Australian Crawl
Australian Crawl | |
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John Watson Mark Greig Harry Brus |
Australian Crawl (often called Aussie Crawl or The Crawl by fans) were an Australian
Australian Crawl were associated with
After their 1980 debut album, The Boys Light Up, reached No. 4, Australian Crawl had two No. 1 albums; 1981's Sirocco and 1982's Sons of Beaches.[1] Their early singles reached the top 25 but none broke into the Top Ten;[1] their best performing single was No. 1 hit "Reckless" which showed a more mature approach than earlier hits, and came from their 1983 Semantics EP.[1]
Upheaval within the band occurred from 1983 onwards. First, Bill McDonough left in 1983, then his brother Guy McDonough died in 1984 and finally, Paul Williams departed in 1985.[2] Their 1985 release Between a Rock and a Hard Place was expensive but sales were disappointing[1] and they disbanded early in 1986.[6] The band's status as an icon on the Australian music scene was acknowledged by induction into the 1996 Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame.[7] Hospitalised with lymphoma, founding guitarist Brad Robinson was unable to attend the Hall of Fame induction in person. He died two weeks later.[1][8]
Biography
1975–1979: formation and "Beautiful People"
The band Spiff Rouch[1][2] formed in 1976 in the Mornington Peninsula suburb of Mount Eliza on the outskirts of Melbourne. The group lineup featured James Reyne, brothers Bill and Guy McDonough, Paul Williams, Robert Walker and Simon Binks.[2][4] Reyne had previously played drums for Archie Slammit and the Doors.[9]
By early 1978 Spiff Rouch had separated into two groups: The Flatheads (including the McDonough brothers and Walker, along with Sean Higgins and Nigel Spencer) and Australian Crawl. The original lineup for the latter was Reyne as vocalist, Binks on lead guitar, Williams on bass guitar, along with Reyne's younger brother David Reyne on drums and schoolmate Brad Robinson on rhythm guitar.[2][4] Australian Crawl performed their first live gig in October 1978 and toured the pub circuit.[10]
David Reyne left the group in 1979 to finish his acting course, later becoming an actor and TV presenter as well as drumming for Cats Under Pressure and the Chantoozies (1986–1990).[2] He was replaced in Australian Crawl by Bill McDonough.[1][2] The group's popularity in the Mornington Peninsula area increased with further pub gigs, then they gained audiences with university students and inner city residents.[10]
Once the band's escalating popularity brought them into Melbourne they caught the attention of
Just days before recording "Beautiful People" Reyne had been hit by a car on
1980 The Boys Light Up
Australian Crawl's debut album,
"The Boys Light Up", their second single, was almost banned from radio play due to its explicit lyrics.[5] Many listeners believed the chorus lyrics were about smoking marijuana but Reyne has stated that it was about smoking tobacco cigarettes at school.[17] It also reached No. 22 on the National charts[11] and became their signature song and their most popular track especially live.[16] Their third single "Downhearted" charted higher at #12[11] and was a cautionary tale of romance gone wrong.[1]
The Boys Light Up reached No. 4 on the Australian album charts and remained in the charts for an unbroken 101 weeks.[11] It sold five times platinum: over 280,000 copies, and became one of the biggest Australian albums of the 1980s.[1][4]
Singer/guitarist/songwriter Guy McDonough (ex-The Flatheads and Bill's younger brother) joined the group in October 1980.[1][2]
Rock journalist and commentator Glenn A. Baker compared Australian Crawl with various fellow Australian bands:
Australian Crawl seemed to step out of a tourism poster... Spruce, lean, tanned and young... They swam, they surfed, they radiated a healthy, wholly Australian aura... If Skyhooks has personified the bodgie larrikin and Cold Chisel the hard drinking working class man, Australian Crawl turned the bronzed lifesaver into a pop idol... Crawl songs seemed to eulogise hedonism, adventure and the great outdoors for an audience that couldn't be bothered with Midnight Oil's politics.
— Glenn A. Baker, 1983[18]
However, according to James Reyne some people accused them of being demonic.[19] He said whenever you bumped into the member of Little River Band who had found God, he'd tell him "you shouldn't be playing that, it's demonic".[19]
1981–1982: Sirocco and Sons of Beaches
In 1981, Australian Crawl recorded their second album, for the album.
