Andrew Stafford

Andrew Stafford works as an Australian journalist and author, writing about music, politics, sport, and the environment. His first book appeared through University of Queensland Press in 2004 as Pig City: From the Saints to Savage Garden. It traces Brisbane music from the 1970s into the early 2000s while placing bands, broadcasters, and venues within Queensland's political and social climate. Stafford connects the Saints, the Go-Betweens, Powderfinger, Savage Garden, and many lesser-known participants to questions of policing, censorship, community radio, and cultural confidence. The result is both a music history and a portrait of a city learning to value its own creative scene. A twentieth-anniversary edition from UQP appeared in 2024 with a new introduction by Eamon Sandwith and a related playlist. Stafford has also written Something to Believe In and contributed journalism to The Guardian, The Age, Griffith Review, and other Australian publications, extending the observational method that shaped his Brisbane history.