Andrew Stafford - 2 July

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN

Andrew Staffords Something To Believe In is quite an achievement. Its all here: part tragicomic tale of a fanboy writer struggling to translate his primal affair with music into a real job; part excoriating account of his ride from adolescence to adulthood and self-discovery; and part blossoming tale of love and forgiveness. Written with great humanity and girded by a soundtrack to die for which he almost did on more than one occasion this memoir is a punchy, unputdownable must-read. PETER GARRETT

A pulsing, rattling jukebox of a music memoir. Drop a coin, find your sound. Rock and punk and pop; the rock bottom and the very top. Love, family, sorrow, pain; the birds, the blues, the brain. A pull out your heart and feed it to anyone rock & roll sock to the core, Something To Believe In is a soaring, sweat-soaked tribute to lifes two great miracles: music and waking up each day to hear it. TRENT DALTON

Lyrical, wise and full of wonder. Andrew Stafford strips himself bare with courage, candour, and vulnerability. T RACEY S PICER

Andrew Stafford takes us on an exhilarating ride through his life as birdwatcher, cab driver, roadie, son, lover and writer. His astute and insightful observations on music and politics in Brisbane in particular from the late eighties provide a stunning backdrop to this personal expression of his life story. LINDY MORRISON

This beautifully written book reminded me of how much music helps us navigate through life, in all its complicated glory. M YF W ARHURST

Andrew Stafford is a freelance journalist and the author of Pig City: From The Saints To Savage Garden , a musical and political history of Brisbane first published in 2004. Something To Believe In is his second book. You can find him on Twitter @staffo_sez and his Patreon page: www.patreon.com/andrewstafford

For my parents, who always let me do what I wanted to do, and be who I wanted to be.

Yeah.

This book contains depictions of suicide, self-harm and suicidal ideation.

If you find yourself in distress, dont read on. Please call

Lifeline 13 11 14

Beyond Blue 1300 224 636

MensLine 1300 78 99 78

Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467

or (if outside Australia) your local crisis support hotline.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are respectfully advised that this book contains the names of people who have passed away.

The difference between movies and rock & roll is that rock & roll doesnt lie.

It never promises a happy ending.

Elliott Murphy, liner notes for the Velvet Undergrounds 1969

Contents

Dead Wax

I always flirt with death. Usually, its familiar and sometimes even strangely comforting. There have been long periods where the ideation of it has become so ingrained that I have accepted it as part of the background of my day-to-day life, along with the mild tinnitus in my ears.

This time, though, its serious. The depression has persisted for months, it is overwhelmingly intense, and there are things Ive kept hidden from those closest to me, including my doctors. Im in a hotel room in Auckland, ahead of a music conference. In the bar fridge theres plenty of booze to loosen the inhibitions, and in the bathroom enough oxycodone and diazepam to get the job done. Back at home in Brisbane, spread out neatly on the kitchen table, are my will, my mothers will, my birth and marriage certificates, and a note.

Theres just one last thing to do.

Ive hit all my deadlines except one: I have to review Neil Finns new album, Out Of Silence . At this juncture, it shouldnt matter whether such a triviality is completed, but it matters to me. I dont like loose ends and its a commitment I want to fulfil.

Its difficult. My mind is in a muddle and the music is complex. The arrangements are dense and the orchestration is layered: there are strings, horns, a small choir. Finns voice is familiar and soothing, but this is the most ambitious album he has made. Generally, it doesnt take long for me to unpack a record, but this one is demanding.

I get stuck on the third song, Chameleon Days. Its like looking into Alice In Wonderland s pool of tears. The surface is shimmering. I can see my own reflection but not the bottom. I dive in and listen to the song through the headphones twice, five, ten, a dozen times in a row. Im out of my depth.

A mouse swims past. It is Finn. I need your help, I say. He looks disturbed and swims away. Please, I call after him, I am drowning. Reluctantly, he commands me to follow him to shore.

There is a weariness in Finns voice, but he is patient and kind as he whispers simple matters of fact in my ear. Look, he says. While you were making your plans, God was just having a little puff, observing the action. You cant control this stuff, you know; its just life. You either accept the cards youve been dealt or you drown.

Im not religious, but the image of God rolling a number as she watches the chaos enveloping her creation makes me smile. Finns music wraps around me like a blanket. I know Ill be listening to the record forever, if not very often, for it will always be associated with this moment.

I file at three-thirty a.m. and immediately fall asleep, unaided by the paraphernalia Id set out. When I wake up I feel horrendous, but alive.

You may ask yourself: how did I get here?

Fade In

I Am Just A Teenage Dreamer

Ive got two guitars at home. My first one, over ten years old now, is a Maton acoustic. The second is a spanking machine, a silver sparkle solid-body Gretsch I picked up in Greenwich Village, New York City. A cheap Korean knock-off, but who cares; it looks and sounds great, or it would if only I played the damned thing. Its pretty much sat idle for two years.

I can play, a little. I know enough chords, but I struggle to get from one to the next with any fluency. I could make the excuse that Im left-handed, and thats the main reason I didnt pick up a guitar when I was younger, when left-handed guitars werent easy to find and idiots in guitar shops told me to learn right-handed or, if I really had to, just restring it upside down.

The truth is Im a fumbler on the fretboard. And maybe I just didnt want to work hard enough at getting better. What I really wanted to do was sing. I can do that slightly better than I play guitar. My early rock & roll heroes werent saddled with guitars anyway, and they were incredibly physical performers: Peter Garrett, Iggy Pop, Jello Biafra, Joey Ramone.

Watching them communicated to me that rock & roll was something you did with your entire body. When Im at a gig and really lost in it, I still have no problem dancing like no ones watching. I barely even drank in my younger years, so I had no need of alcohol or other drugs to cut loose. The music was always enough. Id just plug myself into the amps and go.

I sang in a band in high school. We did two gigs. One was at a house party and the other at an end-of-year school dance. We played covers of songs befitting our rudimentary skills: the Ramones; the Cramps; a three-minute version of the Velvet Undergrounds seventeen-minute monolith Sister Ray; the Hard-Ons version of Then I Kissed Her.