1927

by Brendan SwiftSoft rock and a fairy-tale story provided the impetus behind 1927's debut ...Ish! -- one of Australia's top selling albums of the '80s. Former Moving Pictures guitarist and songwriter Gary Frost saw singer Eric Weideman performing the Police's hit "Roxanne" on the "Red Faces" talent segment of popular Melbourne variety show Hey Hey It's Saturday in late 1986. Frost drove from his hometown of Sydney to enlist Weideman as singer for the growing list of songs he had written in his home studio. Frost's brother Bill on bass and James Barton on drums completed the fledgling lineup. The next year was spent being rejected by every record company in Australia until Charles Fisher (who also worked on Moving Pictures' Days of Innocence album) signed the group to Trafalgar Productions. Released in December 1988 and produced by Fisher, the group's debut ...Ish! reached number one on the Australian national charts in April 1989 and went on to sell more than 400,000 copies. The top five single "That's When I Think of You" (which also appeared in the U.K. charts at number 46) earned the band the 1988 Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) award for Best Debut Single (shared with the Rockmelons' Tales of the City), while ...Ish! scored Best Debut Album. Ex-Moving Pictures' keyboardist Charlie Cole joined the band for the next year of touring. In late 1989 Frost left the band and Weideman took on the bulk of songwriting duties. The Other Side, (produced by Frost and Fisher), lacked the catchy choruses of ...Ish! and after debuting in Australia at number three quickly fell from the charts. In November 1992 their third album was released, 1927, to little fanfare. By 1993, the band had broken up. Weideman's debut solo single "Nothing I Can Do" appeared on the band's 1996 release, The Very Best of...1927, as a segue into his solo career.