Skintite

In early 1977, Chris, Greg and Beachy moved to Townsville and formed a new band called "Out o Town" with the Pink Panther on drum machine. Mal Lee returned to Townsville from Sydney a few months later and joined the band as their drummer. Around the same time Bruce moved up from Brisbane and joined his former schoolmates and "Skintite" was formed. The band introduced original songs from the beginning with a strong emphasis on vocal and guitar harmonies and played covers of the Eagles, Little River Band, Elvin Bishop and Dobie Gray. "Skintite" remained together for almost five years and had the priviledge of performing on the same bill as Joe Cocker, Sherbet, The Drifters, Jose Feliciano, Blondie, Ross Ryan, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, The Ferretts, Meatloaf, The Little River Band, Stars, Ray Burgess, Finch/Contraband, Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons, Jeff St. John, Beagle Boys, Johnny and the Hitmen, Matchbox, Moscos & Stone, TMG, Split Enz, Jon English, Skyhooks, Russell Morris, Australian Crawl, Misex, Imports, Mondo Rock, Cold Chisel, The Radiators, Heroes, Mother Goose, Models, JPY and Matt Finish. In June 1978 "Skintite" hit the road and toured constantly during the next four years from Cairns in Far North Queensland to Whyalla in South Australia and all points in between but their home base became the Gold Coast where they broke many venue attendance records. The final straw came when the boys, their girlfriends and road crew (13 in all) lived together in a three bedroom house in Arncliffe, Sydney in the middle of the winter of 1981. Their last appearance was on the 2nd September, 1981 at the Bombay Rock in Surfers Paradise. "Skintite" recorded an album's worth of material in Townsville in 1978 which was never released. They also recorded a number of songs with Ian Mason at the then highly regarded Music Farm in Mullumbimby, northern NSW.