This thesis explores the recollections of participants who were part of a cohort associated with a small punk venue known as the Grand Hotel, which operated at Railway Square, Sydney, between 1977 and 1979. While Australia’s first-wave moment has been increasingly recognised within a growing body of literature on punk, it has been considered almost exclusively in a music context. This study emphasises the sociality of punk subculture which has been largely absent from the record. The thesis comprises a creative component based on a series of video-recorded interviews, and a written exegesis. The video production, titled Distorted: Reflections on early Sydney punk, was developed through methods drawn from ethnography and other qualitative methodologies. The work presents discussion on a range of social, personal and political concerns of late 1970s Sydney through the reflections of participants. As such, it is a visual ethnography with a research focus on the past and on memory as articulated in a present setting. The written component of the thesis discusses aspects of cultural studies and subcultural theory in relation to punk as experienced in a post-colonial space, which is framed within an analysis of anthropologically-oriented ethnography. The text then discusses in detail the methodological underpinnings of the research. It is here that I advance an approach to audiovisual production which utilises computer assisted data analysis software within an analytical and conceptual framework drawn from grounded theory and narrative analysis
