Youth Group - Urban & Eastern (2000)

Songwriter Toby Martin said his compositions were influenced by You Am I's Tim Rogers, particularly on that band's Hourly Daily album. In Urban & Eastern's opening track, "Blue Leaves, Red Dust," he sang: "No more songs of Tallahassee and Nashville, there are songs here right outside the windowsill." He told The Sydney Morning Herald: "I like music that has a strong sense of place in it. I like realism and like lyrics that seem like they're coming from a real place."

By 2004, when the band's follow-up album was released, Martin was distancing himself from the debut. "The whole attitude and the sound is kind of naive to me now—charmingly naive, I hope," he said. "Urban & Eastern was a bit more raucous—longer songs, more elaborate arrangements. What were we thinking? We were young, we were arrogant, we thought the world was ours. I'm much, much happier with this one." Martin said the limited-release debut album had become a rarity, telling one newspaper: "It's almost impossible (to find it)—I don't even have a copy at the moment."