R.I.P. Michael Shrimpton Creator of Countdown

Chris Doheny, the Melbourne-born singer, songwriter and frontman best known for leading 80s pop-rock outfit Geisha and lending his voice to the AFL anthem More Than A Game, has died in a road accident on the Thiele Highway, near Kings Bridge Road, Kapunda.

When Mondo Rock released Baby Wants To Rock in 1984, they were riding high on a string of Australian hits but still searching for a global breakthrough. The single became a staple on Australian radio, helped cement the group’s reputation as one of the most consistent hitmakers of the 80s, and decades later, found an unlikely new audience with its appearance in the 2025 film The Naked Gun.

Skyhooks archivist Peter Green has discovered Skyhooks footage nearly 50 years old long thought to have been lost.

The Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum short documentary from the Australian Music Vault has been reposted to mark the 50th anniversary of Countdown.

The very first Countdown aired in Australia on 8 November 1974, at 6:30pm on a Friday and its original duration was to fit inside a 30 minute slot.

Online sales for the Countdown 50 cent coin, released today (3 October 2024) by the Royal Australian Mint, was an instant sell-out.

Molly Meldrum’s “wardrobe malfunction” apology has become a case of something better left unsaid with further fall-out after actor Samuel Johnson pleaded with “the national treasure” to clean up his act.