Australian indie rock is part of the overall flow of Australian rock history but has a distinct history somewhat separate from mainstream rock in Australia, largely from the end of the punk rock era onwards.
History
Beginnings
Rock and roll in Australia got started in the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by the sounds coming from the United States and UK. Early on, the surf rock sound dominated, though in the mid-1960s, the beat genre from the UK had become established. Numerous garage bands formed in the cities and suburbs, and a vibrant musical culture began.
Isolated from the diversity of genres in the Northern Hemisphere, Australian mainstream record labels tried to replicate the success of trends imported from overseas and produce radio-friendly singles by successful artists such as John Farnham and the Easybeats. In the meantime, Russell Morris enjoyed a surprise hit with singles such as "The Real Thing". Produced by music legend Ian Molly Meldrum, and written by singing star Johnny Young, the single encompassed high production values and a psychedelic approach in its use of instruments such as a sitar, sampling of a children's choir, and its 6-minute running time (unusually long for the time). While released by EMI, this domestic production inspired a generation of bands, singers, and songwriters that home-grown Aussie talent could produce world-beating music. The single charted well in New York, Houston and Chicago.
Regional developments: 1970s to 1980s
Brisbane
The punk movement began in the mid-1970s, and resulted in an explosion of musical activity. Numerous bands formed, as did many independent record labels, often run out of bedrooms. An early band who gained a following in Australia were, the Saints, who grew out of Queensland and who recorded one of the first punk singles, releasing a single on vinyl before the Sex Pistols. Another important band who came out of Brisbane were the post-punk group the Go-Betweens, who relocated to Britain in the early 1980s and were one of the most acclaimed bands of the decade.
Sydney
Sydney's Radio Birdman were heavily inspired by acts such as the MC5 and the Stooges, and the band defined the sound of the punk and post-punk movement in Sydney. The sound of both Midnight Oil and INXS was influenced by Radio Birdman, especially in their early albums. In 1970s Sydney, the Australian Federal Government's "youth station" Double J operated outside the mainstream radio stations and began playing various independent acts from around the world. Double J (an AM station) eventually turned into Triple J (an FM station) in the early 1980s and began broadcasting nationally in 1989.
By the early 1980s Sydney had begun to eclipse the post-punk explosion of gloomy drug-addled Melbourne with its beach culture, summery pub music scene, and hubris. Phantom Records, a label which grew out of a popular import record store, began to record and distribute breakthrough indie acts such as the Hoodoo Gurus, the Sunnyboys and the Cockroaches. Phantom's success would inspire others to follow, with important indie champions, such as Died Pretty signed to the fledgling Citadel Label. Other labels, such as Waterfront Records, Hot Records and RooArt soon followed expanding opportunities for bands to record and release domestically. The number of venues exploded, and fueled by the expansion of FM radio and a prosperous economy, Sydney begun to prove that independent bands could make a healthy living on the pub music circuit at home, without having to first strike out to tour overseas and release internationally acclaimed albums. Other live indie bands from the 1980s era include the Hard-Ons, Celibate Rifles, New Christs, GANGgajang and the Rockmelons.
Perth
A vibrant and interesting punk and post-punk scene also developed in Perth, Western Australia. Bands such as The Victims and Cheap Nasties, spawned icons of the Australian music scene such as Dave Faulkner and James Baker, who formed one of the most popular Australian bands of the 1980s, the power-pop band Hoodoo Gurus, and the legendary Kim Salmon, who formed the Scientists, an influence on bands such as Mudhoney and The Jesus Lizard. Kim Salmon claims to have been the first person to use the term grunge to describe music. Kim Salmon and James Baker later once again collaborated in the underground rock supergroup Beasts of Bourbon, also featuring Tex Perkins and Spencer P. Jones. Perth also spawned the critically acclaimed indie-rock band The Triffids.
Melbourne
Melbourne's post-punk scene was much more experimental than any of the other capital cities. The city spawned a lot of experimental and gothic rock, of which Nick Cave's band, the Boys Next Door (later to become the Birthday Party) was the most notable and influential.
Soon the raw energy of punk evolved into post punk, which combined the DIY ethos of punk with rule-breaking, genre-defying artistic experimentation. The profusion of small, defiantly non-commercial and often unhesitatingly experimental bands became known as the "little band scene". An all-women feminist band, Girls' Garage Band, was founded in 1979 and evolved into Toxic Shock in 1980. Throughout the 1980s, it flourished in most Australian major cities, evolving around venues (such as Melbourne's Seaview Ballroom) and community radio stations such as 3RRR. A few bands, like Models, crossed over to the mainstream; others, like The Birthday Party went on to achieve critical acclaim abroad.
This era can be said to have ended in the 1990s, when in the wake of the explosion of grunge, alternative music became mainstream. Major labels signed three-chord grunge/punk-style rock bands, commercial radio played them and the 'alternative' sound soon became ubiquitous, ultimately culminating in manufactured pop groups, styled to sound raucously 'alternative' and appearing on television commercials for mobile phones. In this way, this process of mainstreaming echoes what happened in the USA and UK.
Gold Coast
thumbnail|right|The Seven Ballerinas, February 1982; from left to right, Mario Spina, John Smethurst, Michael Palmer, and John Hippocrates.
A small but active Indie Rock movement was evident on the Gold Coast in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Seven Ballerinas were an Australian Indie rock band from the Gold Coast, active from 1981 to 1984. They are a significant contributor to the alternative rock music scene on the Gold Coast, Brisbane and Sydney, being one of the first bands from the Gold Coast to perform original material to audiences Australia wide.
The Ballerinas was formed in 1981 on the Gold Coast from an amalgamation of two pre-existing new-wave bands, Ratpak and The Strand. The Macintosh Island concert was a turning point in Gold Coast music. As noted at the time, it was a move away from disco, and towards a local sound that expressed the values and attitudes of Gold Coast youth.