The Story of Bryan Cook and Inner City 90s Sydney

Inner city Sydney in the 1980s and 90s was a very special place. I first spent extended amounts of time in Newtown from 1991. The creativity and energy of the community was amazing. Music, art, performance and writing as well as dancing, singing, sculpting and raving were happening everywhere. Large loft-style warehouse spaces could be rented for a few hundred dollars a week and large groups could live in them too. I moved permanently to Sydney in late 1992 and the city was my base late 1999. The city has changed a lot since then and on my first and only visit back since, in 2023, it was almost unrecognisable.

This is the story of Bryan Cook. A local inner city photographer and Australian independent music lover who captured some of the most unique, unseen photos around the inner city pubs like The Hopetoun, The Vulcan, The Sydney Trade Union Club The Evening star, The Strawberry Hills Hotel and more.

His love of film and digital photography inadvertently captured a music scene that was never given a lot of attention or documented by the mainstream press. Dr Gregory Ferris, an esteemed academic from the UTS, discovered Cookie's extensive, extraordinary and rarely seen photos and exhibited them at the Powerhouse Museum in an interactive display that recreated the Hopetoun Hotel. Cookie has confirmed that the total number of photographs taken over the years exceeded 80,000, a monumental achievement.

This video was the concept of Ed Garland and Nick Bleszynski, who were determined to expose to the world the amazing photography of Bryan (Cookie) Cook and his accidental documentation of a unique time in Australian music history.

Interviews: Clyde Bramley (Hoodoo Gurus)

Jon Roberts (The Barbarellas)

Geoff Datson (Samurai Trash)

Susie Beauchamp (Box the Jesuit)

Dr Gregory Ferris (UTS Academic)

Ed Garland (Waxworks)

Credit to Nick Bleszynski for footage at the Moshpit Newtown and the scene with Dr Ferris.