List/Discuss 70s and 80s Australian Bands

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by nbakid2000, Mar 19, 2012.

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  1. dlemaudit

    dlemaudit Forum Resident

    Location:
    France, Paris area
    Died Pretty Live circa 86 88 were untouchable
    they were unique and so original and could claim to have the best singer , the best guitar player and the best drummer around at that time
    what a great band and nice folks
    What happenned to Frank Brunetti ?

    Louis Tillet is another unheralded australian artist
     
  2. Sandinista

    Sandinista Forum Resident

    Surprised no one has mentioned The Angels yet. Great rock band that's been around forever.
     
  3. keef00

    keef00 Senior Member

    Lots of great bands down there... Over the years, I've picked up releases by the Saints, Radio Birdman, Hoodoo Gurus (listened to "Come Anytime" last night), Celibate Rifles, Divinyls, Kings of the Sun, Died Pretty, the Triffids, Scientists and the Johnnys. I remember discovering Died Pretty via a flexi-disc that came with The Bob magazine, with the track "King Pin." Wonder where I put that?
     
  4. dlb99

    dlb99 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Australia
    Midnight Oid "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" is a quintessential Aussie rock album.

    Noiseworks debut album from 1987 is a favorite of mine (80s synth laden rock, very enjoyable).

    Boom Crash Opera "These Here Are Crazy Times" from 89 is good quality pop rock. Worth hunting down.

    Split-Enz (NZ but we'll claim em) "True Colours".

    Rose Tattoo & The Angels for those into hard rock.

    Dennis.
     
  5. paulisdead

    paulisdead fast and bulbous

    :bigeek: :bigeek: :bigeek:

    Unbelievable!!! :realmad: Are we really that dismissive of our own cultural worth that even the masters of a successful act like Billy Thorpe are gone!?! What about the outakes form the Lock Up Your Mothers box set? Surely it can't all be gone?
     
  6. PaulE

    PaulE Forum Resident

    Another vote for BCO. They had a lot of moderate hit singles in Aussie but I think they could have been really big in America given the right set of circumstances.

    Not one of their bigger hits but I really like their tune 'Her Charity'. Lots of other good singles though. eg. Onion Skin, Great Wall etc.
     
  7. John Buchanan

    John Buchanan I'm just a headphone kind of fellow. Stax Sigma

    I emailed aztecmusic about the Aztecs Live At Sunbury, as it appeared to have tracking distortion. It does. Very very sad. This was one of Australia's biggest hit albums.
     
  8. Jae

    Jae Senior Member

    I know some compilation albums that were issued in the 1970s for contemporary artists had to use vinyl sources as the original tapes had been reused/destroyed/misplaced.

    Anyway, I'll add the following to the list of Aussie artists that are underrated or don't get any attention:
    -Flying Circus (first album in particular, never reissued on CD)
    -The Radiators ("25th Anniversary" CD may be sufficient. "Feel the Heat" CD is also great)
    -Sebastian Hardie (two albums plus one under the name Windchase)
    -Blackfeather
    -Tully
    -Tamam Shud
    -Stevie Wright (of Easybeats fame) ("Hard Road" is great)
    -Jon English (his latest greatest hits CD should suffice)
    -Galadriel (pretty obscure but great early 1970s prog rock)

    and, at the risk of upsetting a few across the ditch, The La De Das.
     
  9. John Buchanan

    John Buchanan I'm just a headphone kind of fellow. Stax Sigma

    Blackfeather's "Bopping The Blues" is available on CD in a deluxe edition - it doesn't sound good however. I suspect it may also be from vinyl, but it never really sounded too hot on original vinyl (Infinity, IIRC).
     
  10. oates

    oates Forum Resident

    The Church - wonderful psych / indie group with many great albums from the 1980s onward.

    We should mention the Birthday Party / Nick Cave as well.
     
  11. blutiga

    blutiga Forum Resident

    It's a broad question to answer, rather than just list our favourite bands/musicians. Some Australian bands followed American trends in music at the time, ie. LRB and Mondo Rock (seventies and eighties US MOR respectively). Others followed UK trends, especially punk and post punk, although the Australian bands were unique and arguably of greater musical significance (Cave, Birthday Party, Saints, Go Betweens).
    Then there are other bands that are purely Australian, like Mental As Anything and ACDC (Bon Scott version), and Billy Thorpe.
     
  12. morgan1098

    morgan1098 Forum Resident

    Don't think these two have been mentioned yet:
    Not Drowning, Waving (kind of an "ethno rock" hybrid with David Bridie and John Phillips)
    Yothu Yindi (an aboriginal band--they were active in the 90s and had some of their albums released in the US by Hollywood Records, sort of around the time that Deep Forest and similar groups were popular)

    Also, although it was only a one-off project, the Max Q album (Michael Hutchence plus assorted Australian musicians) was a masterpiece.

