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don't let go

  • dont let goDon’t Let Go. A Memoir – Rob Griffiths (Swerve/Off The Hip)

    He readily confesses to not being a household name but if fervent enthusiasm for rock and roll and a back catalogue of should-have-been-hits counts, Rob Griffiths should be. 

    Best-known as frontman for onetime Melbourne mod torchbearers Little Murders, Griffiths is one of the most underrated songwriters in the country, and now adds author to his c.v.

    The autobiographical “Don’t Let Go” is a ripping ride that cranks up in Melbourne music’s underground of the mid’70s and continues well beyond - as told by an immigrant Pommy kid who jumped in at the deep end. 

    Griffiths’ first band The Fiction shared stages with Boys Next Door/Birthday Party, News and JAB in a short but noisy existence. Punk was only a starting point: the did wear suits (briefly, at the end) and it was a hint of things to come. Griffiths makes the point well that the lines between genres in Melbourne are, and always were, heavily blurred.

    His ‘60s influenced Little Murders rose from The Fiction’s ashes, soaring in popularity on the back of the burgeoning mod movement of the early ‘80s. When both band and the “Quadrophenia” trend foundered, Griffiths became a club DJ, a small-time record label chief and band manager, often in tandem with a day-time career as a schoolteacher.