Description

This study of Dick Diver's acclaimed 2013 album, Calendar Days, discusses the work within its cultural and historical context.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 conversational 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 of 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