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Bruce Milne
Bruce Milne (born 1957) is a prominent figure in the Australian music industry, a long-standing member of the grass-roots Melbourne music community who, after getting his start publishing a punk fanzine in the late 1970s, has done practically everything since – been a writer, radio presenter, DJ, run record shops, book shops and record labels, run bars and venues, and worked in A&R and as a tour promoter.
He started out producing fanzines and writing for rock magazines and working in public radio - he has been involved with 3RRR-FM since 1977, and was still doing a show for the station in 2023 - then worked for Missing Link Records, and then formed his own label-cum-shop Au-Go-Go, which defined a whole Melbourne sound and ethos in the 1980s/90s.
In the early '80s, Milne also ran the audio cassette magazine cassette-zine Fast Forward. After its demise and the demise of Au-Go-Go, he successively headed three other labels, Giant Claw, Reliant and In-Fidelity, who along with Au-Go-Go collectively debuted such bands as the Scientists, the Moodists, Harem Scarem, God, Magic Dirt, Spiderbait, the Meanies, the Datsuns, the 5.6.7.8s and many others.
After working in the late '90s/early 2000s in major label ventures and running the bar the International, Milne took over running the Collingwood pub the Tote, whose enforced closure in 2010 became the rallying point to keep live music alive in Melbourne.
As the offspring of Melbourne bohemia (his mother, a child psychiatrist, co-wrote ABC-TV's Play School theme song; his brother Peter Milne is a noted photographer), the teenage Milne attend the famous Swinburne alternative school, a breeding ground for other such illustrious alumni as musician and friend Rowland S. Howard, film-maker Richard Lowenstein and comedian Gina Riley.
In 1977, Milne started his career as a volunteer announcer at 3CR; he put out Australia's first punk fanzine Plastered Press, put on the first-ever gig by the Boys Next Door, and helped put on the 'Punk Gunk' gig on the street in Carlton on New Year's Eve. In 1978, he joined forces with Clinton Walker when he moved to Melbourne and together they put out the Pulp fanzine and presented the 3RRR show Know Your Product. He and Walker then got involved with the inception of Roadrunner magazine in Adelaide, and Milne formed the label Au-Go-Go Records to release a single by the band he then managed, seminal Melbourne post-punk outfit the Young Charlatans. But the band broke up before he could do so, so the label's first release became an EP by Swinburne mates Two Way Garden called Overnight.
Milne then went to work for Keith Glass on his Missing Link Records shop and label. Missing Link was a centre of the Melbourne scene in the early '80s, with bands on its label like the Birthday Party, the Laughing Clowns, Whirlywirld and the Go Betweens, and with Milne working behind the counter and in the backroom running Au-Go-Go. Milne also worked closely, if uncredited, on other labels, like Innocent Records, the brainchild of polymath Philip Brophy and musician David Chesworth. Brophy and Chesworth were driving forces behind the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre, which was another dimension to Melbourne's 'little bands' scene as portrayed in Richard Lowenstein's 1986 feature film Dogs in Space. Brophy, who designed the original Au-Go-Go logo, would go on as a long-standing collaborator with Milne.
At the end of 1978, Milne also got involved with Andrew Maine on the post-punk cassette-zine Fast Forward that had a world-wide impact and even inspired the launch of Sub-Pop in Seattle. When Keith Glass sold the Missing Link shop to concentrate, ill-fatedly, on its label iteration, Bruce Milne opened his own shop iteration of Au-Go-Go. With a new partner Greta Moon, he stepped up the label's profile, signing such acts as the Scientists and Dave Graney’s band the Moodists, and putting out seminal compilation albums like Asleep at the Wheel. When Andrew Maine wanted to take Fast Forward in a more Face-like club culture/dance music direction, the partnership and the venture folded.
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Bruce Milne
Bruce Milne (born 1957) is a prominent figure in the Australian music industry, a long-standing member of the grass-roots Melbourne music community who, after getting his start publishing a punk fanzine in the late 1970s, has done practically everything since – been a writer, radio presenter, DJ, run record shops, book shops and record labels, run bars and venues, and worked in A&R and as a tour promoter.
He started out producing fanzines and writing for rock magazines and working in public radio - he has been involved with 3RRR-FM since 1977, and was still doing a show for the station in 2023 - then worked for Missing Link Records, and then formed his own label-cum-shop Au-Go-Go, which defined a whole Melbourne sound and ethos in the 1980s/90s.
In the early '80s, Milne also ran the audio cassette magazine cassette-zine Fast Forward. After its demise and the demise of Au-Go-Go, he successively headed three other labels, Giant Claw, Reliant and In-Fidelity, who along with Au-Go-Go collectively debuted such bands as the Scientists, the Moodists, Harem Scarem, God, Magic Dirt, Spiderbait, the Meanies, the Datsuns, the 5.6.7.8s and many others.
After working in the late '90s/early 2000s in major label ventures and running the bar the International, Milne took over running the Collingwood pub the Tote, whose enforced closure in 2010 became the rallying point to keep live music alive in Melbourne.
As the offspring of Melbourne bohemia (his mother, a child psychiatrist, co-wrote ABC-TV's Play School theme song; his brother Peter Milne is a noted photographer), the teenage Milne attend the famous Swinburne alternative school, a breeding ground for other such illustrious alumni as musician and friend Rowland S. Howard, film-maker Richard Lowenstein and comedian Gina Riley.
In 1977, Milne started his career as a volunteer announcer at 3CR; he put out Australia's first punk fanzine Plastered Press, put on the first-ever gig by the Boys Next Door, and helped put on the 'Punk Gunk' gig on the street in Carlton on New Year's Eve. In 1978, he joined forces with Clinton Walker when he moved to Melbourne and together they put out the Pulp fanzine and presented the 3RRR show Know Your Product. He and Walker then got involved with the inception of Roadrunner magazine in Adelaide, and Milne formed the label Au-Go-Go Records to release a single by the band he then managed, seminal Melbourne post-punk outfit the Young Charlatans. But the band broke up before he could do so, so the label's first release became an EP by Swinburne mates Two Way Garden called Overnight.
Milne then went to work for Keith Glass on his Missing Link Records shop and label. Missing Link was a centre of the Melbourne scene in the early '80s, with bands on its label like the Birthday Party, the Laughing Clowns, Whirlywirld and the Go Betweens, and with Milne working behind the counter and in the backroom running Au-Go-Go. Milne also worked closely, if uncredited, on other labels, like Innocent Records, the brainchild of polymath Philip Brophy and musician David Chesworth. Brophy and Chesworth were driving forces behind the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre, which was another dimension to Melbourne's 'little bands' scene as portrayed in Richard Lowenstein's 1986 feature film Dogs in Space. Brophy, who designed the original Au-Go-Go logo, would go on as a long-standing collaborator with Milne.
At the end of 1978, Milne also got involved with Andrew Maine on the post-punk cassette-zine Fast Forward that had a world-wide impact and even inspired the launch of Sub-Pop in Seattle. When Keith Glass sold the Missing Link shop to concentrate, ill-fatedly, on its label iteration, Bruce Milne opened his own shop iteration of Au-Go-Go. With a new partner Greta Moon, he stepped up the label's profile, signing such acts as the Scientists and Dave Graney’s band the Moodists, and putting out seminal compilation albums like Asleep at the Wheel. When Andrew Maine wanted to take Fast Forward in a more Face-like club culture/dance music direction, the partnership and the venture folded.