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). He was replaced in Australian Crawl by Bill McDonough. 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. Once the band’s escalating popularity brought them into Melbourne they caught the attention of Little River Band’s guitarist David Briggs, who helped them gain a recording contract with EMI and he produced their first single. "Beautiful People" (1979) reached #22 on the National charts. Reyne had co-written the song with guitarist Mark Hudson in 1975. The track included references to the shallow materialism of residents of Toorak and to the Bombay Rock night club in Brunswick.
Australian Crawl's debut album 'The Boys Light Up' (1980), also produced by Briggs for EMI, had a number of hit singles with songwriting shared around the group and beyond. Tracks from this album included the previously released single "Beautiful People", the title track (written by Reyne and Mark Hudson); "Indisposed" (Brad Robinson, James Robinson, Reyne, Bill McDonough) and "Downhearted" (Sean Higgins, Guy McDonough, Bill McDonough) (from The Flatheads). Brad Robinson's father James Robinson was a Federal Arbitration Court Justice. "The Boys Light Up", their second single, was almost banned from radio play due to its explicit lyrics. Many listeners believed the chorus lyrics were about smoking marijuana but Reyne has stated that it was about smoking tobacco cigarettes at school. It also reached #22 on the National charts and became their signature song and their most popular track especially live. Their third single "Downhearted" charted higher at #12 and was a cautionary tale of romance gone wrong.
'The Boys Light Up' reached #4 on the Australian album charts and remained in the charts for an unbroken 101 weeks. It sold five times platinum: over 280,000 copies and became one of the biggest Australian albums of the 1980s. Singer/guitarist/songwriter Guy McDonough (ex-The Flatheads and Bill's younger brother) joined the group in October 1980.
In 1981, Australian Crawl recorded their second album, 'Sirocco' with producer Peter Dawkins in Sydney. Named for Errol Flynn's yacht, the album peaked at #1 on the Australian album chart on 3 August and remained there for six weeks. At about this time Robinson was married to actress Kerry Armstrong, later an Australian Film Institute Award winner, who co-wrote a track "Easy On Your Own" for the album. 'Sirocco' spawned the hit singles "Things Don't Seem" (May, #11 National charts) and "Errol" (August, #18). It also included "Oh No Not You Again" (November). Of these, "Errol" about womanising Tasmanian-born actor Flynn is the band's third most popular song of all. Another track from the album, "Lakeside", became a popular radio inclusion. 1981 Australian End of Year Album Charts has 'Sirocco' at #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.
'Sons of Beach's (1982) was recorded in Hawaii with expatriate Australian Mike Chapman producing. The album had a rougher, rock 'n' roll edge than its glossy pop rock predecessors and featured the #17 hit "Shut Down" (June). It also included a re-recorded version of "Downhearted" and became their second album to reach #1 on the Australian albums chart and remained there for five weeks. 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.
Over 1982–1983 Reyne was filmed with Australian actresses Rebecca Gilling and Wendy Hughes in the television miniseries Return to Eden, which was screened in September 1983. Soon after Reyne finished acting for Return to Eden, Bill McDonough left due to tensions within the band. The remaining members then recorded the EP 'Semantics' (1983) with Graham Bidstrup (from The Party Boys, later a founder of GANGgajang) on drums. The four track EP contained their best-known song, "Reckless" (aka "Don't Be So Reckless", "She Don't Like That") which was written by Reyne and went to #1 on the Australian singles chart on 28 November. John Watson (ex-Kevin Borich Express) then came in as a permanent replacement for McDonough. The live album 'Phalanx' was something of a stop-gap measure between studio albums, nevertheless it reached #4 during December. The band's biggest overseas break came when Duran Duran took the band as support on certain legs of their Sing Blue Silver tour of the UK.
US label Geffen Records signed Australian Crawl and issued 'Semantics' (1984) as an album (with the four songs from the EP and re-recordings of tracks from past Australian records) for the American market. In June 1984 the band was forced off the road when Guy McDonough was admitted to hospital in Melbourne; he died soon after of viral pneumonia. Australian Crawl regrouped with Mark Greig on guitar (ex-Runners) for a series of live performances in late 1984.
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. The album, which allegedly cost $400,000 to record, was a mishmash of styles and a commercial disaster (it peaked at #12 in August 1985 but slipped out of the Top 40 two weeks later). None of the singles had any Top 40 chart success. Harry Brus (ex-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.
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. On 27 January 1986, their final Melbourne concert was recorded and released as the live album 'The Final Wave' in October. The band performed its final concert on 1 February at the Perth Entertainment Centre. 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.
James Reyne (vocals/piano), Brad Robinson (guitar), Paul Williams (bass), Simon Binks (guitar) David Reyne (drums). Bill McDonough (drums). Guy McDonough (vocals,guitar).
John Watson (drums). Mark Greig (guitar). Harry Brus (bass)
SINGLES
Beautiful People
| 10 SEP '79 | #22 |
The Boys Light Up
| 21 APR '80 | #22 |
Downhearted
| 7 JUL '80 | #12 |
Things Don't Seem
| 8 JUN '81 | #11 |
Errol
| 14 SEP '81 | #18 |
Oh No Not You Again
| 21 DEC '81 | #58 |
Shut Down
| 5 JUL '82 | #17 |
Daughters of the Northern Coast
| 20 SEP '82 | #76 |
Runaway Girls
| 27 DEC '82 | #88 |
Reckless
| 10 OCT '83 | #1 |
Louie Louie / Unpublished Critics
| 16 JAN '84 | #81 |
Two Can Play
| 1 JUL '85 | #44 |
If This is Love
| 9 SEP '85 | #87 |
Trouble Spot Rock
| 25 NOV '85 | #69 |
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Crawl
http://top100singles.blogspot.com.au/
Hi, as you know so much about early Australian music perhaps you can help me find a song that I recently heard on the radio and sang along to in the supermarket, but can't remember the name of. The lyrics I could remember are - "I said I'm sorryyyy (long sound) but I don't know who you are", and "silver bells on the other side" in the same song. It is driving me crazy trying to remember it. After reading your blog I realised Zoot didn't get a mention. I grew up in Balmain in Sydney and the band lived there, so they played the pubs and clubs around Sydney. The lead singer had a pink dog named Zoot.
ReplyDeletehttps://historyofaussiemusic.blogspot.com/search/label/Zoot
DeleteThanks for adding Zoot, and I got the dog name thing wrong...but not the colour. :)
ReplyDeleteIn Australian Crawl, one can mostly understand what James Reyne was singing about. Solo, Reyne sounds like he crawled out from under something, vocalised his experience and one can find it hard to decipher what he is actually singing about. Rock in peace Guy McDonough.
ReplyDelete