Steady On

In the mid 1970’s, Easybeats superfan George Crotty summoned the courage to visit the band's label Albert Productions. With the goal of meeting his idols Harry Vanda and George Young, he was successful beyond his wildest dreams. His open personality and unabashed enthusiasm for the duo’s music made him a friend to everyone at Alberts – including Harry and George. If that wasn’t enough, after sometime, George Young gave Crotty access to the recordings the group had accumulated in the Albert Studio Vaults. With his domestic grade tape recorder,Crotty began to make copies of the band’s acetates, demo reels and studio outtakes for his own private collection. Although the quality of Crotty’s tape recorder wasn’t “professional”, it was still an honour to have recordings these unreleased treasures. By 1978 he had collected quite a substantial amount of music. Crotty decided to compile the songs recorded from the early period of The Easybeats’ career and have them privately pressed to vinyl. At a very small run (said to be “around twenty”), he had no intention of selling the album commercially, they were simply intended as presents to friends and the people at Alberts as a “thank you” for their kindness. He referred to it as his “tribute album.” In keeping with the compilation’s period, he designed a cover and wrote liner notes in the style of a pop album from the early/mid 60’s. The liner notes express his love for the band – “The Easybeats are my favourite group and all their songs are music to my ears. The time is now and 1965 will be remembered as the days of that E.A.S.Y. beat”. The album was called “Steady On”, after one of the demo recordings found LP. After completion, he mailed copies of the record to his record trading friends across the world. Next was to present the LP to his friends at Albert Productions. But it was to his dismay to learn that his project had not gone over as well as he had hoped. Although Crotty’s intentions were good (if naïve), Albert Productions were understandably shocked at the thought of these recordings being leaked to the public (and more importantly – bootleggers). It was probably made worse by Crotty crediting the LP to Albert Productions, especially with the poor quality of the album’s audio. When word of this got back to Crotty, he air-mailed his collector friends, begging them not to sell their copies or reveal they owned a copy. In 1979 – Raven Records would secure the licence to officially release some of the songs on an E.P. titled Mean Old Lovin’. This would include 4 of the songs from Crotty’s disc. But to date – no other songs featured on the original L.P. have been officially released by Albert Productions or any other label with an approved licence to the material. The album became something of an enigma to Easybeats fans. It was even described and pictured in an issue of RECORD COLLECTOR magazine. Eventually, 12 years after it was pressed, seven of the tracks surfaced on a bootleg CD bearing the “Steady On” name [Tendolar TDR-061] along with other Vanda & Young related rarities. Some of the songs from the original LP were retitled. Crotty's reputation as one of Australia most renowned collectors of Garage Rock, Psychedelic and Australian artists from the 1960’s continued to grow throughout the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s. He would go on to organise two fondly remembered “60’s Reunion Parties” early in the new millennium. These reunited many fans and artists from the past, but he had to retire from this as his health began to fail. In George Crotty passed away from a fatal heart attack in 2010. Since Crotty’s passing in 2010, the LP has appeared in various online auctions sites. Demanding prices into the thousands, but often being mistaken as an “official” lost album or an official Albert Productions test pressing. - taken from "The Music Goes 'Round My Head - An unofficial site dedicated to the recorded music of The Easybeats".