cheers
I thought it was the singer from dragon... and all the time I should have been thinking Hello Sailor... after this length of time they all fade into a blur

Raised by adoptive parents in Invercargill -- the southernmost city in these shaky isles, aptly named the "asshole of the world" by Keith Richards -- Chris found the family piano and his brand new super-8 camera to be the vehicles for an insatiable young mind fuelled by the music of the Beatles, the Kinks, and Incredible String Band, and movies covered in famous monsters of filmland. But all that is more easily read about than discovered firsthand in Invercargill, and as soon as the chance came, Chris set off for Dunedin,

No, the Chooks won the second one.
The answer is Ardijah.

I'm afraid to say - it was the Headless Chickens who won the inaugural Rheineck Rock Award in 1987 - I was there! One of the "peppering of a few in black jeans and leather jackets who'd seen the Chickens before and kinda liked the dark, unholy racket they made" among all the suits looking totally out of place in the old City Hotel. Things calmed down in successive years: Breathing Cage won in 1989 - their website says that the two previous winners were Headless Chickens and Ardijah, who must have won in 1988 although google has no confirmation.

There was a lot of controversy when the Headless Chickens won. They were (at the time) this weirdo avant garde electronicky band and not at all the sort of group normally associated with Reineck, rock or even pop. In fact, I believe Metro (or a similar publication) did a story on the controversy.

sorry my bad the question was "a number 1 selling single"