On paper, this band looked like a dream team, with four of Australasia's best musicians combining in a 'supergroup' and intent on conquering the world. Given the talent involved, this should have been a great group who did grand things, but, as so often happened in OzRock, the reality proved to be drastically different.
Vince formed his own band The Vince Maloney Sect, which became the house band on the mid-'60s pop show Kommotion. Moving to England, he spent two years as lead guitarist in the late-60s UK lineup of The Bee Gees with drummer Colin Petersen. He then decided to put together a hard rock supergroup in the Led Zeppelin mould with a few of his old bandmates and musicians known to the Kiwi and Aussie scene of the 60's bands The Aztecs, The Vince Maloney Sect, Doug Parkinson In Focus...Johnny Dick, Teddy Toi and Doug Parkinson.
They put together a set of strong original material, and cut the album in London, although it was not eventually released until 1971, just after they had split. They returned to Australia in December 1970 amid a welter of hype. Boasting that they would become the biggest band in the world immediately, the band encountered resistance from a skeptical public, a situation not alleviated by Doug's boast to Go-Set that "In three weeks Fanny Adams will be the best band that ever trod this earth". Perhaps it was simply a case of being an idea before its time (although other groups like The Dave Miller Set were treading this path successfully). In the event, their brand of heavy, blues-prog rock was (so we're told) upstaged by their support bands at the time, apparently making a mockery of the group's claims.
According to Ian McFarlane, tensions within the band ran high, as one might expect of such an all-star outing. They made some notable appearances, including the Myponga Festival in January 1971, and early in the year MCA released one single from the album, "Got To Get A Message To You" (which was a group original, not the Bee Gees song of the name) backed by "They're All Losers, Honey". But within months of arriving back, the band had self-destructed. The straw that evidently broke the camel's back was a fire at Sydney's Caesar's Palace discotheque, which destroyed all their equipment. Parkinson left under a cloud, and MCA were sufficiently cheesed off with Doug that they effectively banned him from recording for the next two years.
Doug eventually assembled a new version of In Focus, and later pursued a successful solo career on the rock and club circuit, on TV and on stage. Throughout the 1970s, Melouney worked with a succession of bands, including The Cleves, Flite, Levi Smith's Clefs, the Jeff St John Band, John Paul Young and the All Stars and Rockwell T. James and the Rhythm Aces. In 1999 he was reunited with The Bee Gees for their "One Night Only" concert in Australia -- the first time they had played together since Vince left the band thirty years earlier.
Teddy Toi and Johnny Dick played on Lobby Loyde's solo album Plays with George Guitar, and then joined Loyde in a new version of The Wild Cherries. Teddy moved on to a stint in Sydney supergroup Duck in 1972-73, followed by a couple of years in the final version of The Aztecs, and Johnny enjoyed a long and successful stint as the drummer in The All-Stars, backing Stevie Wright and then John Paul.Young.
The Fanny Adams LP, which is a very fine piece of work, is now a sought-after collector's item, but it has recently been reissued on CD (albeit as a bootleg) by a German label, and if you can find it you won't be disappointed. The thundering "Ain't No Loving Left" is also included on Raven's superb Golden Miles collection.
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