Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons

Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons ranked among Australia's most successful groups during their era, serving chiefly as an outlet for vocalist Joe Camilleri, who formed the act in Melbourne during 1976. Membership shifted often across the ensuing period, yet the stable core alongside Camilleri featured guitarists Jeff Burstin and Tony Faehse, bassist John Power, saxophonist Wilbur Wilde, and drummer Gary Young. Initially the Falcons operated as a raw, saxophone-driven R&B outfit, an approach that defined their first album, the 1976 release Don't Waste It, though they later roamed across styles without restraint. The 1977 album Whip It Out followed, while Let's Drip Awhile arrived in 1979 and sustained a run of provocative record titles; that same year the group signed with the Mushroom label and soon delivered the album Screaming Targets. Poor sales for 1980's Hats Off Step Lively led the band to maintain a reduced presence for some time, until they declared their dissolution in 1983.