Goanna joins Australian Road Crew Association’s desk tape series

Goanna, the band who had a massive global hit in 1982 with the land rights anthem ‘Solid Rock’, are the seventh act to feature in the Australian Road Crew Association’s (ARCA) Desk Tape Series.

The series was created by ARCA to raise funds and resources for Support Act’s Roadies Fund to provide financial, health, counselling and well being services for crews.

The tapes are released on the association’s Black Box Records through MGM Distribution and on all major streaming services.

Goanna Live At Canberra Workers Club, 1985 captures the excitement of the band as they fly high on the back of their debut album Spirit of Place reaching #2, and the anticipation of the follow up Oceania which they had just recorded in America with Little Feat’s Billy Payne.

Due for release in April 2015, new songs like ‘Common Ground’ and ‘Dangerous Dancing’ introduced on the tour where the Canberra date was taped by their front-of-house engineer Mike Emerson.

Band leader Shane Howard recalls the tour, “Having been off the road for nearly a year, recording and mixing, finances were grim and we’d taken to the road with some urgency, to raise some much needed wages, promote the ‘Common Ground’ single and prepare for the upcoming album release. 

“By the time we did the Canberra Workers Club gig we’d already been touring pretty solidly through November, December and January 1984, from Melbourne to North Queensland, to Tasmania and West Australia.

“Like all touring in those days, it was nearly all done by road.”

He says of the tape, which he personally mastered for release, “There’s some rough patches here and there and a bit of patchwork and spot welding that had to be done in a few spots. They’re certainly imperfect. 

“That said, the tapes are impressive and I think you’ll be struck by how good a live band Goanna were and how great the crew were who pulled these shows together, night after night, on the road..”

Howard formed the folk-rock outfit, first known as The Goanna Band, in 1978 in the Victorian coastal town of Geelong.

Their debut EP was produced by Broderick Smith of The Dingoes.

The lineup continually changed, but by he time of the Workers Club show also included Rose Bygrave (vocals & keyboards), Marcia Howard: (vocals & keyboards), Peter Coughlan (bass), Robbie Ross (drums), Mal Logan: (keyboards) and Brian Holloway (electric guitar).

They lived as a collective in a storied house which they called Goanna Manor, and operated as a social democracy between the musicians, management and road crew.

The Canberra show also saw Bart Willoughby  join them onstage playing didgeridoo on ‘Solid Rock’.

The classic was inspired after Howard’s emotional and eye-opening ten-day camping trip to Uluru two years before.

Released on September 1, Live At Canberra Workers Club, 1985 follows tape releases by Redgum, TISM, The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, Australian Crawl and Men At Work.