Living In The 70’s – Skyhooks

Skyhooks exploded as an entity in 1974 with Living In The 70’s. It was an astonishing debut that changed the face of Australian music and went on to become the highest selling independent album by an Australian artist, a record held until the release of The Whitlams’ Eternal Nightcap in 1997.  The album’s success ensured the fledgling Mushroom Records would go on to become a powerhouse label with its irrepressible impresario Michael Gudinski later being billed by biographer Stuart Coupe as the “Godfather of Australian Rock ‘n’ Roll”. Without Living In The 70’s Mushroom may never have succeeded and Gudinski’s life may well have run a very different course.

The significance of Skyhooks ran much deeper than that. As the first Australian pop group to ignore the precedent of their predecessors in writing about generic – or worse, American themes, Skyhooks wrote songs about Australian life and more specifically suburban Australian life. Of course folk and country singers had been writing and singing songs about Australia for many years beforehand, but until Skyhooks no pop or rock n’ roll act had delved into suburbia like these guys did. The band’s songs were lewd (Smut) and lascivious (You Just Like Me Cos I’m Good In Bed), but also addressed contemporary life (Living In The 70’s).

Skyhooks were the 1970’s. Their glam image complete with make up and occasional cross dressing was augmented by a wickedly cartoonish sense of behaviour on stage and some outrageous sets, including an inflatable phallus that was confiscated by police after a gig in Adelaide – where else! With extroverted front man Graeme “Shirley” Strahan’s impressive vocal range and a sneering Red Symons on guitar as the public face of the band Skyhooks were an unstoppable force at their peak. But it was principal songwriter (and bass guitarist) Greg Macainsh who opened the door for countless Australian bands to follow as the perception of the once loathed cultural cringe quickly evaporated, replaced by a brazen sense of identity in contemporary Australian music.

The impact of Skyhooks’ debut Living In The 70’s can’t be underestimated. To this 10 year old kid growing up in the working class heartland of Sydney’s western suburbs Skyhooks looked and sounded like they’d just landed from another planet. They were outrageous, weird, amusing and dangerous, but they sang about life and places that we identified with so they were also strangely familiar. Even though I was too young to fully comprehend the ambiguous sexuality of a song like Toorak Cowboy (hell, I didn’t even know where Toorak was!), there was a suggestiveness in those lyrics delivered with a sly wink by Shirley Strachan that implied a certain knowingness even if I didn’t quite get it.

The title track though was a different prospect. I totally got it. The lyrics of Living In The 70’s are one of the most accurate snapshots of that era, capturing the suburban frustrations, confusion and uncertainty of the times:

I feel a bit nervous
I feel a bit mad
I feel like a good time that’s never been had
I feel a bit fragile
I feel a bit low
Like I learned the right lines
But I’m on the wrong show

Musically the song was underpinned by a funky little groove, complimented by a set of lyrics that captured the 70’s so succinctly:

I’m livin’ in the 70’s
Eatin’ fake food under plastic trees
My face gets dirty just walkin’ around
I need another pill to calm me down

If Living In The 70’s nailed the uncertainty of the times, then Whatever Happened To The Revolution? personified the mood of the 70’s after the idealism of the previous decade had faded into disillusion and disappointment:

Whatever happened to the revolution?
We all got stoned and it drifted away
Whatever happened to the revolution?
I think it died just yesterday

This barbed slice of cynicism shot a bullet through the heart of 60’s optimism as apathy began to take hold:

And now today everyone’s a bit older
We’re gettin’ richer but we’re gettin’ colder
We’re lookin’ for somethin’ that just ain’t there
And it don’t mean nothin’ to have long hair
So when you’re ready to make a stand
Open your mouth and raise your hand
When you’re sick of your parties and sick of your sweets
Get off your arses I’ll see you out in the streets

The second hit off the album Horror Movie went all the way to the top of the charts. Ross Wilson’s production gave rise to an inspired arrangement with the song’s spooky synth intro winding up into a werewolf howl as the guitars of Red Symons and Bob Starkie plucked out it’s chilling theme – something that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Rocky Horror Show (which premiered on the London stage the previous year). Come to think of it the guys from Skyhooks with their dubious sexuality would have been right at home on set there too, but this song was no pastiche of B grade sci-fi crossed with transvestism, it was social commentary on the desensitised violence that flooded our TV screens on the six thirty news.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjEQq_6yWKQ

Skyhooks may have been a band very much of their time, but the themes of many of their songs are just as relevant today. So shocked were the establishment by the band’s music six of Living In The 70’s ten songs were banned for airplay by the Federation of Australian Commercial Broadcasters, which was just the fuel Sydney’s new public radio station 2JJ needed to announce their arrival on the 19^th January 1975. The public broadcaster’s enfant terrible chose to broadcast the Hooks’ banned track You Just Like Me Cos I’m Good In Bed as their very first song. My brother (who was 19 at the time) tells me that he and a bunch of his mates were driving around Sydney that day with the radio tuned to 1540 on the AM dial just waiting for 2JJ to start broadcasting – they weren’t disappointed with what they heard. Australia had changed and yet again Skyhooks were the catalyst for the revolution.

Skyhooks impact on Australian music and culture was enormous and the bands who followed in their wake never forgot it. Many years later when Skyhooks reformed for the first time in 1983 they were invited to play at a music festival in Noosa. Midnight Oil, by then one of the biggest bands in the country were also playing that festival. Skyhooks were given top billing because Midnight Oil conceded that Skyhooks were the only band that they would allow to top the bill above them.

More than 40 years after Skyhooks first tried to break through in America (unsurprisingly they were just too weird for them), Horror Movie has become a well entrenched popular choice for Halloween. In searching for film clips to include in this post I noticed this comment from William Wilson: “been hearing this song on Much Music Halloween sounds of the season… had no idea it was a dude singing”. Yep, a dude called Shirley. America you’ve missed out on so much.