Sirocco spawned the hit singles "Things Don't Seem" (May, No. 11 National charts)[11] and "Errol" (August, #18).[11] It also included "Oh No Not You Again" (November).[21] Of these, "Errol" about womanising Tasmanian-born actor Flynn is the band's third most popular song of all.[16] Another track from the album, "Lakeside", became a popular radio inclusion. 1981 Australian End of Year Album Charts has Sirocco at No. 2 behind Double Fantasy by John Lennon and ahead of AC/DC's Back in Black making it the best charting album by an Australian act.[11][22]
Another track on this album, Unpublished Critics has been compared several times to the later song "Sweet Child o' Mine" by US band Guns N' Roses, as acknowledged by the writer of Unpublished Critics, James Reyne.[23] He was responding to media comments in May 2015 about the possibility of plagiarism by the American band.[24][25][26] Duff McKagan, who was bass player with Guns N' Roses when "Sweet Child o' Mine" was written and recorded,[27] found the similarities between the songs "stunning," but said he had not previously heard "Unpublished Critics."[28]
On the wave of popularity the band toured extensively playing to huge crowds at Melbourne's
Sons of Beaches (1982) was recorded in Hawaii with expatriate Australian Mike Chapman producing.[1] The album had a rougher, rock 'n' roll edge than its glossy pop rock predecessors and featured the No. 17 hit "Shut Down" (June).[1] It also included a re-recorded version of "Downhearted" and became their second album to reach No. 1 on the Australian albums chart and remained there for five weeks.[11] EMI issued the album in the USA. Two further singles, "Daughters of the Northern Coast" (August) and "Runaway Girls" (November) failed to reach the Australian Top 40.[1]
Over 1982 and 1983, Reyne was filmed with Australian actresses
1983–1984: "Reckless", Semantics and Phalanx
Soon after Reyne finished acting for Return to Eden, Bill McDonough left due to tensions within the band.
US label
In June 1984 the band was forced off the road when
1985–1986: Between a Rock and a Hard Place, The Final Wave and split
By 1985 the group recorded their last studio album, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, with English producer Adam Kidron. It was released in Australia on Australian Crawl's own label Freestyle Records.[2][41] The album, which allegedly cost $400,000 to record,[1] was a mishmash of styles and a commercial disaster (it peaked at No. 12 in August 1985 but slipped out of the Top 40 two weeks later).[1] None of the singles had any Top 40 chart success.[11] Harry Brus (Kevin Borich Express) replaced long-standing bass player Paul Williams in May 1985. The band performed three songs for the July 1985 Oz for Africa concert—part of the global Live Aid program—"Reckless (Don't Be So)", "Two Can Play" and "The Boys Light Up". It was broadcast in Australia (on both Seven Network and Nine Network) and on MTV in the US.[42]
When the album virtually failed to chart, the band was ready to split but had to go out on tour to pay off its debts.[4] On 27 January 1986, their final Melbourne concert was recorded and released as the live album The Final Wave in October.[1] The band performed its final concert on 1 February at the Perth Entertainment Centre.[6]
We really enjoy Perth, and have a lot of friends there, so it was a conscious decision to play our final show there. Besides, everybody expected us to play the last show back in Melbourne, so stuff 'em.
— James Reyne[6]
In seven years, Australian Crawl had sold over one million records in Australia, with five of its albums and an EP reaching the Australian Top 5 Album Charts, two of which had been No. 1 hits.[1] A cumulative total of eleven weeks at Number 1 on the Albums Charts places them equal fourth for Australian groups behind Skyhooks, The Seekers and Midnight Oil.[43]
1986–1995: Solo careers
In 1985, Lin Buckfield (Electric Pandas)[44] and Reyne released a duet single "R.O.C.K." / "Under My Thumb".[45] After Australian Crawl disbanded, Reyne went on to a solo career. His first few singles failed to chart but 1987's "Fall of Rome" and the self-titled album that followed were the beginning of a string of hits that lasted until the early 1990s. In 1992 he and James Blundell had a hit with a cover of The Dingoes' "Way Out West" (#2, May 1992).[46] Reyne also formed Company of Strangers that year with former Sherbet lead singer Daryl Braithwaite, Simon Hussey and Jef Scott. Company of Strangers only released one self-titled album, Company of Strangers in 1992, which produced the hits "Motor City (I Get Lost)" (#26, September 1992), "Sweet Love" (#21, January 1993) and "Daddy's Gonna Make You a Star" (#35, March 1993).[47]
In 1993 Reyne appeared as
Almost immediately after the split Robinson became manager of
