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negative fun

  • hollywood albumHollywood – The Fiction (Off The Hip)

    Much water has passed under the bridge since 1978 when The Fiction was one of a handful of struggling punk rock bands in the womb of a nascent Melbourne underground music scene.

    Like a spark, The Fiction came and went. Some of their songs made it into the setlist of mod-flavoured pop-rockers Little Murders, which has become as much a brand as a band for vocalist-guitarist-songwriter Rob Griffiths, its only constant member.

    Griffiths (vocals) and Rob Wellington (guitar) remain from the original band and although the passage of time may have buffed off the sharper edges, the reconstituted Fiction still trades in high-energy pop punk.

  • negative funIt could have been called “Short Lives Of The Poor and Obscure”. 

    Like Reals, Negatives, Young Charlatans and News/Babeez, The Fiction is but a footnote in Melbourne punk’s earliest days, briefly existing from 1978-79. They released a posthumous EP under the name Little Murders, kickstarting that enduring brand and the career of its leader, Rob Griffiths.  They also enjoyed the patronage of the rightly-lauded Melbourne punk mover and shaker Bruce Milne and Pulp, the zine he ran with Clinton Walker. 

    The Fiction had a loose affiliation with those glam-sheep- in-punk-wolves clothing, La Femme, sharing a practice space and a manager. Musically, The Fiction seems to have been drawing more from bands like The Who and the Small Faces, although there’s undoubtedly a bit of Bowie in there, too.