The rise and fall of the independent Australian record label that sent the Bee Gees spinning into the international pop orbit is the subject of a new book by a University of Queensland (UQ) academic, musician and author.
The history and complete discography of Spin Records from 1966 – 1974 is the result of five years of extensive research by Bill Casey, a lecturer in Australian Studies at UQ’s Centre of Marine Science, and a semi-professional musician.
Among Spin’s founders and shareholders were the late Clyde Packer, brother of the late Australian media baron Kerry Packer, and celebrity agent and manager Harry M. Miller, whose Australian cast recording of the musical Hair was a big-seller for the label.
The Bee Gees are Spin’s major lasting legacy, with their 1968 LP Rare, Precious and Beautiful the first Australian-recorded album to make the American Cashbox charts, and their hits such as Spicks and Specks and I Started a Joke still radio favourites.
“What a lot of people don’t remember is that the Bee Gees had a run of 13 singles that flopped in Australia. Hardly anyone thought they’d succeed overseas. They owe a lot to Nat Kipner, Spin’s first producer, and to Ossie Byrne, owner of the St Clair studio, who recorded them on ‘mates rates’,” Mr Casey said.
Other big name Australia artists for the label included Ronnie Burns, Jeff St John, the Dave Miller Set and Marty Rhone.
There were also bands like Geoff “Tangletongue” Mack and his Mack-anicks and Steve and The Board, whose 1966 release I Call My Woman Hinges … Cause She’s Something to Adore is memorable for its title alone.
“Only one in every 10 songs recorded by Spin was a commercial success,” Mr Casey said. “Spin might have made wrong choices about what to record but the biggest hurdle was publicity. Most of the promo work was left to Festival Records and their publicity budget was very limited.”
Mr Casey said the idea for the book came while researching a project for Hurstville Council in Sydney in 2002.
He discovered that during 1966 Ossie Byrne operated the St. Clair Recording Studio in a renovated butcher’s storeroom two blocks down the road from the site of the current Hurstville Library.
“It started off as an oral history project, then there was so much interest that we built a website for it, and eventually that became so popular that I decided to do further research and write the book,” Mr Casey said.
Mr Casey moved to Brisbane in mid 2003. Four years and hundreds of interviews later he put the finishing touches on Spin Dried: a complete and annotated discography of Australia’s SPIN Record label 1966-1974.
He said surprisingly few people involved with Spin or the record industry had known of the label’s connection to the Packer empire, owners of Channel 9 and numerous other television stations and magazine giant Australian Consolidated Press (ACP).
“Clyde Packer didn’t trumpet the fact that he was a Spin shareholder and director, and it was one area where his father didn’t interfere. Sir Frank simply wasn’t interested in pop music, he didn’t think it was profitable,” Mr Casey said.
“But it all came to a stop when Clyde had a big blow up with his father in 1972 and was disinherited. Clyde quit Channel 9 and ACP and resigned as a director of Spin.”
The remaining directors decided to wind up the company. Recording contracts were not renewed. Some artists signed with Festival Records while others continued musical careers without ever recording again.
“It got to the stage where the only Spin contract left was with the Bee Gees, and then that ran out,” Mr Casey said.
While the Bee Gees current manager provided photographs and information for Mr Casey, he didn’t speak directly to either of the brothers Gibb. But he did record hundreds of hours of interviews with other artists.
“There are only a handful of the Spin artists that I couldn’t find. Perhaps now the book is out they’ll make themselves known,” Mr Casey said.
“The Spin archive has some of the best Australian pop music of its era, and Spin fostered many careers in an ultra competitive business without making enemies along the way.
“While Spin was spinning, the word was that Spin employees were ‘good guys’. No shallow phonies, no gangsters with guns, no crooks with knuckle-dusters,” he said.
“That’s not a bad legacy.”
Spin Dried: a complete and annotated discography of Australia’s SPIN Record label 1966-1974 is published by Moonlight Publications and costs $21. Email the publisher at moonlight@impulse.net.au, ph 03 5472 3759 or www.ozmusicbooks.com. A limited deluxe edition with 20 colour illustrations and perfect binding is available for $42. Email the author at billcasey27@yahoo.com.
Media: For further information contact Mr Casey on 07 3300 3529 or 07 3365 4333, or Brad Turner at UQ Communications on 07 3365 2659.
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