Noise in my Head

The Ugly Australian Underground documents the music, songwriting, aesthetics, lives, and struggles of 50 of Australia's most innovative and creatively significant bands and artists at the peak of their careers. The book provides a rare insight into the most 'happening' cult music scenes in Australia.

The author, Jimi Kritzler, is both a journalist and a musician and is personally connected to the musicians he interviews through his own involvement in this music subculture. The interviews are extremely personal and reveal much more than any interview granted to street press or blogs. They deal with not only the music and songwriting processes of each band but, in some circumstances, their struggles with drugs, the death of band members, and involvement in crime. The book is complemented by previously unpublished photographs of all the bands interviewed.

The Australian underground scene in the last five years has been heralded not only in Australia but also in Europe and particularly America. Known as the "Australian Invasion" in America, many of the bands interviewed in this book have received a great deal of hype and press in America, with many of the bands signing to American record labels.

Bands featured in the book, like The Drones, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Royal Headache, Uv Race, Circle Pit, HTRK, Lost Animal, Oren Ambarchi, Total Control, Witch Hats, Deaf Wish, Blank Realm, New War, Holy Balm, Fabulous Diamonds, The Garbage and The Flowers, Straight Arrows, xNoBBQx, Naked on the Vague, Kitchens Floor, and My Disco, are all on American record labels and have all toured America at least once. Eddy Current Suppression Ring even lent their song 'Memory Lane' to an American telecommunications company advertisement, which was played repeatedly during the Super Bowl.

Whilst that may indicate the influence of the band in America at the more mainstream end of the spectrum, at the other end, Eddy Current Suppression Ring are a culturally significant and revered underground band both in Australia and America who play to thousands of people at any given show.

The bands in this book have dedicated fan bases both in Australia and America who recognise that this crop of bands are the most creatively important in the Australian music scene today. These are the bands that will be remembered in twenty years for having created seminal records. Already The Drones and Eddy Current Suppression Ring have won The Music Prize as well as both being named in the "100 Best Australian Albums of All-Time."