V/ tier
Verified
Backed by an independent published source — Pig City, the CCC report, press, 4ZZZ, public gig listings.
The Key
Five classes of source.
Every claim in the record
carries one of them.
C/ tier
Corroborated
Confirmed by a scene primary source: the filmed documentaries, recorded interviews, the people who were on the bill.
M/ tier
Magazine
This magazine's own record — Breakbone's published pieces, the 2024 first edition, and the interviews we ran ourselves.
T/ tier
Testimony
Scene memory and oral history, stated plainly as memory in the text and never dressed up as documented fact.
S/ tier
Submission
Sent in by someone who was there, through the form, and used exactly as far as they gave us permission to use it.
How to read it: the chapters below list each chapter's load-bearing claims with the class behind them. Where sources disagree, the record keeps the disagreement on the page instead of smoothing it over. This record would rather be right than look right.
What's Behind
Each Chapter
Eight chapters.
The claims that carry weight,
and where they come from.
Chapter One · 1976–78
Stranded in Pig City
Four state-school kids and the single that started everything. The documentary spine here is unusually solid; where the legend and the record diverge, both are shown.
V
The Saints' chronology, the $200 Window Studios session, the 500 self-pressed copies of (I'm) Stranded, 'This Perfect Day' reaching UK #34.Verified · Pig City
V
The Hamilton Hall and Rocking Horse raids and the Task Force crackdown on the early gigs.Verified · Pig City
V
4ZZZ backing the Saints when the punk question split the station — the Radio Times pledge, the on-air fairness clause.Verified · Pig City, quoted
V
Bailey knocked out on stage at an early show, the band playing on; 'better to be a Saint than a sap' from the band's own press kit.Verified · Kuepper interview · Sire press release
V
The origin of (I'm) Stranded as a train trip to Oxley — printed as the shared core because the surviving accounts disagree on the detail, and the record says so.Verified / Magazine · conflict shown, not smoothed
M
The $25 warehouse-floor gigs and the cannon line, carried from the first edition.Magazine · 2024 first edition
T
The Saints' peak happening in Brisbane before anyone famous knew — Club 76, the Window session, nobody knew but everybody there did.Testimony · scene memory
Chapter Two · 1979–1989
The Hard Years
Demolition, raids and a radio siege. The public record carries most of it; the first edition fills the local colour.
V
The Queen's Hotel gigs, the demolition of Cloudland in November 1982, and the 4ZZZ siege of December 1988.Verified · Pig City / 4ZZZ
V
The Go-Betweens and the Able Label; the under-18 bar as the long-standing default rather than a single-year invention.Verified
M
The Swampies and the Hungry Jack's gig spot.Magazine · 2024 first edition
Chapter Three · 1990s
Brisbane Underground Music
The decade with the biggest paper trail and the biggest argument over what happened. Numbers in dispute are printed as a range.
C
BUMS, formed 1990, and the 'primary source document' creed that this whole record runs on.Corroborated · BUMS documentary
V
Livid at UQ — the crowd printed as a range because the published sources themselves disagree on the figure.Verified · interview + record, range kept
V
Market Day 1996, the storm, the 71 arrests, and the CJC clearing police in December 1997.Verified · CCC / CJC report
T
The scene remembering that day as a police riot.Testimony · scene memory, named as such
V
The emo wave dated to the back half of the 2000s — corrected against the bands' own public timelines.Verified · public release record
S
One night in this chapter sent in by a reader who was there.Submission · consent given
Chapter Four · 2010s
The Quiet Stretch
The DIY spaces and the licensing squeeze that closed them. Addresses and dates verified against the public record.
V
The Lab, 2013–17, at 5 Hubert Street, last recorded show in February 2017.Verified
V
Outer Space as an artist-run initiative, founded 2016, in its Montague Road warehouse era.Verified
V
The 2016–17 licensing tightening — last-drinks, ID scanners, venues winding back — read as the economic squeeze on all-ages music.Verified · public record
Chapter Five · 2018–2023
The Great Revival
Casualty Records and the years the scene came back. A mix of dated public listings, filmed interviews and the bands' own published words.
C
The 4ZZZ training in December 2018 and the Late Night Collective.Corroborated · the mini-doco
M
'Shit Day' in April 2019 and the run of Casualty signings from April 2020.Magazine · with public listings where available
V
Shedfest, February 2022, fourteen acts.Verified · Humanitix listing
M
Piss Off formed June 2021, with their big break coming through a Casualty album gig — from their own interview in Subscene.Magazine · Subscene #1 interview
T
The Peace Centre as the scene's high point, and its closure to all-ages shows at the end of 2022.Testimony · scene record
V
Project Subscene, 12 March 2023, at BackDock Arts — eight bands in one day, the scene's Knebworth.Verified · public listing + scene framing
Chapter Six · 2023–2024
The Next Generation
Deadtrigger and the kids who picked it up. Founders' own writeups and interviews, with the one widely-told story that turned out to be false corrected on the page.
M
Deadtrigger out of YMCA Youth Week in March 2023, first gig that June.Magazine · the founder's own writeup + interviews
V
SkatePUNK, April 2024 — free entry, the lineup, the turnout.Verified · press + Magazine
M
The real account of a key founder's exit and the bands that formed in the wake of it — the version that corrects a widely-repeated story this record had wrong the first time.Magazine / Testimony · corrected in print
V
Casualty 'paused' — its own word for it, off its own page.Verified · Casualty's own page
Chapter Seven · 2024–2025
Breakbone & the Slumber
This magazine arriving, and the scene going quiet around it. Most of this is first-hand — gigs attended, issues published — with the cause of the quiet kept to what's on the record.
M
The Big Takeover on 4 May 2024, the first issue on 13 May 2024, the broken-bone name and the motto.Magazine · the founding record + Instagram
M
School's (Almost) Out, 9 November 2024 — from our own review, written on the night.Magazine · unpublished review, first-hand
M
Happy Feet at the Bardon Bowls Club, September 2024 — the scene's biggest, glossiest, slightly-beside-the-point night.Magazine · attended
M
The end of Gormless, with the founders starting university; Cyclone Alfred in March 2025 among the contributing causes.Magazine + Verified · public record
M
The Substation's last gig at the end of January 2026.Magazine · settled against the issue record
S
An anonymous voice in this chapter, sent in through the form.Submission · anonymity requested
Chapter Eight · 2026 · now
It Got Back Up
This winter, written as it happened. Mostly first-hand, with the closing word handed back to the book that started the genre's paper trail.
M
The Big Break on 9 April 2026, 55 through the door.Magazine · attended
M
May Metal Mayhem, 15 May, Coorparoo Hall — self-funded, the full lineup.Magazine
M
Punk in the Park, 13 June 2026, a Thornlands skatepark — Deadtrigger's first gig in eight months, the whole show finishing on one power cable in the rain.Magazine · attended
V
The closing words drawn from Pig City's tenth-anniversary epilogue — written, in its author's phrase, 'for another, younger writer'.Verified · Pig City epilogue
T
The line of succession read as scene-structure — Casualty to Project Punk to Deadtrigger to the kids hiring halls now.Testimony · this record's reading
Honest about the gaps
Still
Chasing
- The Casualty farewellThe exact wording of the goodbye post is gone from every public page. It stands in the text on the first edition's account until a screenshot surfaces.
- Censure magazineAn early-2022 zine, named in a documentary and otherwise untraced. A submission could bring it back.
- The bits only you haveHalf of this scene never made it to a page. If you were there, the form is open, and your night goes in the record under your name or no name.
Now read
the record.
The receipts are the working. The history is the thing they hold up.