The Thousands

I grew up in the middle class north eastern suburbs of Adelaide – more north than east. It was pretty well average as far as I remember. At least it seemed so. Stuck in a burb with one shopping centre surrounded by seemingly insurmountable sprawl for a soon to be teen. The relative banality of day to day repetition. School holidays of: “What should we do, Daniel?”, my best friend also named Daniel would ask, “Wanna go to the shops and hang out?” “Yeah, I guess,” I would guess. This would often end in trying to skateboard with the older guys, ogling girls that were clearly too old for us (or were we too young? We were 11), building crap jumps for our BMXs, and probably throwing some rocks and/or fruit.

Live… Suburbia by Anthony Pappalardo and Max G Morton is essentially a personal photo album and curation – punctuated by Morton and Pappalardo’s punchy acidic prose – of growing up in suburban Boston in the 80s. And while it is half a world away it has more in common with anyone who has enjoyed the joys of low density living than you might at first think. At its core, it’s but one version of something we all experience – it’s about growing up and finding things while stumbling through the maze of adolescence.

For these Bostonites it was preadolescent white-belt sidekicks to learning the skinhead skip, from bikes on the front lawn to chasing girls in the mall, from Kiss to Cro-Mags to Oi! punk to straight edge to art rock, to urethane on concrete and heading off to college. The catalogue of photos is expansive, from the oh so suburban normal to others that really capture the time – Kiss face paint, impressive mullets, and the hardcore scene. Not only is it about the imagery, it’s also a great read and an interesting window into a bunch of kids’ lives.