The Silver River, Jim Moginie
The Silver River, Jim Moginie
List: $28.99 | Sale: $20.29
Club: $14.49

The Silver River

Author: Jim Moginie

Narrator: Jim Moginie

Unabridged: 9 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 03/06/2024


Synopsis

A moving and inspiring memoir of families lost and rediscovered, by a founding member of legendary band Midnight Oil.
For fifty years, songwriter, guitarist and keyboard player Jim Moginie was a driving force behind one of Australia's most iconic rock bands, Midnight Oil. As they made their way through the nascent domestic punk scene and the uncharted musical territory of the Western Desert to the concert halls of Europe and America, the band members developed a feeling of 'five against the world'. For Jim, this de facto family was a bulwark against a nagging sense that something was missing from his life: he'd long known that his biological mother had given him up for adoption as a baby. While Midnight Oil grappled with the challenges of chart success, their political activism and global tours, Jim's quest to find his birth family increasingly led him in different directions, to the quiet suburbs of Canberra and the meandering rivers and verdant hills of rural Ireland - and emotional reunions with long-lost relatives.Threaded with vivid recollections of childhood, behind-the-scenes stories of band life and fascinating insights into the creative processes that produced some of this country's most beloved songs, The Silver River is at once a lyrical coming-of-age story, a heart-warming family chronicle and a must-read for anyone interested in the history of Australian music.

About Jim Moginie

Jim Moginie was raised in Sydney's northern suburbs and attended high school in the city, where he befriended future Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst. Together with another friend, Andrew James, they formed the band Farm, before recruiting singer Peter Garrett and changing their name to Midnight Oil. Jim is best known as a songwriter, guitarist and keyboard player for the Oils, but his career has also spanned dozens of less well known creative adventures, from playing traditional Irish music with Shameless Seamus & the Tullamore Dews and creating soundscapes for eight guitars under the banner of Jim Moginie's Electric Guitar Orchestra, to playing with punk-edged cerebral rock band the Family Dog and surf instrumentalists The Break. Jim has also collaborated with prominent artists such as Silverchair, Sarah Blasko, the Warumpi Band, the Living End, Kasey Chambers, Neil Finn and the Australian Chamber Orchestra.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Andrew on March 28, 2024

A must-read for Midnight Oil fans. This reads as a personal and poignant account of an extraordinary (and yet ordinary) man's life. His reflections are deep and thought-provoking and reading it you find yourself reflecting on a life lived. A unique view of the Oils and their career through the eyes......more

Goodreads review by Nick on March 23, 2024

Really loved this. Moginie's writing is effortless, his imagery precise - a real economy of style. The Silver River is a warts-and-all Midnight Oil music memoir - not in terms of depictions of excess, but of getting inside the psychology of the campaign for success, the realisation of that success an......more

Goodreads review by Dan on March 23, 2024

I loved the Midnight Oil stories, especially those about the challenges with just making a profit on some of the later tours and with the downturn of sales and airplay in the '90s and beyond. But what makes this book from Jim Moginie so compelling is his search for his birth parents and how open Jim......more

Goodreads review by Geoff on May 18, 2024

What a wonderfully poetic writer Jim Moginie is. No surpise if you’ve heard his guitar playing and song writing in Midnight Oil. Moginie weaves the story of the Oils, the search for his biological parents and discovery of his Irish heritage in this excellent memoir. Highly recommended.......more

Goodreads review by Brendan on July 25, 2024

I loved this book. The audiobook is read by the author, the creator, the musician and songwriter, and one of the massive driving forces that powered Midnight Oil. Already one of my favourite bands, this book only gave me another level of appreciation for their body of work. Also a very person and he......more