Australian Rock - 1964–1969: "Second Wave"

1964–1969: "Second Wave"

1964–1969 is often classified as the 'Second Wave' of Australian rock. The leading acts of this period include Little Pattie, Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, beat duo Bobby & Laurie (Australia's first "long-haired" performers), the Easybeats, Ray Brown & The Whispers, Tony Worsley & The Fabulous Blue Jays, the Twilights, the Loved Ones, the Masters Apprentices, MPD Ltd, Mike Furber & The Bowery Boys, Ray Columbus & The Invaders, Max Merritt, Dinah Lee, Australia's most popular male singer Normie Rowe, The Groop, the Groove, Lynne Randell (who toured America with the Monkees and Jimi Hendrix), Johnny Young, John Farnham, Doug Parkinson, Russell Morris and Ronnie Burns. Also of note were cult acts such as the Missing Links, the Purple Hearts, The Wild Cherries, The Creatures and the Throb, who had only limited success at the time but whose 'heavier' sound would exert a significant influence on later bands like The Saints.

It was during the 1960s that New Zealand performers began to move to Australia in search of wider opportunities. Although their origins are often overlooked (in much the same way that Canadian performers like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are routinely classified as "American") these trans-Tasman performers — people like Max Merritt, Mike Rudd, Dinah Lee, Ray Columbus, Bruno Lawrence, Dragon and Split Enz — have exerted a tremendous influence on Australian popular music.

Another significant Australian from this period, and one whose importance is only now beginning to be widely recognised, was the critic and journalist Lillian Roxon (1932–1973), who grew up in Brisbane but who was based in New York from 1959 until her premature death from asthma. She was a close friend of feminist writer Germaine Greer, photographer Linda McCartney, poet Delmore Schwartz, artist Andy Warhol and many musicians including Lou Reed. Roxon wrote the world's first Rock Encyclopedia, published in 1969, and her writings about pop music and musicians were central to the development of serious rock criticism and rock journalism in the late 1960s and 1970s.

By far the most influential and popular music-related publication of this period was the weekly magazine Go-Set, which was published from 1966 to 1974. Founded in Melbourne in 1966 by a group of former Monash University students including Philip Frazer, Tony Schauble and Doug Panther, Go-Set chronicled all of the major events, trends, fads and performers in Australian popular music, as well as featuring regular columns by renowned Melbourne radio DJ Stan Rofe and Aussie fashion designer Prue Acton.

Go-Set also published the first national Australian pop charts in October 1966 (all charts prior to this were state-based) and it gave extensive coverage to overseas musical developments—it was one of the first international music papers to report on the emergence of Jimi Hendrix and two staff members—writer Lily Brett and photographer Colin Beard – travelled to the USA and the UK in mid-1967, reporting on the famous Monterey International Pop Festival and the burgeoning music scene in London, as well as chronicling the exploits of Australian musicians overseas including Normie Rowe and Lynne Randell. Another aspect of Go-Set's activities was its exclusive reporting and promotion of Australia's prestigious annual rock band competition, Hoadley's Battle of the Sounds, which ran from 1966 to 1972. Go-Set conducted a pop poll of performers which led to the King of Pop Awards starting with Normie Rowe in 1967.

Although it was explicitly established as a 'teens and twenties' magazine, in its later years, inspired by newer publications like Rolling Stone magazine, Go-Set took on a more mature presentation, with numerous rock performers including Jim Keays and Wendy Saddington writing for the magazine. In 1970 former columnist Ian Meldrum scored a world exclusive for Go-Set when he interviewed John Lennon in London, during which Lennon made his first public announcement that The Beatles were breaking up.

As in other countries, independent record labels proliferated during this period. The local branch of the British-owned EMI company had dominated the Australian record market since the 1920s, but in this period it faced increasing challenges from its rivals, including the Australian arm of the American CBS Records and particularly from the Sydney-based Festival Records, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Limited.

Festival had its own successful house label, and it also signed valuable distribution deals with some of the most important and successful independent labels of Sixties, notably Leedon Records (which released the earliest recordings by The Bee Gees), Spin Records and the Perth-based Clarion Records. The many hits released on these independent labels comprised a significant part of Festival's total turnover.

Other important independent pop labels of this period included the Melbourne-based W&G Records, Astor Records – also a major distributor—and the short-lived Go!! Records label, which was set up in conjunction with the popular pop TV series The Go!! Show.

Independent studios and production companies began to play an increasingly important role in the local record industry. Arguably the most productive and influential pop studio in Australia at that time was Armstrong's Studios in Melbourne. Studio owner and engineer Bill Armstrong was an industry veteran who had worked for major record labels, radio stations and advertising clients; and his new studio, which opened in 1965, soon became the most sought-after in the country and probably produced more Australian pop hits than any other in this era. It was also one of the first studios in the country to install 8-track and 16-track recorders in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and was an important training ground for some of Australia's best engineers and producers including Roger Savage, John L. Sayers, Ern Rose, John French and many others.

One of the first and most important independent production companies was Albert Productions, which signed both Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and The Easybeats. It was established in 1969 by young music executive Ted Albert, whose family that owned Australia's leading music publishing house J. Albert & Son and the Macquarie Radio Network, which then included leading Sydney AM pop station 2UW.

Albert Productions scored many major Australian hits (released locally on EMI's Parlophone label) with both their flagship acts in the mid-Sixties, and the Albert Productions record label, esatblished in the early 1970s, became one of the most successful Australian labels of that decade. Other significant 'indie' production houses of the period included Leopold Productions (Max Merritt, The Allusions), set up Festival's original house producer Robert Iredale, and June Productions, led by former W&G/Astor staff producer Ron Tudor, who went on to found Fable Records in 1923.