PRE-ORDER! Mitch L. Ryan - Dick Diver's Calendar Days Book

PRE-ORDER! Officially out 1 October, but copies may or may not be shipping early....

Critically acclaimed upon its 2013 release, Dick Diver's sophomore album Calendar Days poeticized the banality of daily life in melodic pop music that drew upon coversational language and local references, all sung with thick Australian accents and jangling guitars. It was a sound that would become emblematic of the micro-genre dolewave, a joking reference to a group of bands that emerged from the same scene on Australia's east coast.

This book uses Calendar Days to tease out the histories of the band, the scene, and the genre of dolewave. Situating it within a broader history of Australian independent music and politics from the late 2000s to the early 2010s, it not only offers the first historical account of a recent major movement in contemporary Australian music, but it also considers the unique conditions that Australian musicians operated within during the period, from social welfare issues, to blogging networks, to ever present debates around cultural identity. –Back of book blurb