell's Assistant Editor and going glossy full colour throughout,Rolling Stoneentered its peak period, with its own flavor quite distinct from the American edition. In addition to relying on Clinton Walker for major features and acerbic reviews, Creswell nurtured new young writers like O’Donnell andJohn Birmingham,who wonRolling Stone’s campus writing contest, and had it not been for its great weakness, its Sydney-centricity – its inability to get good consistent coverage on the ground in Melbourne – the magazine would undoubtedly have been Australia's journal of record for music culture.

By the early 90s, however, with Next Media now having bought a building of its own in southern-Sydney suburb Redfern, tensions were brewing between Phil Keir and both his wife Lesa-Belle Furhagen and Toby Creswell. The eventual result was that September 1992, saw a traumatic split, in which Creswell was escorted off the premises by security,[13]Keir took control of the company, and Creswell and Furhagen went off together to form Terraplane Press, which launchedJuicemagazine.[14]

Juiceaimed itself, with the rise of grunge in the 90s, at a slightly younger demographic thanRolling Stone,butRolling Stone,with Kathy Bail now installed as editor, continued to offer quality coverage of Australian and global music, politics, and popular culture. Freelancer Clinton Walker was the only writer to carry over from the old regime to this new one (while he also contributed toJuiceat the same time!), and when Dino Scatena came in on staff to assist Bail, the magazine enjoyed a boost in stability and success, and certainly it would outliveJuice,which despite its efforts for a decade, went down when the dot.com bubble burst in 2003.

AustralianRolling Stonecelebrated its 25th year with a special collector's edition in May 1998, and at that time the publishers claimed the current circulation was around 40,000.[15]

After Bail and Scatena (and Clinton Walker) had left the magazine by the late 1990s, it entered into something of a phase in the wilderness, with a succession of editors and owners compromising its content and integrity in the face of a shifting pop-cultural landscape, including not least of all the rise of the internet.

In 2008Next Media Pty Ltdwas purchased byWorseley Media,in a deal that sawACP MagazinesacquireRolling Stonemagazine in exchange for ACP titlesTracksandWaves.[2][16]A few months later, ACP relaunchedRolling Stone,with a new look and size.

Year after year,Rolling StoneAustralia has made me proud. They have executed theRolling Stonemission with style, intelligence and energy. My hat is off to everyone who has contributed to this success over the years and I look forward to even greater years to come.

— Jann Wenner, 2009[17]

In 2008 the magazine averaged sales of 27,051 copies a month,[18]down from 29,372 the year before and about 40,000 at the time of its 30th anniversary issue six years previous. Its average readership in March 2008 was 301,000, compared with 296,000 a year earlier; the readership had peaked in December 1994 at 392,000.[15]

ACP was acquired byBauer Media Groupin 2012 and in 2013, the company Paper Riot, headed by Matt Coyte, bought theRolling Stonefranchise from Bauer. Under Coyte's editorship, and with the launch of its own independent website in 2014,[19]Rolling Stonestarted to claw back some of its former relevance and credibility, but it was an Indian Summer, and in January 2018, Paper Riot went into external administration and the last issue of AustralianRolling Stoneappeared.[20]

In January 2019, it was announced thatRolling Stonewould be returning to the Australian market.[21]

Awards[edit]

Commencing in 2010, the Rolling Stone Australia Awards are awarded annually in January byRolling Stone Australiafor outstanding contributions to popular culture in the previous year.[22]They initially ran from 2009 to 2015 and have been relaunched as of March 2021.[23]

References[edit]

  1. ^abcdefKent, David Martin (September 2002).The place of Go-Set in rock and pop music culture in Australia, 1966 to 1974(PDF).University of Canberra(MA). Canberra, A.C.T. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 4 September 2015.NOTE: This PDF is 282 pages.
  2. ^abcJackson, Sally (1 May 2008)."Rolling Stone set to gather new boss".The Australian.Retrieved23 March2009.[dead link]
  3. ^abcKent, David Martin (2000)."Go-Set: The Life and Death of an Australian Pop Magazine".Milesago.Retrieved23 March2009.
  4. ^ab"Rolling Stone(Australia) ".Milesago.Retrieved24 March2009.
  5. ^"The end of an era: a eulogy for Rolling Stone Australia".28 January 2018.
  6. ^Kelly, Vivienne (17 June 2020)."Bauer has left the building. What next for magazines in Australia?".Mumbrella.Archivedfrom the original on 18 August 2020.Retrieved30 June2020.
  7. ^Whyte, Jemina (19 June 2020)."Magazine buyer writes new story".Australian Financial Review.Archivedfrom the original on 23 June 2020.Retrieved17 July2020.
  8. ^abcCock, Peter (1979).Alternative Australia: Communities of the Future?.Quartet Books.ISBN978-0-908128-09-9.Retrieved26 March2009.NOTE: On-line version is a 'snippet view'
  9. ^Mangan, John (12 April 2002)."Still rolling after thirty years".The Age.Retrieved24 March2009.
  10. ^abEliezer, Christie (29 June 2004)."Aussie Rolling Stone Publisher Gardiner Dies".Billboard Biz.Retrieved23 March2009.
  11. ^Boots, Tim (23 April 2007)."Rolling Stone still rocking 35 years on".The Sydney Morning Herald.Retrieved19 March2009.
  12. ^"Rolling Stone still rocking 35 years on".23 April 2007.
  13. ^"Lowest of the Low 6".
  14. ^Veldre, Danielle (11 April 2003)."Juicy new campaign for Pacific Magazine".B&T Today.Archived fromthe originalon 9 March 2006.Retrieved24 March2009.
  15. ^abJackson, Sally (22 May 2008)."Fresh home and hopes for Rolling Stone".The Australian.Retrieved24 March2009.
  16. ^Jackson, Sally (22 May 2008)."ACP rolls Stone in title swap".The Australian.Retrieved24 March2009.
  17. ^"ACP Magazines to publish Rolling Stone".Archived fromthe originalon 19 July 2008.Retrieved24 March2009.
  18. ^"Roy Morgan Readership estimates for Australia for the 12 months to December 2008".Roy Morgan Research.19 February 2009. Archived fromthe originalon 15 April 2009.Retrieved23 March2009.
  19. ^"Rolling Stone Australia".Archived fromthe originalon 29 January 2018.Retrieved2 November2018.
  20. ^"Rolling Stone Australia To Close".31 January 2018.
  21. ^"Rolling Stone magazine heads back Down Under".B&T.8 January 2019.Retrieved5 March2021.
  22. ^Barnes, Amelia (5 December 2011)."Rolling Stone Magazine Australia announces 3rd annual awards event".The AU Review.Archived fromthe originalon 8 August 2016.Retrieved5 March2021.
  23. ^English, Laura (18 November 2020)."Rolling Stone Australia relaunches annual awards show".Music Feeds.Retrieved5 March2021.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]