# Skyhooks’ Living in the 70s: The Most Important Australian Rock Album You’ve Never Heard

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/dig-me-out-70s-80s-metal-6762076/skyhooks-living-in-the-70s-the-most-important-australian-rock-album-you-ve-never-heard
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/dig-me-out-70s-80s-metal-6762076/skyhooks-living-in-the-70s-the-most-important-australian-rock-album-you-ve-never-heard.md
Podcast: [Dig Me Out: 70s & 80s Metal](https://stenobird.com/podcast/dig-me-out-70s-80s-metal-6762076)
Published: 2026-04-07T13:01:00+00:00
Episode link: https://www.digmeoutpodcast.com/p/skyhooks-living-in-the-70s-the-most
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/193424060/3fe6df90ed88c18ed0ed573620fa0445.mp3
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Duration seconds: 3444

## Resource

Skyhooks – Living in the 70s (1974) | 70s Rock Deep Dive What if the most important rock album of 1974 never made it out of its home country? In Australia, Skyhooks’ debut Living in the 70s was a cultural earthquake — 16 weeks at #1, the highest-selling Australian album of its time, six songs banned from commercial radio, and a bill where AC/DC and Split Ends opened for them. Outside Australia? Complete silence for fifty years. Jason, Tim, and Chip dig into this theatrical, bass-driven, gloriously weird debut from Melbourne’s most provocative band — a record that sounds like Alice Cooper, Rocky Horror, Black Oak Arkansas, and a cosmic cowboy walked into a pub and decided to start a glam rock band. It’s not what you’d expect from 1974 Australian rock. That’s exactly the point. If you love Alice Cooper, Slade, Alex Harvey, early Cheap Trick, or any band that traded guitar heroics for theatrical swagger, this episode is for you. • 0:00 — Intro — This week on Dig Me Out: 70s and 80s rock. Four albums entered the listener poll. One won both — with a tiebreaker. Welcome to Australia. • 1:07 — How the Album Won — The poll breakdown: Detective (1977), Hurriganes’ Roadrunner (1974), Thundermug’s Thundermug Strikes (1972), and Skyhooks’ Living in the 70s (1974). It tied with Detective on the website. It tied with Thundermug on Patreon. Skyhooks won both. Community member Eric Peterson suggested it — then voted against it. Classic. • 3:10 — Australian Correspondent Gavin Weighs In — The band’s backstory, straight from someone who actually grew up with this record. Singer Shirley Strachan’s wild post-band career (children’s television, home renovation hosting, a fatal helicopter crash in 2001). Guitarist Red Simons’ 28 years gonging amateurs off stage on Hey Hey It’s Saturday. The…

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