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Goanna is an Australian band, notable in integrating social protest with popular music. Formed by...

Goanna is an Australian band, notable in integrating social protest with popular music. Formed by singer-songwriter Shane Howard in the late 1970s, they produced three full albums, and a very rare four song EP record. The original name of the band was "The Goanna Band", which was the name used on the EP release in 1979. However, the original name was soon shortened to simply "Goanna" by the time that the album Spirit of Place was released in the early 1980s. They were signed to WEA Australia. Goanna's début album Spirit of Place won the ARIA Best Album of the Year for 1982, with their first major hit, "Solid Rock", winning Best Single of the Year. This song touched on the displacement of aboriginal tribes by the encroaching European settlers. It became a worldwide hit, and was the first rock record to feature extensive use of an Australian didgeridoo, one of the world's oldest wood instruments. Goanna also recorded "Let the Franklin Flow", a song about the ecological damage to be caused by damming Tasmania's Franklin River for hydroelectricity, and "Sorry", a song about Australia's "stolen generation" of aborigines. The band performed three songs for the 1985 Oz for Africa concert