Shake Some Action: My life in music

by Stuart Coupe

For over four decades, Stuart Coupe has been at the heart of the Australian music scene, experiencing the giddy highs, crushing lows and everything in between that comes along with a life lived in the creative fast lane.

When he wasn’t writing a weekly music column in the Sun-Herald or contributing to the likes of RAM and dozens of other publications, he was manager of Hoodoo Gurus and Paul Kelly. When he wasn’t trekking to Paris to interview Springsteen or consuming way too much cocaine before interviewing Bob Dylan, he was writing books about the burgeoning New Wave music movement, a biography of Michael Gudinski or collaborating with Tex Perkins. When he wasn’t organising tours and publicity for a string of overseas acts, including Gary Glitter, Harry Dean Stanton, The Cramps and The Clash, he was establishing ground-breaking indie record labels, or dialling into a generation as the music critic for Dolly (or infuriating them by labelling Duran Duran ‘Yawn Yawn’).

Sometimes, he was doing most of the above all at once. Always at full throttle. Always with an unwavering belief in the artist in the art, in the next album, the next set, the next project, the next big thing.

Shake Some Action tells the story of Coupe’s remarkable life as a music obsessive, one that started in Launceston, Tasmania, but would take him around the world and back, and into the orbit of some of the greatest artists of our time. It’s a book about fandom and burning to find the perfect words to pass that love on to others – and the myriad adventures, misadventures and personal costs that come with staying true.

Get ready to kick out the jams!

469 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 8, 2023

Reviews

[Simone Keane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a lot of late nights not wanting to put this one down. Stuart Coupe's memoir struck the right balance between the dark night of the soul where drugs and alcohol were an inevitable part of the music industry, and the ridiculously funny adventures and misadventures with various notorious characters. Some greatly talented characters too, all real people from a time before Spotify and Apple Music. Stuart's memoir describes the beginnings of Paul Kelly's music career which includes a sightseeing trip around the United States, an intensely arty interview with Leonard Cohen, an unnerving meeting with 'The Stranglers' and a very public argument between two rival promoters. That incident is hilarious to read about but was probably not so amusing at the time. From the outset the reader understands why why Stuart Coupe is so loyally passionate about music. We learn why he wanted to write about bands, manage bands, promote bands, start a record label, start a record shop in a perilous part of town, be amongst all the heady action of the Australian Music Industry and the Newspaper game. His writing flows with the cool ease of a Gonzo journalist and the soul of a Beatnik poet who wants to tell us ALL the wild crazy stuff.