Skyhooks - Guilty Until Proven Insane (1978)

Australia has produced some storming bands over the years and whilst most of us non-Aussie’s are familiar with the big hitters such as AC/DC, INXS, and to an extent Midnight Oil and Rose Tattoo, there’s a rich history of no-less great rock bands that failed to make an impact outside their native country with Skyhooks among them. The Melbourne five-piece released a series of record-breaking albums during the 1970s, courted controversy and for a period were the biggest selling band in Australia. Guilty Until Proven Insane was their 4th studio album released in 1978 and their first to feature new guitarist Bob Spencer and would also prove to be frontman Graeme “Shirley” Strachan’s last album with the band.

Guilty Until Proven Insane opens with one of the finest rock tracks you’re likely to hear and possibly the only track on the album familiar to people who are not aware of the band: Women In Uniform. Familiar as a D’Anno-era Iron Maiden single, the track was written by, and was a huge hit for Skyhooks from this album and features a great vocal from Graeme “Shirley” Strachan with the rest of the band providing one of their heaviest backing tracks. Women In Uniform has all the ingredients of a great rock track as will be apparent from the video clip below and the funky intro which is returned to mid-way through makes for a more multi-dimensional track than other versions!

Life In The Modern World is a slow burner of a bluesy rock track with a good use of the twin guitars of Spencer and Starkie and some well-crafted observational lyrics. The latter half of the track also features a good guitar solo not in the shredding vain but more akin to mid-70s Thin Lizzy style which continues over a repeat of the opening verse at the close.

Trouble With The Computer opens with a frantic computer ‘conversation’ through which fades-in drums and then into the main riff which is again of strong blues-rock origin. As the title suggests, the track identifies troublesome issues in various scenarios with computers which, considering the year of release, was very contemporary thinking and somewhat prophetic as the same problems are still experienced today: “the computer’s lost its logic and has started to erase” – for a pre-Windows generation that’s some foresight!

Moving into a heavier style, Bbbbbbbbbbbbboogie, as the name suggests, is a hard-rocking boogie shuffle with a hint of Rose Tattoo who, I’m certain, would have been influenced by their countrymen. Graeme Strachan really spits out the lyrics here with some venom and there’s plenty of guitar breaks throughout making for a very solid track and demonstrating the musical skill of the band members to good effect.

Suddenly, the heavy blues-rock fades and Twisted Innocence opens which is a funky almost new-wave track and, as with the majority of the Skyhooks’ tracks, examines the troubles of urban 70s Australian society with in this instance through the eyes of the young and their largely inability to perceive the problems around them. Twisted innocence referring to the blinkered enthusiasm of youth blinding the young to social ills.

Hotel Hell moves back to more traditional hard rock territory for a mid-paced track telling the tale of trying to find a good night out but only coming across ‘Hotel Hell’: “if you think the beer is rotten, you should see the clientele”! The track also features a sax solo in the mid-section where the track drops to bass and cymbals over which Strachan further describes the scene at the bar and paints a picture that is so well described you can almost be there.

Slow bass and guitar harmonics open Point In The Distance with a spoken word intro accompanied by some high wailing backing vocals and then the track kicks-in with a funky guitar and heavily echoed vocals with Strachan singing more smoothly than on the rockier tracks. As with Twisted Innocence the sound is somewhere around early 10CC and early Thin Lizzy but, whilst not one of the stronger tracks on the album, certainly shows another side to Skyhooks and a side that they exploit to a high standard here. The undistorted guitar solo is also a highlight.

A calypso intro to Meglomania continues the shift in direction begun by Point In the Distance and the overall sound is rather ’sweet’ but if you tune-in to the lyrical content, it’s far from it! Quite cleverly, one of the hardest hitting tracks lyrically is backed by the mellowest, poppiest musical backing tracks – as with previous tracks, however, the guitar solo adds some balls with a new riff taking over in the mid-section to boot!

Closing the album is the ‘classic’ Skyhooks anthem Why Don’tcha All Get Fucked? Originally released on their debut album, in censored form, here it is in all its glory. It features a series of lyrical ‘vignettes’ about various disaffected characters where Strachan paints the picture of their reasoning for their eventual nihilistic attitude and cry of Why Don’tcha All Get Fucked?: “there’s one thing that you got to do and i suggest you do it today, stand up in your office, school or street and this is what you’ve got to say . . . Why Don’tcha All Get Fucked?”. Pre-dating Rage Against the Machine’s “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” battle-cry by some 10 years, it’s a sentiment I’m sure we can all relate to from time to time today as much as back in the 70s!

All-in-all this is an awesome album from a great band who should have gone on to globally great things . . . but sadly it was not to be. To compound matters, the album is really hard to come-by on CD but is definitely worth purchasing should you find a copy.

• Graeme “Shirley” Strachan – Vocals
• Bob Spencer – Guitar
• Bob “Bongo” Starkie – Guitar
• Greg Macainsh – Bass
• Imants “Freddy” Strauks – Drums

Sweet - Give Us A Wink (1976)

Whilst best known for their early 1970s output of Glam-tinged bubblegum rock written by songwriting duo Chinn-Chapman, Sweet became increasingly frustrated at their lot as – inspite of the success they were having – were a hard rock band and wanted to distance themselves from the pop conveyor belt. Give Us A Wink represents a major step in their rock-rehab (originally begun on the band’s previous album, Desolation Boulevard) where the band wrote all the tracks and shifted their sound to one of heavy riffs, soaring vocals and guitar solos – sod’s law dictated that this would also be the start of their gradual decline but that’s for discussion elsewhere!

The album kicks off with The lies In Your Eyes – with just a hint of the Who’s Baba O’Reilly – and a solid performance from Brian Connolly on vocals. Then things really pick up with the all-out rock of Cockroach and Keep It In: if you can imagine a blend of early Queen and Slade you’ll get an idea of Sweet’s musical direction here.

There are hit singles here too – Action being a powerful, fast paced rock classic featuring Sweet’s trademark high-pitched harmonies and commercial edge which reached number 15 in the UK charts. However, whereas their early material also contained good hooks, here they also contained frenetic drumming, power riffs and screeching guitar . . . all for the good!

One of the real stand out tracks on Give Us A Wink is Yesterday’s Rain which was begging to be a single – a grinding verse, harmony vocals, catchy chorus and some nice guitar work by Andy Scott.

Certainly for those who are only familiar with the band’s early chart success – CoCo, Wigwam Bam and Blockbuster – you’d be doing the band a disservice, and that of your musical collection, were you not to give this album a listen with an open mind: you won’t be disappointed!

• Brian Connolly – Vocals
• Andy Scott – Guitar
• Steve Priest – Bass
• Mick Tucker – Drums