BOOK REVIEW: GUDINSKI by Stuart Cope

BOOK REVIEW: GUDINSKI by Stuart Cope
Hachette Australia
28 July 2015
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
8/10

Stuart Cope paints a fascinating yet incomplete picture of Michael Gudinski in this book which is simultaneously indispensible and less-than-comprehensive.

Gudinski has long been a workaholic, so it’s no surprise that the story of his life and the story of Mushroom Records, Frontier Touring and his many other business ventures are completely intertwined.

Where Cope falls down is in ignoring huge areas of Gudinski’s non-business life. As a long-time associate and perhaps friend, Cope treads all-too-lightly around the big fella’s private life, alluding over and over to hard partying and bad craziness, without giving us many concrete examples, or even rumours. That Gudinski married and had kids is barely mentioned in passing once or twice – once when son Matt he joined the business, and again when daughter Jade’s music career is glossed over in two scant paragraphs, one of which details the conflict of Gudinski helping her career along with his considerable industry might. There’s no exploration of his meeting and courtship of wife Sue: she is merely there, and only fleetingly in the pages of this tome.

That said, the story of Mushroom and Frontier is an amazing one, and many an act – both local and international – would have struggled to be remembered in this country if not for their efforts. Many others are, probably necessarily due to space restrictions, omitted entirely or mentioned only in passing, and this does seem unfair at times – but the main problem is that the book struggles to know whether it is documenting the man or his business life, and walks a line down the middle, rather than attempting to be comprehensive. In doing so it stays in safe territory and therefore falls short of being a definitive

study.

 

 

Category: Book Reviews