Coloured Balls

Coloured Balls were loud, fast and stripped back, with Lobby Loyde's searing guitar driving the songs like a dragster. Loyde formed the band in 1972 after stints with the Purple Hearts, the Wild Cherries and Billy Thorpe's Aztecs, and it drew on MC5 and the Flamin' Groovies as much as the blues.

Their cropped sharpie haircuts made them heroes of Melbourne's sharpie gangs, and the fights at their gigs had the press blaming the band. The live Summer Jam (1973) captured a 16-minute 'G.O.D.' at Sunbury; Ball Power, released that December, reached the Go-Set top 20 early in 1974, and Heavy Metal Kid followed later that year.

With venues increasingly wary of the trouble that followed them, the band split at the end of that year.