Goanna (band)
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- For the lizards of the same name, see Goanna
Goanna was one of the founding members of an Australian folk-rock movement in which social protest was integrated with popular music. Formed by singer-songwriter Shane Howard, Goanna's first major hit, "Solid Rock," touched on the history of the Australian monolith stone Uluru, then known more popularly as Ayers Rock, and the displacement of the aboriginal tribes by the encroachment of European settlers. "Solid Rock" became a worldwide hit, and was the first rock record to feature extensive use of an Australian didgeridoo, one of the world's oldest wood instruments.
Goanna also recorded "Let the Franklin Flow," a song about the ecological damage that would be caused if Tasmania's Franklin River were dammed for hydroelectric power. In 1999, the group reunited to record "Sorry," a song about Australia's "stolen generation" of aboriginals who were taken from their families as babies and forced to live in white families in a graduated ethnic cleansing. Shane Howard and his bandmates, including sister Marcia Howard and friend Rose Bygrave, have all recorded solo projects in addition to their time in Goanna.
Discography
- Spirit of Place (originally released in 1982, expanded re-release in 2003)