October 2006

Literary magazine Meanjin’s next issue takes on music. That means Clinton Walker on the origins of oz rock, Robert Forster on Normie Rowe, Age freelancer Anna Krien on an unknown garage band, Richard Clapton on the Darlo scene in the early ’70s and Stephen Cummings on growing up in Melbs. Unfortunately it also means putting up with an extended interview with Molly Meldrum, but I guess that can be skipped.

The June is launched on November 1 (!) from 7 ’til 9pm at Sappho books, which Sam describes as “the crappy place next to Glebe books.” Apparently Steve Kilbey and Reg Mombasso will be there too.

Over the past year or so Robert Forster has joined a handful of music writers whose work I genuinely love reading. The former Go-Between apparently stumbled across music criticism – although he’d made several stalled attempts at writing books, his only published writing experience was a column on hair care for a mate’s fanzine in Manchester back in the late ’80s.

His writing has the same kind of rhythm as his songs, the same mix of sincerity, charm and humour. Obviously other people have been reading him in the Monthly too. According to Bernard Zuel in the SMH, Forster was awarded the Pascall Prize for criticism, with a prize of $15,000, and a spot alongside the country’s best arts critics.

This quote from former Pascall Prize winner and judge of this year’s award Peter Craven sums up why Forster is so great and important:

“Robert Forster’s work is characterized by its sparkle, its ease of reference and his ability to make vivid to the reader his own particular insights. He manages to write about popular music not only with the feeling for musical values of someone who has worked as a musician, but with an expert feeling for the show business context and with a masterly sense of the history of his subject. This means that at any point in one of his articles the reader’s imagination is kindled by a critical awareness of the giants of the past. She may not know the work of the particular artist under review, but becomes potently aware of the comparative context as the names of all sorts of famous figures – Springsteen, Barbara Streisand, you name it – are invoked by way of illumination, often in unpredictable and imaginative ways.”

“Robert Forster is one of those rare critics so possessed of both charm and intellectual clarity that his work can be read with pleasure (and instruction) by people who are not especially interested in his subject. For those who are, he is a godsend because he writes about popular music with an authority and grace which would be rare in any area of criticism and is all the more striking in a field where criticism is often merely modish. It gives the judges particular pleasure to give the 2006 Geraldine Pascall Prize to a critic who is also such an eloquent and engaging writer.”

Here’s Forster talking to PopMatters early this year.