Skyhooks

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Skyhooks was an Australian rock band of the 1970s, sometimes classified as a glam rock band, although this is mainly the result of the band's flamboyant costumes and makeup.

The 'classic' lineup of the band was:

Graham "Shirley" Strachan (vocals),
Red Symons (guitar, vocals),
Bob "Bongo" Starkie (guitar, vocals)
Greg Macainsh (bass, vocals)
Imants "Freddie" Strauks (drums, vocals), aka "Freddie Kaboodleschnitzer"

The band shocked conservative middle Australia with their outrageous (for the time) costumes, lyrics, and on-stage activities, leading to nine of the eleven tracks on their first album being banned from commercial radio. Much of the group's success derived from its distinctive repertoire, most of which was penned by bassist Macainsh.

Although Skyhooks was not the first Australian rock band to write songs in Australia, about Australians, for Australians (rather than ditties about love or songs about New York or other foreign lands), they were the first band to do so and be commercially successful, and the songs were set apart from much of the pop fare of the time thanks to Macainish's mordant humour.

The 'Hooks were the Australian pop success story of their era. Their first album, Living in the Seventies, rocketed to the top of the charts and stayed there for so long that it became the best selling Australian album ever up to that time, with the follow-up, Ego is not a Dirty Word, coming a close second. The band's success was also widely credited with saving the struggling Mushroom record label and enabling it to develop into the most successful independent Australian label of its time.

Both these LPs were produced by Ross Wilson, former lead singer of Daddy Cool, which had been the most successful Australian rock group of the early 1970s. Wilson championed the group, signing them to a publishing contract and convincing Mushroom Records boss Michael Gudinski to give them a recording contract.

Living in the Seventies was notable for several reasons, not least because it was (at that time) the largest selling Australian pop LP ever released. Remarkably, its success was mainly due to the enormous support the band were given by the TV pop show Countdown, rather than support from radio—in fact, most of the tracks on the LP had been banned by commercial radio due to their sex and drug references. Despite the ban, and as a deliberate act of provocation to commercial radio, the ABC's newly established 24-hour rock music station Double Jay chose the album's first track, the provocatively titled "You Just Like Me Cos I'm Good In Bed" as the first track played on air on its first day of broadcasting on January 19, 1975.

Over the next few years, Skyhooks gradually faded from the public eye, though it should be noted that the two or three subsequent albums were poor sellers only in comparison with the astonishing success of the first two.

"Shirley" Strachan and Red Symons both went on to successful careers in Australian commercial television. Symons now works on ABC radio and writes humourous columns for the press. After the demise of Skyhooks, Freddie became the drummer in the later lineup of noted Melbourne rock band The Sports, and other acts such as the "Old Skydaddys". Greg Macainsh played with John Farnham, and in recent years has been a board member of both APRA and PPCA. Strachan was killed in an air crash on August 29th, 2001, when the helicopter he was learning to fly crashed into Mount Alexander near Kilroy, northwest of Brisbane. Graeme 'Shirley' Strachan died instantly.

The name "Skyhooks" comes from an imaginary device created in the book Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator used to hold the elevator up in mid-air. See skyhook.

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