Off The Shelf were formed in 1984 by a group of school friends during high school at Frenchs Forest High School on the Northern beaches of Sydney. 

As with most ska bands of the day, they were heavily influenced by the early 2-Tone bands out of England. In the early days Off The Shelf played mainly covers but quickly started writing originals with Dr. Raju being their first.  

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During their first year together, they played two gigs. One at their High School dance and another at a friend's party. The original line featured David Walsh - Vocals and Lead Guitar, Gary Walsh - Vocals and Rhythm Guitar, Mick Fink - Drums, Matthew 'Dack' Sunn on Bass and Paul Kowalski on Keyboards and Vocals. 

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In 1985, David Walsh met David Moore through a computer Programming course at College, the two hit it off from the start with interests in the same style of clothes and music. David Moore's, love of ska, enthusiasm, and sense of humour led to him joining the band early in the same year. David 'Norbert' Moore took up the role of part-time singer/frontman for Off The Shelf.  To add to his skill set David Moore took up the trumpet, percussion and sometimes did what he was told on the keyboards, which gave Paul Kowalski the opportunity to be out the front singing (Paul's vocals can be heard on Jimmy Jazz on the album Made In Australia)

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Some of Off The Shelf's earliest gigs were played in a small pub in Sydney called The Lismore Hotel in Pitt Street where they quickly filled the place which allowed their reputation amongst the Sydney Ska scene to grow.  They quickly cemented themselves within the thriving Sydney scene playing alongside Allniters, Strange Tenants, Club Ska, Mustard Club and many others. 

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In August of the '85, Off the shelf went into Fatboy Studio's and recorded three tracks Thief, Dr. Raju and Off The Shelf Tonight. These three songs were put out as a single which was accidentally labelled as being released through Vi-Nil Records, however it was entirely self-produced and distributed by the band.

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In late '85, early '86 Off The Shelf were looking to expand their membership to include some brass.  On the word of a co-worker, David Moore met up and spoke with the busker, Steve O'Conner, who was playing Saxophone down the street. Without any demos to give him at the time, David pointed him to the local record store nearby. Steve went down and grabbed a copy and was super keen so after some further discussions, Steve joined the band as their Saxophone player.

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The band continued to play regularly up until 1988 releasing a few demo tapes along the way. As the individual members of the band left school and moved into full-time work and other factors of life slowly took over, it started becoming harder for some members to commit to rehearsals.  Around the same time a lot of Sydney pubs started to gentrify and stopped putting on live music altogether which made gigs a lot harder to organise. As with a lot of bands Off The Shelf did not break up, they just stopped playing.​​

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​​In 1989, Mark Brennan from LINK Records in the UK, contacted David Moore to see about putting a couple of Off The Shelf tracks onto compilations.  At this point Off The Shelf had quite a few recorded but unreleased songs so it was suggested that LINK could do an album as well as use some tracks for compilations which would help build awareness for the album. Link Records agreed and released the album "Made In Australia".  Unknown at the time, Pete Cooper (The Pork Hunts/The Porkers/ Sound System Records) had sent Mark Brennan a demo tape of Off The Shelf songs​ which led to Mark contacting David Moore.

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With the release coming out on LINK Records, it lifted the profile of Off The Shelf both overseas and in Australia. However, the band did not reform off the back of this release. 

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Off The Shelf 1985. (L-R Back row - Front Row) David Walsh, David 'Norbert' Moore, Paul Kowalski, Matthew 'Dack' Sunn, Mick Fink, Gary Walsh. From the collection of David Moore.   Photographer/artist David Moore.

Off The Shelf Poster circa 1985.