Australian Crawl / Men At Work

Performers

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  Australian Crawl

  Australian Crawl was an Australian rock band formed by James Reyne (lead vocals/piano) and Simon Binks (lead guitar) in 1978 and joined by Guy McDonough (co-lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Bill McDonough (drums, percussion), Paul Williams (bass guitar), and Brad Robinson (rhythm guitar). . The band was named after the Australian slang term for freestyle swimming. The band's music was a defining feature of Australian surf culture during the 1980s.
  
  Their 1980 debut album The Boys Light Up had a number of hit singles including the title track; "Indisposed"; and "Beautiful People". The Boys Light Up appeared on the Aussie charts for 104 weeks. In 1981 the band released their second album, Sirocco. This album contained the hits "Lakeside", "Things Don't Seem" and "Errol", a song written about the Australian actor Errol Flynn. It was produced by Peter Dawkins in Sydney.
  
  In 1982 they released the Sons of Beaches album. The album was recorded in Hawaii with producer Mike Chapman. The album featured the hit "Shutdown" and it became their third album in a row to reach the top five in the Australian charts.
  
  Soon afterwards Bill McDonough left the band. The remaining members then recorded the EP Semantics. The EP contained what would become possibly their best-known song, "Reckless".
  
  The first of two deaths in the group came in 1984 when Guy McDonough died in Melbourne of viral pneumonia secondary to endocarditis due to intravenous amphetamine use.
  
  The band recorded their final studio album, Between A Rock And A Hard Place, in 1985.
  
  Tensions within the band caused them to disband in 1986. Performing a final concert on 27 January 1986, the concert was recorded and released under the title The Final Wave.
  
  In seven years, Australian Crawl sold over a million records in Australia. After the group disbanded, Reyne went on to pursue a successful solo career. Robinson moved into a career in television (with Network Ten's Page One) and documentaries; in the 1990s he became the manager for the Reyne brothers, James and David. (David had been the drummer in Reyne and Binks' first band, Spiff Roach.)
  
  After a three-year battle with lymphoma, Robinson died on 13 October 1996. The band was inducted into the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 1996, just before Robinson's death.
  
  In 2002 EMI released a two-CD Greatest Hits package called Australian Crawl: James Reyne, The Definitive Collection, which contained songs from the band and from James Reyne's solo career.

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  Men At Work

  “I’m deeply grateful for the life I have,” says Colin Hay, “and I think my natural tendency has always been towards optimism and humor. Lately, though, I’ve had to be more intentional about it. I’ve had to actively seek out the positive, to let new rays of hope shine on some seemingly dark situations.”
  
  That’s precisely what Hay does with his extraordinary new solo album, Now And The Evermore, facing down struggle, loss, and even his own mortality with grit and wit at every turn. Written and recorded in Hay’s adopted hometown of Los Angeles, the collection is a defiantly joyful celebration of life and love, one that insists on finding silver linings and reasons to smile. That’s not to say the record deludes itself about the realities of our modern world, but rather that it consistently chooses to respond to pain with beauty and doubt with wonder.
  
  The music on Now And The Evermore (Lazy Eye/Compass Records) is vibrant and animated, brimming with fanciful melodies, lush orchestration, and even a guest appearance from Ringo Starr, who kicks the whole thing off with a signature drum fill. Hay’s performances are likewise buoyant and full of life, drawing on vintage pop charm, pub rock muscle, and folk sincerity to forge a sound that’s at once playful and profound, clever and compassionate, whimsical and earnest. At its most basic level, Now And The Evermore offers a deeply personal acknowledgement of the relentless march of time, but zoom out and you’ll see that Hay’s contemplations of identity and eternity are in fact broader reflections on our shared humanity, on letting go of dead weight and reaching for the light no matter how dark things may get.
  
  “It’s a troubling and confounding and ever-inspiring world that we live in,” he muses. “I’m lucky to be able to wander downstairs and try to make some sense of it, at least to myself.”
  
  Born in Scotland, Hay moved with his family as a teenager to Australia, where he first came to international fame with seminal ’80s hitmakers Men At Work. While the band would reach the heights of stardom—they took home a GRAMMY Award for Best New Artist and sold more than 30 million records worldwide on the strength of #1 singles like “Who Can It Be Now?” and “Down Under”—by 1985, they’d called it quits and gone their separate ways. Hay released his solo debut the following year and, over the course of the next three-and-a-half decades, went on to record twelve more critically acclaimed studio albums that would help establish him as one of his generation’s most hardworking and reliable craftsmen. Rolling Stone praised his “witty, hooky pop” tunes, while NPR’s World Café lauded his “distinctive voice,” and late night hosts from David Letterman and Craig Ferguson to Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel have all welcomed him for performances.