Tony Wellington Knihy

Freak Out is Australia's coming-of-age story, how we as a nation responded to the global events that filled our daily news coverage, and how the music of the era was anthemic to that process. The gun was fired on a period of unprecedented innovation and creativity in pop and rock music, the likes of which have never been repeated. Music spoke to young people in their own bespoke language, urging them to view themselves as decidedly separate from mainstream society - even suggesting they might 'drop out' altogether. For a brief time, millions of young people across western culture believed they could successfully reinvent society. Liberation for pacifists, women, people of colour, homosexuals, students and the oppressed seemed just a short revolution away. There was no room for complacency or apathy in the face of the Vietnam War, Cold War, and dual threats of nuclear and environmental annihilation. Australians were spared the fear of bomb blasts, assassinations and kidnappings. Yet the ructions abroad invaded our national psyche, and the music that was generated in that milieu infiltrated Australian culture and transformed society forever.

The sixties was an era of extraordinary change and earth-shattering events. The music scene responded with popular anthems that reverberated across the planet. What’s more, the gun was fired on a period of unprecedented musical innovation and creativity, the likes of which have never been repeated. Freak Out describes how the USA, the UK, and the relative backwater of Australia were all dragged into global culture by the unstoppable momentum of popular music. Rock music in particular transcended borders, uniting young people across the planet with their own bespoke language. For a brief time, millions of young people actually believed they could successfully reinvent society. Liberation for pacifists, women, people of colour, homosexuals, students, and the oppressed seemed to be just a short revolution away. There was no room for complacency or apathy in the face of the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the corresponding upsurge of an ‘alternative’ or ‘underground’ culture in which music played an integral role.

After the dense miasma of the sixties, the seventies hit like a hangover. Idealism took a pounding as cynicism began to pervade western culture. Stagflation, Watergate and a war in Vietnam all weakened faith in government, while environmental disasters and an oil crisis proved there was even more to worry about than a Cold War. A culture of ' me' began to replace the hippie ideal of universal love. Yet at the same time, women and the LGBTI+ community stepped forward to actively assert their rights; the digital revolution stirred and the west embarked on a new relationship with China. Brimming with beguiling stories and little-known details, Vinyl Dreams is a fast-paced romp through the musical decade that defined all after. Whether or not you lived through the era, its music has shaped you. From the golden age of rock to the stirrings of the New Romantics, Tony Wellington traces the revolutions that reverberate through to today, showcasing the energy, fervour and enduring legacy of the decade's music.