RECORD TURNOVER 80s HITS #187
Angie Pepper’s band The Passengers from Sydney was one of the first to be featured in this series. Well, she also released a solo single in 1984, on which Michael Charles played drums. Now, Charles had previously played in Lipstick Killers – a well-known Sydney punk group who released the classic 1979 single “Hindu Gods (of Love) which later came out on Voxx in the US (Angie Pepper also recorded a version of the song).
The missing link between Lipstick Killers and Sunnyboys was a short-lived group called Shy Impostors, led by vocalist Penny Ward. The band was popular on the local live scene and bass player Peter Oxley went on to form Sunnyboys together with his brother and Shy Impostors’ guitarist Richard Burgman.
Despite releasing just the one single – “At the Barrier” on Phantom in 1980 – they clearly left their mark and in 2017 the remaining tracks from the same recording session were given a cd release by Citadel. This document of the band shows that they not only had the material (in Ward’s songwriting) but also a sound that rivals the best of Australian punk and powerpop as well as international contemporaries.
In 2017 they did a reunion gig with their friends in Sunnyboys and Flaming Hands.
