Australian Crawl

AUSTRALIAN CRAWL

Ok - confession time...I was a surfer chick in my mid teens - yeah I had a body then and tanned up better than any of that fake shit the kids wear today (stressed about skin cancer now mind you). I even did bikinis and looked halfway decent - but geez, who didn't when they were 15? As I got older, wiser....larger...I gave the beach away. I prefer au natural skin tone, prefer to keep cancer as much at bay as I can, never could swim properly and really hate how sand gets into the wierdest places. Plus, unless you are actually surfing (I dip my hat to people who can - man a shark could eat you!), or entertaining children, it's a pretty vacuous past-time...

However, Australian Crawl who were my soundtrack during that short period of my life still remain dear to me. I could never really understand half of what James Reyne was singing - who could? But it sounded good, sounded like fun and I do remember him singing Beautiful People with both arms in casts on Countdown when they debuted - how could you not pay attention, very cute (I actually preferred the gorgeous Brad Robinson - check out the cover of Sirocco and you will understand) boys, arms moving madly in plaster, and strange lyrics to strange music....love 'em! The McDonough brothers (less fortunate looking than Brad, James and Simon and the other one...I think he played Bass) wrote most of the music and were clearly the talent from a musical pov, but James was not so bad. I found it hard to choose what to add, but despite having pretty much everything by them on vinyl I only had Boys light up and Sirocco on CD. I decided to choose one from each!

TRACK NINE: Way I've Been
Boys Light Up the album has Boys light up, Beautiful People, Downhearted, Indisposed and Hoochie Gucci Fiorucci Mama on it - all great songs. But I choose Way I've Been as it is a simply, understated pop song and an overlooked tune by them. To me it is the essence of the album - bright, happy, loaded lyrics, a little reggae influence and simply fun!

TRACK TEN: Easy on your own
Sirocco is probably my favourite Crawl album. It has the hits of Errol,Things don't seem, Oh no not you again and Lakeside, but every other song is also a gem, especially Unpublished critics, Trusting you, Can I be sure and this one, Easy on your own. It's repetitive, 'easy', great guitar riff, and a real singalong laid back classic. And did you know Kerrie Armstrong (Seachange, Lantana and Bed of Roses) has a writing credit on it, not sure what parts? She was dating Brad at the time...