Some People Question the Royal Guardsmen's Imagination: the Lillian Roxon Thread

A friend posted about her on Facebook: she died 50 years ago yesterday. She should have her own thread. Before Marcus, before Christgau, before anyone, she was the first music writer to have a huge influence on me. I'll use this to periodically quote something that captures the peculiar genius of her Rock Encyclopedia (which I have in three different sizes and editions). I just randomly opened it up tonight, and for starters, she even managed to say something nice about Pat Boone, and that ain't easy:

Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, Pat Boone did much to popularize early rock and roll songs with a large segment of the public that might otherwise never have heard them or bought them.

She really tried to see whatever sliver of good there was in anyone she wrote about...well, maybe she drew the line at the Royal Guardsmen.

(Who, personally, I much prefer to Pat Boone.)

I really tried with that bio from awhile back, but peaced out before even getting into her journalism career--the author gets way way too deep into '50s Australian youth cliques and not enough into Lillian.

Like, if you liked the Push so much, why didn't you write a book about that instead?

Not sure if I knew about that or not--I take it you're a fan of her work.

I like the Encyclopedia, which is the extent of her writing I'm familiar with. Any recs past that?

That's all I know--first encountered it almost 50 years ago in a school library.

This would have been the first "rock book" I encountered in the local library, before finding Christgau's 70s book at another library, further away (where it was in the reference section, thus not circulating). My only specific memory is that she was apparently so nonplussed by Tim Buckley's Lorca that her entire description was listing the lengths of the songs.

"Smacked-out murk mumbles" was Bangs' take, and the most complimentary thing I've heard about that album.

That's funny; earlier tonight I went to look at Piero Scaruffi's website, which I usually avoid since it's unreadable, and he calls it the 6th greatest LP in history!

I still remember one of her opening salvos on The Doors - "whenever the press mentions the Doors, the comparisons fly like grenades in an air raid."

The TV documentary made from the biography is pretty good, but there's still a lot about 1950s Australia.

OK by me---I wanna know about those xpost '50s Australian youth cliques and the Push!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR64lF2agbM

OK by me---I wanna know about those xpost '50s Australian youth cliques and the Push!

I took a look... there's an avi of it on slsk. As I recall, the doc is OK - but I think you're better off just reading random sections from the Rock Encyclopedia. Hers was the first rock book I ever ran across too.

Here's the trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwMxnV7ThZI