Flash and the Pan

Flash and the Pan were an Australian band that essentially went back to The Easybeats . It was founded in the second half of the 1970s.

Band history

The two main songwriters for Easybeats, George Young and Harry Vanda , stayed together after the band ended in 1969 to continue working as a team. They became one of the most important rock and pop producer teams in Australia. a. worked for John Paul Young and especially for the rock band AC / DC .

John Paul Young's producer George Young was the older brother of AC / DC members Angus Young and Malcolm Young . The resulting frequently read claim that John Paul Young is also a brother of the latter two is based on confusion and is incorrect.

In addition to their primary work as producers and songwriters for others, Vanda and Young occasionally found time to produce their own music. In 1976 they released their first single Hey St. Peter under the name Flash and the Pan . This immediately made them number 5 on the Australian charts . The following year they were also successful in parts of Europe. The B-side Walking in the Rain was a minor hit for Grace Jones in 1981 . The band's name is an ironic reference to the English expression a flash in the pan , so a flash of gunpowder in weapons pan without triggering a shot, translated mutatis mutandis therefore something of a damp squib or a flash in the pan .

Due to the success they put together an entire album, which was released in 1978 with the band name as the title. The first release, Down Among the Dead Men, was as successful as the first single and, apart from in Australia, also a hit in the British charts . George Young's chanting was characteristic of the songs and was alienated as if it had come from an old-fashioned radio. For the right vocal parts they also brought Easybeats singer Stevie Wright into the studio again and again. With the album they also went to the USA and, in addition to the album, Hey St. Peter also made it into the official charts there in 1979 . But it remained a studio project and without appearances they could not create a broad fan base. The second album Lights in the Night , which followed in 1980, brought some smaller but less sustainable successes. Instead, the band was popular on the radio and, thanks to specially staged videos in the wedding of music television, also on MTV and other stations.

A quieter phase followed, only in 1983 followed another hit with the single Waiting for a Train from the third album Headlines (1982), which was particularly successful in Great Britain and made it into the top 10. It took another two years to get to album number four with the title Early Morning Wake Up Call . The pre-release single Midnight Man was particularly successful on the European continent and her greatest success in Germany with 7th place. Both the single and the album were successful in Switzerland. In the US, the song was a minor dance hit. The title song was also in the German charts, but the band still had only sporadic successes. In 1987 they had another hit with Ayla , but the associated album Nights in France was largely unsuccessful. For this they came again in 1993 with the album Burning Up the Night in the German charts, but had no more single hits. As a result, the project was no longer continued. The last new release was a remix of Waiting for a Train in 1996 .

Young and Vanda produced up until the 2000s and worked among other things, Stiff Upper Lip by AC / DC , then founded Vanda with his son Daniel's own studio Flashpoint Music. George Young died in October 2017 at the age of 70.

Discography

Studio albums

year	Title music label	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, music label , placements, weeks, awards, notes)						Remarks
		DE	CH	SE	UK	US	AU
1978	Flash and the Pan Albert 035	-	-	SE14 (9 weeks) SE	-	US80 (16 weeks) US	AU*AU	First published: 1978 Producers: Vanda & Young
1980	Lights in the Night Albert 045	-	-	SE1 (11 weeks) SE	-	US159 (6 weeks) US	AU*AU	First published: 1980 Producer: Vanda & Young
1982	Headlines Albert 054	-	-	SE13 (6 weeks) SE	-	-	AU*AU	First published: August 1982 Producer: Vanda & Young
1985	Early Morning Wake Up Call Albert 465 231	-	CH18 (6 weeks) CH	SE3 (7 weeks) SE	-	-	AU*AU	First published: March 1985 Producer: Vanda & Young
1993	Burning Up the Night Albert 472 051	DE92 (3 weeks) DE	-	-	-	-	AU*AU	First published: February 1993 Producer: Vanda & Young

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

* The Australian album placements are currently not available, see also the chart format template .

More studio albums

• 1987: Nights in France (Albert 431 071)

Compilations

year	Title music label	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, music label , placements, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	CH	UK	US	AU
1983	Pan-Orama Ensign 655 171	-	-	UK69 (2 weeks) UK	-	-	First published: June 1983 Producers: Vanda & Young

More compilations

• 1988: Flash Hits (Cha Cha 001)
• 1990: Collection (Albert 466 950)
• 1998: Midnight Mann ( Sony Music 67548)
• 2005: Ayla: The Best of Flash and the Pan (Repertoire 5034)
• 2012: The 12Inch Mixes (2 CDs; repertoire 5265)

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)						Remarks
		DE	CH	UK	US	Dance	AU
1976	Hey St. Peter Flash and the Pan	-	-	-	US76 (4 weeks) US	-	AU5 (34 weeks) AU	First published: October 1976 US chart entry only in July 1979
1978	Down Among the Dead Men / And the Band Played On (UK 1978) Flash and the Pan	-	-	UK54 (7 weeks) UK	-	-	AU4 (19 weeks) AU	First publication: July 1978 including re-entry in UK: 1983 place 77 (3 weeks)
1979	The African Shuffle Flash and the Pan	-	-	-	-	-	AU85 (4 weeks) AU	First published: December 1978
1980	Media Man Lights in the Night	-	-	-	-	Dance82 (3 weeks) Dance	-	First published: July 1980
1983	Waiting for a train headlines	-	-	UK7 (12 weeks) UK	-	-	AU98 (1 week) AU	First published: December 1982
	Waiting for a train (French take)	-	-	-	-	-	AU66 (10 weeks) AU	First published: June 1983
1985	Midnight Man Early Morning Wake Up Call	DE7 (18 weeks) DE	CH16 (8 weeks) CH	-	-	Dance19 (9 weeks) Dance	AU66 (7 weeks) AU	First published: October 1984
	Early Morning Wake Up Call Early Morning Wake Up Call	DE26 (11 weeks) DE	-	-	-	-	-	First published: July 1985
1987	Ayla Nights in France	DE26 (15 weeks) DE	-	-	-	-	-	First published: September 1987

More singles

• 1979: California
• 1980: Welcome to the Universe (release: July)
• 1980: Media Man (release: October)
• 1981: Captain Beware
• 1982: Where Were You (released August)
• 1982: Love Is a Gun
• 1985: Communication Breakdown
• 1988: Money Don't Lie
• 1988: Yesterday's Gone
• 1989: Waiting for a Train '89
• 1990: Something About You
• 1992: Living on Dreams
• 1992: Burning Up the Night
• 1996: Walking in the Rain '96
• 1996: Waiting for a Train '96

swell

1. ↑ Flash and the Pan , Chuck Rothman, Jan. 30, 2008
2. ↑ Flash and the Pan , Toppermost, October 28, 2017
3. ↑ Meet Vanda & Young: The Unlikely Pop Duo Behind AC / DC, the Easybeats, and Flash & the Pan ( Memento April 25, 2018 in the Internet Archive ), Jerry McCulley, Gibson.com, July 14, 2008
4. ^ AC / DC producer George Young dies , Badische Zeitung, October 23, 2017
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Chart sources: DE CH SE UK Billboard Hot 100 Billboard 200
6. ^ Joel Whitburn : Hot Dance / Disco 1974-2003, ISBN 978-0-89820-156-7 .

Web links

• Flash and the Pan at Discogs (English)
• Flash and the Pan at 45cat.com
• Flash and the Pan at Allmusic (English)