Paul Williams, who had left the band in 1985, played in the Broderick Smith Band in 1987[50] and has worked in music-related retail.[48] Simon Binks and Mark Greig both played in the Broderick Smith Band in 1988.[50] Simon Binks was injured in a 1995 car crash at a council roadworks that left him slightly brain-damaged.[51] A court in 2006 awarded him $330,253 in damages, down from an estimated $750,000 because he was said to be over the legal limit.[51] Binks later disputed the alcohol reading as belonging to another driver and stated the remuneration mostly went to his lawyers.[52] A 2007 appeal by the council, saw amount awarded further reduced to $304,750.[53]
1996–present: ARIA Hall of Fame and compilations
In 1996, a compilation titled Lost & Found was released. It contained seven of the tracks from Guy McDonough's solo album My Place which were remastered.[36][37][54][55] Compilers and producers of Lost & Found were Bill McDonough and Peter Blyton.[2][55] Lost & Found tracks from My Place include "Too Many People" a duet sung by Guy McDonough with Colin Hay of Men at Work.[56] Some My Place tracks used on Lost & Found have Reyne singing backing vocals.[37] As of 2001, Bill McDonough left the music industry and began working in the construction industry and continues to own and operate his building and demolition companies in 2017.[48]
The band was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in September 1996. Three weeks later, Robinson died.[7]
Additional compilation albums were released; More Wharf in 1998, Reckless: 1979–1995 in 2000 and The Definitive Collection in 2002. The Definitive Collection contained songs from the band and from James Reyne's solo career.[57]
In 2001, as part of its 75th Anniversary celebrations, the Australian Performing Right Association (APRA) compiled a list of the Top 30 Australian songs, with "Reckless (Don't Be So)" coming in at number nineteen.[58][59]
In October 2007, eleven Australian Crawl tracks were featured in the Triple M Essential 2007 Countdown of songs (positions are voted by listeners out of the best 2007 songs of all time).[16] They were "Hoochie Gucci Fiorucci Mama" #1673; "Lakeside" #1354; "Indisposed" #956; "Downhearted" #728; "Oh No Not You Again" #587; "Shut Down" #415; "Things Don't Seem" #371; "Boys Light Up" #305; "Errol" #227; "Beautiful People" #153; and "Reckless" #39.[16]
In January 2014, Universal Music Australia celebrated the 35th anniversary of the release of "Beautiful People" by releasing The Greatest Hits, which peaked at number 4 and was the 40th best selling album in Australian in 2014.
In October 2016, Australian Crawl released a seven album vinyl collection, titled The Album Collection. The collection included the band's four studio albums, two live albums and the US-expanded version of the Semantics album which had previously been unavailable to Australian audiences.[60]
Members
Chronological list:[2]
- Simon Binks – guitars (1978–1986)
- David Reyne – drums (1978)
- James Reyne – vocals, guitars, keyboards, harmonica (1978–1986)
- d.1996) – guitars, keyboards (1978–1986)
- Paul Williams – bass guitar (1978–1985)
- Bill McDonough – drums (replaced David Reyne) (1978–1983)
- d.1984) – vocals, guitar (1980–1984)
- Graham "Buzz" Bidstrup – drums (replaced Bill McDonough) (1983)
- John Watson – drums (replaced Bidstrup) (1983–1986)
- Mark Greig – guitars (replaced Guy McDonough) (1984–1986)
- Harry Brus – bass guitar (replaced Williams) (1985–1986)
Discography
- The Boys Light Up (1980)
- Sirocco (1981)
- Sons of Beaches (1982)
- Semantics (1983 EP / 1984 LP)
- Phalanx (1983)
- Between a Rock and a Hard Place (1985)
- The Final Wave (1986)
Awards and nominations
ARIA Music Awards
The
Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1987 | Art Scarff for The Final Wave by Australian Crawl | ARIA Award for Best Cover Art | Nominated |
1996 | Australian Crawl | ARIA Hall of Fame | inductee |
TV Week / Countdown Awards
Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1980 | "Downhearted" | Best Single Record | Nominated |
The Boys Light Up | Best Australian Record Cover Design | Nominated | |
Most Popular Record | Nominated | ||
Themselves | Most Popular Group | Nominated | |
James Reyne (Australian Crawl) | Most Popular Male Performer | Won | |
1981 | Sirocco | Best Australian Album | Nominated |
Themselves | Most Popular Group | Won | |
James Reyne (Australian Crawl) | Most Popular Male Performer | Won | |
1982 | Themselves | Most Popular Group | Nominated |
1983 | Mark Opitz for work with Australian Crawl | Best Record Producer of the Year | Nominated |
Themselves | Most Popular Group | Won | |
James Reyne (Australian Crawl) | Most Popular Male Performer | Nominated |
References
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- Portable document format (PDF)). Countdown Magazine. Australian Broadcasting Corporation(ABC). March 1987. Retrieved 16 December 2010.
External links
- Universal Music's 'Australian Crawl' website. Archived 21 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- Australian Crawl discography at MusicBrainz
- Australian Crawl discography at Discogs
- Australian Rock Database
- Official website of James Reyne
- Australian Crawl at IMDb