Qld Punk Pioneers The Saints To Be Immortalised Through Brisbane Mural

Celebrated Qld punk-rock icons The Saints will be the subject of a large-scale inner-city mural in Brisbane, commemorating the 40th anniversary of their seminal debut album, (I'm) Stranded.

Announced by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at the official launch of BIGSOUND in Fortitude Valley this morning, the mural — and an accompanying live music and recording event — will receive $61,930 in funding as part of the government's efforts to foster "a diverse and vibrant arts sector", the Premier said.

More specifically, the governmental spend will amount to $56,930 from Arts Queensland's Qld Arts Showcase Program (QASP) along with $5000 and in-kind support from Environment & Heritage Protection.

"We're proud to support significant cultural projects, along with events like BIGSOUND, which has grown to become Australia's largest gathering for the contemporary music industry, bringing thousands of people to our state each year and making a significant contribution to cultural toursim," she said.

The mural and complementary live and recording project is the brainchild of former Go-Betweens bassist and respected academic John Willsteed, who has found the perfect location for the work, on the north side of Upper Roma Street — "close to The Saints' original practice room, share house and live music venue at 4 Petrie Terrace, known as Club 76", he said.

"In conjunction with this will be a concert and recording by former Saint Ed Kuepper, who will reimagine songs from the first three Saints albums in collaboration with Robert Davidson of Topology," Willsteed explained.

BIGSOUND held its first night of showcases in Fortitude Valley last night, with Premier Palaszczuk noting, "Many of the 150-plus musical acts converging on Brisbane for BIGSOUND would acknowledge the huge influence of The Saints, for not only helping change the face of rock music worldwide in the 1970s but for showing that a Queensland band could have a big impact on the world stage, paving the way for many of the great Queensland musical acts to follow."

The conference and showcase event continues through till this Friday, 8 September.