    And as others have mentioned, Midnight Oil, The Church, Icehouse, and to some extent INXS are all fantastic.
     
  13. Jeff K

    Jeff K Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Eastern, PA. USA
    All of these plus the Hard Ons and Nick Cave with the Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds.
     
  14. blutiga

    blutiga Forum Resident

    Hard to believe how commercial some of the bands became.
    The Models were another band that started out with a kind of Birthday Party commitment to the disintegration of the song form and ended up like a pub rock male Abba.
     
  15. butch

    butch Senior Member

    Location:
    ny
    Bob Geldof once said that the trinity of punk were The Saints, The Ramones and The Sex Pistols! Well said Sir Bob.

    The Twilights went to Britain and were met with almost dogged indfference. They weren't that bloody bad maybe The Pommies just had bad taste!:winkgrin:

    I remember talking to the late Neil Pozner who worked for RCA in the 80s about putting out Australian material in the US. The CD era just had begun and we somehow we got to talking about Hunters and Collectors. I was surprised that he even was aware of their existence! What an underrated band,too bad they never made it in America.

    A mate of mine jumped on The Eurogilders bandwagon back in the day but I just couldn't get past Heaven. They were a quasi-one hit wonder here and that was that.......

    Split-Enz was mentioned? Kiwiland can keep them! You can give them the Pavlova cake as well.....Seriously, Tim and Neil were Kiwis and no matter how hard they try still will always be Kiwis. I mean Neil Young has lived over four decades in the US and he's still a Canuck!
     
  16. Kitlope

    Kitlope Forum Resident

    My favorite bands I grew up with are Australian. Inxs being the big one, Midnight Oil and Hunters & Collectors. I purchased much of their stuff on vinyl once I got the turntable 5 months ago.

    Love it! Picked it up on vinyl too - sounds great. Ot-ven-rot & Concrete get the nod of being my favorite tracks. I still remember when I just turned 16 and after smoking a bit too much "green" I tripped out very bad to Ot-ven-rot. Ahhh the memories!

    No love for 1927 in this thread? Not my favorite by any means but the debut isn't too bad.

    Also a big fan of Ghost Nation by H&C although I like all their 80s.
     
  17. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    Was going to mention The Eurogliders. Heaven was the biggest hit but they had better songs most notably the brilliant We Will Together.

    There are great 2 cd sets of 70's/80's oz pop ,forgot who makes them but the titles are Get That Jive (70's) & Live It Up,What's My Scene & Counting The Beat for the 80's.
     
  18. manicpopthrill

    manicpopthrill Forum Resident

    Location:
    ICT, Kansas
  19. glea

    glea Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bozeman
    John Needham, mr Citadel, is a fantastic character. I've got to know him pretty well. Watch for a massive Radio Birdman CD-DVD box set soon. They were given 25 multi track reels that had been in storage at Albert Studios all these years.

    He mentioned recently that the old catalog is starting to sell again.
     
  20. pscreed

    pscreed Upstanding Member

    Location:
    Land of the Free
    Lime Spiders.

    Jebus they were cool.
     
  21. dlb99

    dlb99 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Australia
    WOW, great GREAT choice here Jae. Worth it alone just for the epic "Evie Parts 1, 2, 3", which is one of the all time great rock songs (not just limited to Aussie rock either).

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In1VeSjsBT8
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4wJbATKpEA

    I must find and add this to my collection. Stevie is a true Aussie rock legend.

    Dennis.
     
  22. Mylene

    Mylene Senior Member

    The trouble with the reissues Aztec and Half a Cow put out is that Australian record buyers aren't interested in them. The punk stuff sells well in the US and the prog 70s sells in Europe. Australians couldn't be less interested in their own history. The best example is The Easybeats. Even though Alberts would have the mater tapes ALL the Australian reissues are based on quasi - legitimate German releases with completely random bonus tracks and variable sound quality. If there wasn't overseas interested the reissues wouldn't exist. (The biggest selling release on Aztec in Australia is a Billy Field compilation btw)
     
  23. Edgard Varese

    Edgard Varese Royale with Cheese

    Location:
    Te Wai Pounamu
    I saw them open for PiL in 1987. Went out and bought their album the next day. :agree:
     
  24. pscreed

    pscreed Upstanding Member

    Location:
    Land of the Free
    The first time I heard the "Slave Girl" 45 I flipped my lid. There were a lot of really really cool garage rockers from Australia back then but those guys were the kings of them all in my book.
     
  25. paulieb00

    paulieb00 Senior Member

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    How about The Angels/Angel City.
    Their album Darkroom was one of my fav's in the early 80's
     
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