THE SILVER RIVER

A memoir of family — lost, made and found

Jim Moginie

Tathra Hotel. Saturday 20 April from 3pm.

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 the startling rise and global success of one of Australia's most iconic rock bands, Midnight Oil. Through the ups and downs of writing and releasing generation-defining songs, touring relentlessly, and enduring the intense scrutiny drawn by the band's uncompromising lyrics and environmental activism, the members of Midnight Oil developed a feeling of 'five against the world', the firm friends forming a de facto family.

For Jim Moginie, the band was a calling and a refuge, and a distraction from a growing feeling that something was missing from his life. Raised by a loving family, he'd learned as a child that his biological mother had given him up for adoption. Gradually, alongside the Oils' unfolding saga of stardom and controversy, Jim began a quest to find his birth family, these twin paths leading him from suburban Sydney through the nascent Australian punk scene and the uncharted musical territory of the Western deserts to the stadiums of Europe and America, the meandering roads and verdant hills of rural Ireland, countless musical collaborations, and poignant reunions with band members and long-lost relatives.

Threaded with vivid recollections of childhood and travel, 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.

Jim Moginie was raised in Sydney's northern suburbs and attended high school by the banks of Sydney Harbour, 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 guitarist Martin Rotsey 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.

Joshua Becker is the rural reporter at ABC South East NSW.

Before joining ABC Rural, Joshua worked producing programs for ABC Local Radio in Wodonga, Wagga Wagga, Orange and Sydney.

He grew up in Tumut in the Riverina, so it wasn't far down the road to reach Bega and start reporting on the wide range of industries in the region, from commercial fishing along the coast, the rich dairying region around Bega and the historic grazing country on the Monaro.

An occasional musician and sports tragic there is plenty to keep Joshua busy in the south east.

You can hear Joshua Monday to Friday on the ABC South East at 6:38am with all the latest rural news from the southeast and Gippsland regions.