I guess lots of you are too young to remember Thorpie, but he "Rocked" as they say these days!!! He and his band The Aztecs were among my favourites



IN 1969, Billy Thorpe saw the future of rock'n'roll - it was him. He'd had a similar vision six years earlier.

Just a teenager, he moved from Brisbane to Sydney where he spotted a group called The Aztecs, whose latest surf instrumental was limping around the lower reaches of the charts.

Billy told The Aztecs they needed a singer. And incidentally, he was that singer.

If they argued with him, it was the last time anybody did. Certainly no one was arguing by the end of 1969.

In August that year, Thorpe set off for Melbourne with Dave McTaggert on bass and Jimmy Thompson on drums (Aztecs would come and go - 23 men can claim to have been Aztecs).

Thorpe thought he would do a few low-key gigs before heading off to London, as you did. But once here, he picked up an incendiary guitarist called Lobby Loyde and turned up at the Village Green pub on Springvale Rd.

Back then, your mum and dad went to the pub; young people attended Bertie's, Sebastian's, Maze and the Thumpin' Tum - unlicensed venues with back lanes that were nonetheless strewn with wine bottles whose labels read Sparkling Rhinegold, Stone's Green Ginger and Pophery Pearl.

A lot was about to change. And the architect of that change was Billy Thorpe.

The Village Green was soon packed with young people drinking beer and listening to Thorpe's Aztecs.

Other pubs - the Croxton Park and the Matthew Flinders - soon caught on, with any number of blues-based rock bands taking the stage.

There was Spectrum, Chain, The Wild Cherries, One Ton Gypsy, Carson and Company Caine. It was called pub rock and it exploded across the suburbs.

Sydney bands came down to get in on the act: Tully, Fraternity, Tamam Shud and Kahvas Jute.

They came from everywhere - even New Zealanders caught the bug. Victoria's licensing laws were changed to accommodate the phenomenon. Pubs could stay open until 11pm and then midnight, but only if meals were served. These arrived on small plastic plates and consisted of a handful of cold chips and a fish finger or two. At least, that's what they looked like.

And although his sets consisted of healthy servings of US covers - CC Rider, Good Mornin' Little Schoolgirl, Jenny, Jenny and Ooh Poo Pa Do - he helped turn the local music scene away from crippling acceptance that we were inferior. He had been part of that problem himself in the early 1960s.

Most people first heard of Thorpe when The Aztecs' Poison Ivy knocked the Beatles' Can't Buy Me Love off the No.1 spot in the charts - impertinently doing so when the Fab Four were touring Australia.

Poison Ivy was on the new Rolling Stones' EP and getting in early with copies of US and British hits was a way of life for Aussie bands.

But by 1970, Thorpe - while regularly playing the songs of others - brought a cocky Australian attitude to performing. Some progressive bands dressed like characters out of Alice In Wonderland, taking their cue from The Kinks and the Sgt Pepper's cover - but "Thorpie", as he had become known by then, dressed like us, even if he did have a ponytail snaking its way halfway down his back.

He swore on stage, like we did at the bar. And he made a racket like ... absolutely no one else. With amps turned up to 11 long before Spinal Tap, Thorpe was so loud it hurt.

He loved it loud. So did Lobby Loyde. Told after one set that punters in the four first rows had their fingers in their ears, Loyde smiled and said: "Really! That's great!"

Thorpe was certainly brave - a risk taker with a confidence that bordered on arrogance. He recorded 1970's The Hoax Is Over live in the studio. Nobody did that. Not that many Australian acts recorded albums at all. And it only had four tracks. Was he mad?

The whole thing came to a head with Thorpe's legendary Sunbury performance over the Australia Day weekend in 1972. An entirely Australian bill was topped by a band we called our own, unthinkable just three years earlier. Australian music had come of age.

Thorpe eventually outgrew Australia, went to live in the US and recorded some adventurous albums, Children Of The Sun grazing the Billboard top 20 in 1979.

He changed music, he changed Australians' perceptions of themselves, he even changed licensing laws.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sSDrDQ0VEU

Poison Ivy and Most people I know think that I'm Crazy ....where 2 of my all time favourite songs from back then!!
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