Craic As It Happened
By John Foy
(Past Present Future/Skull Printworks)
Tis the season for confessional show-and-tell Australian music books. Journalist Stuart Coupe had a shot with the entertaining “Shake Some Action”, and then underground label head-turned- mainstream industry publishing chief, Roger Grierson, gave us the rollicking “Lowbrow”. Now it’s John Foy’s turn.
Foy spent many years as a behind-the-scenes operative in the febrile underbelly of the Australian underground music scene. He kicked off in retail, made a mark as a poster designer and then became the driving force behind the Redeye and Blackeye record labels.
Like his mate Roger Grierson, he’s never been a household name, but if you bought or heard a record by Beasts of Bourbon, The Clouds, Deniz Tek, The Crystal Set, The Cruel Sea, Kim Salmon and The Surrealists and even Radio Birdman in the mid ‘80s or early ‘90s, you entered his orbit. Redeye gave the bands wide distribution via a hook-up with the multi-national Polygram/Phonogram major label operation.
Boiling it all down: Foy did deals with the devil, dealing with some major label wankers so his bands didn’t have to. He facilitated their music being taken to a broader audience. And of course his iconic cover and poster art remains some of Aussie music’s most impactful.
So what’s this Craic? One of the many online dictionaries defines it as “enjoyable time spent with other people, especially when the conversation is entertaining and funny”. The book makes it clear that John Foy has partaken his share.
“Craic As It Happened” is 396-pages of bite-sized stories and left-field ruminations told in Foy’s unique style. Tracing his story from suburban Sutherland Shire beginnings to regular treks into Sydney’s inner-city, it’s a yarn of being drawn into a nascent underground music scene.
This was a world populated by future Psychosurgeon and Lipstick Killer Mark Taylor, ‘60s punk torch carrier Lee Taylor, future brand mogul Dare Jennings, his onetime business partner Jules R..B Normington of Phantom Records, and Chris Pepperell, founder of the enduring Redeye Records retail operation.
Much of the story unfolds in the backstreets of Darlinghurst and Woolloomooloo, a territory of a few square kilometres that included venues like the Oxford Funhouse and The Civic, and record outlets in and around Town Hall Station. Don’t mistake Foy as a homebody, however. There was a right-of-passage stay in the USA in his early 20s, and his post-record label life is spent in the art, record and toy collector worlds when he becomes a Citizen of the World living in Paris, New York City and Cuba. More recently, he's been reclaiming his own poster art.
Foy’s writing style takes a little getting used to but that’s more a comment on his book's authenticity than criticism. His language is semi-formal, almost quaintly arcane, but the understated delivery makes the telling points more powerful. There are spots of gossip but Foy never seems to resort to getting square (at least it’s not overt.)
The author takes us into his own confessional and is sometimes disarmingly frank, especially when he discusses his wins against cancer. Can you imagine your girlfriend and her mother hitting up speed in front of you before you all head out for a night of clubbing? There’s an element of ADHD in the way the narrative is flipped to mini-reviews of albums or shows by bands that have shaped his thinking. Kraftwerk, Television, Lydia Lunch Neil Young and The Residents receive the Foy treatment.
It was odd not to read more about the stable of weird and confrontational bands like Lubricated Goat who were on the Redeye spin-off label Blackeye. There’s also the odd grammatical howler (call me a spelling Nazi but ‘it’ does not have a possessive apostrophe, no matter how many times you type it) and “Craic” could have done with a hard edit, but that’s nowhere near a gamebreaker.
The paperback’s production is first-class, generously peppered by previously unseen photos and Foy’s own stunning poster art. Props to Murray Bennett in that department.
It’s not a spoiler to say the relationship between Redeye and its corporate partner/master inevitably ends – more an historical fact. The competition between frenemies like Phonogram and Polydor probably assured their slow mutual self-destruction...just in time for the next corporate takeover. Foy had his own pent up frustrations by the time he exited, but plays out that chapter gracefully. Some of his bands had a reconciliation of sorts with the likes of The Clouds and The Cruel Sea having recent record releases with big label assistance so an echo of the legacy lives on.
We can live in hope that the box set of Birdman seven-inch singles that Foy floated before the 50-anniversary tour does see the light of day, but I ain’t holding my breath. It will probably be bundled with manager John Needham’s autobiography. OK that was going too far. More likely is another Foy volume (“My Cuban Missus Crisis”) and the posthumous thoughts of his mate, Big Day Out impresario Ken West.* Meanwhile, this is recommended reading.
Buy it
*This will be the catalyst to reminisce about our shared times serving behind the counter at Sydney retail store Hobbyco.
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