Icehouse

Submitted by admin on May 1, 2009 - 12:11pm

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In late 1977, Iva Davies joined with rock bass player, Keith Welsh, to form a band called Flowers. The following year, Flowers gained popularity on the Sydney pub and club circuit playing covers, and received offers from record companies even without original material.

In 1980 the band signed with Regular Records and released their first single 'Can't help myself'. In May the song reached the top ten in Australia. Flowers first album, titled Icehouse was released in October of the same year. The album charted at number four and remained in the charts for 45 week, selling in excess of 300,000 copies.

In 1981 Flowers signed a deal with Chrysalis Records and the band changed its name to Icehouse to prevent confusion in international markets. Whilst touring the U.K. and North America Icehouse released the single 'Love in motion' which peaked at number ten in the Australian charts.

In 1982 Iva Davies started work on The Primitive Man album. 'Hey little girl' goes top 20 in the U.K., both single and album went top five in Germany with hits in Holland, Belgium, France and Switzerland. David Bowie and Peter Gabriele invited the band to support them on their U.S. tour, but Icehouse turned down the invitation due to prior commitments with a movie soundtrack.

In 1984 Iva commenced writing the third Icehouse album, Sidewalk, and composed a ballet for the Sydney dance theatre. A couple of years later, the fourth album Measure for Measure is released. This album reached number eight and the single 'No promises' was a success in America.

In 1987 the first single,'Crazy' from the Man of colours album reached number four in Australia and the album entered the charts at number one. The album remained in the charts for 56 weeks.

In 1988 the single 'Crazy' peaked at number 14 on the U.S. Billboard chart. 'Electric blue' debuted at number 88 on the U.S. charts. Man of colours was voted Australian Album of the Year at the 1988 ARIA Awards the album reached number one in Australia and stayed there for 11 weeks. The album sold in excess of 600,000 units going platinum seven times. This set an Australia record for the biggest selling Australian group album of all time on the domestic market. It is still the largest selling album by an Australian band ever released in Australia. A second headline tour in the U.S. followed and Icehouse played their final show for 1988 to 25,000 at Brisbane's World Expo.

In 1989 the single 'Touch the fire' was released on the 25th September. It stayed in the Australian charts for 12 weeks reaching number 13 nationally. A compilation titled Great southern land was released on the 23rd October and went multi-platinum in Australia.

2000 was a busy year for Iva, with a re-working of the Icehouse Classic 'Great southern land'. Later in 2000, Iva released a new song – 'Circles in the sky' as part of the Sydney Olympics live music campaign.

Countdown appearance