LEFT: the cover of the 22 September 1965 edition of Everybody's, featuring cover star Patti Boyd (wife of George Harrison).

"OUR COVER: Winsome Pattie Boyd (girlfriend of Beatle George Harrison) is just the lady to model the latest mod fashions from the Chelsea boutiques. And the beauty of London's historical buildings provides a perfect setting for Pattie in the Modern Living feature "Anything Goes With A Swing" on pages 36 and 37.

Everybody's magazine was Australia's leading "teen" publication in the early Sixties. First published in 1961, it was produced by the Packer family's Consolidated Press company. It had evolved from an earlier Packer tabloid magazine, Weekend, which flourished in the 1950s. For much of that time Weekend was under the editorship of Donald Horne. One of its most notable staffers was renowned rock writer and journalist Lillian Roxon, who wrote for the magazine for several years in the mid-1950s before moving to New York. According to Roxon's biographer, Robert Milliken, Weekend had a fairly bad reputation in "polite society" -- it was considered very "downmarket" and often featured lurid stories, often with sexual overtones. Roxon's mother was horrified by the idea of her daughter working for such a publication and reportedly concealed the fact from friends and family.

Everybody's staple content was considerably less "adult", featuring in the main stories and pinups of local and international pop music, movie and TV personalities, and aimed at the burgeoning teenage market. However, Everybody's was not averse to the occasional excursion into tabloid territiory, as evidenced by the cover shown above which features the teaser: "Black Mass in Color (sic): Shock Witchcraft Pictures".

Everybody's enjoyed a comfortable relationship with Festival Records, which was owned by the Packers' rival, News Ltd, and it did much to promote Festival artists such as Jimmy Little, whom it named "Australian Pop Star of the Year" in 1964. The magazine also covered a range of social trends; in 1964 it examined the "new beach cult" and fretted about the "surfies" -- "they come from good homes, they are well educated, why then, do they turn into common larrikins?"

Everybody's market dominance was challenged in early 1966 when the new Melbourne-based pop music magazine, Go-Set, was launched by a group of former Monash University students. Although Everybody's enjoyed the advantage of being part of a major publishing house, and had an established national readership, its position was quickly usurped and from around 1967 until its closure in 1975, Go-Set reigned supreme as Australia's pop music "bible".

In 1967 Everybody's attempted to expand its operations by starting up its own "Everybody's" record label, set up with the intention of selling singles via the magazine. But the label was resisted by radio stations, who apparently refused to play the first single -- Tony Barber's Someday -- because they considered the label name was a free advertisement for the magazine, so the label (and the single) was eventually renamed Spin and relaunched as a joint venture between Clyde Packer and Harry M. Miller and managed by American-born entrepreneur, producer and songwriter Nat Kipner.

By the late 60s the focus of the Australian pop scene was firmly in Melbourne and whereas Go-Set (which was based in Melbourne) evolved with the times and developed close links with the local pop scene, Everybody's essentially retained the one-dimensional "fanzine" style it was in the early 60s. Its circulation gradually declined, out-competed by the 'hipper' style of Go-Set, and it ceased publication in 1968.