Australian Crawl
The members of Australian Crawl all hailed from the Mount Eliza
area on the Mornington Peninsular in Victoria, Australia. The band
came together in 1978 after James Reyne and Simon Binks' first
band (called 'Spliff Roach') broke up.
Australian Crawl's accessible sound bore a particular Melbourne
resonance, with its fresh and appealing combination of wry social
observation, bright guitar licks and vital energy all welded to a
sweaty backbeat.
After playing their first live gig in October 1978, Australian
Crawl ventured onto the Melbourne pub circuit, initially gaining
popularity with university students and inner city audiences. It
was their repertoire of intrinsically Australian songs that
brought the band to the attention of producer David Briggs (also
guitarist for Little River Band). Briggs was
looking for opportunities to expand his interests outside LRB.
Prior to recording, disaster intervened. Reyne was returning
from Tullamarine Airport after a meeting with EMI in Sydney when
he was struck by a car in Swanston Street, Melbourne. For several
weeks Reyne's two broken arms prevented the band from
working.
Undeterred and in plaster, Reyne and the Crawl went ahead with
their first sessions and came up with Beautiful People. The
band went on tour with The Knack and
appeared on Countdown
(still with Reyne in plaster). Countdown also featured the
group in a documentary called "How to make a record".
Beautiful People became an instant hit, followed up by
the LP The Boys Light Up which reached Number 4 on the
National album chart and produced the singles The Boys Light Up
and Downhearted. The band went on to sell over 250,000
albums - Australian Crawl was on the way.
Their Next Album, Sirocco, went straight to Number 1 and
stayed in the top 20 for over eight months, producing the hit
singles Things Don't Seem, Errol and Oh No, Not
You Again.
On the wave of this popularity and with two Number 1 Albums
they toured extensively playing to huge crowds at Melbourne's Myer
Music Bowl (100,000), Sydney's Domain (90,000), the Narara Rock
festival (70,000), plus attendance records were smashed at indoor
venues in Brisbane and Perth.
After a short break the band travelled to Hawaii where they
recorded the Sons of Beaches album (with producer Mike
Chapman) which again went to Number 1 and established them as one
of Australia's biggest acts. The band was propelled into the
spotlight again with the release of an EP called Semantics
which shot to Number 1 and boasted a great song called Reckless
(Don't Be So).
In 1982/83, James Reyne tried his hand at an acting career. His
less than Academy Award performance in Return
to Eden was proof enough that his forte was singing
(although even his vocal style and enunciation have been much
lampooned).
The live mini-album Phalanx was little more than a
stop-gap between studio albums, but it reached Number 4
nevertheless. The band's biggest break came when Duran
Duran took them out as support on a UK tour. In early 1984,
prestigious US label Geffen signed the band and released Semantics
(a compilation of tracks from their past records) for the American
market.
The band was forced off the road when guitarist Guy McDonough
was admitted to hospital. He died in 1984 of viral pneumonia.
Australian Crawl re-grouped, adding Mark Greig on guitar for
live dates in late 1984. The band recorded Between A Rock And A
Hard Place with English producer Adam Kidron. As well as
costing just under half a million dollars to produce, the album
was a commercial disaster. The band had to tour constantly for
most of 1985 simply to pay off the debt.
Unsurprisingly disillusioned, the band had run its course by
the end of '85, and called it a day at the beginning of 1986.
Their final concert on January 27th was recorded and released in
October as an album called The Final Wave.
James Reyne went on to pursue a successful solo career, while
Brad Robinson moved into television. Robinson died on 13 October
1996 - only weeks after Australian Crawl were inducted into the
Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame - after
a three-year battle with lymphoma.
|
