It’s a pairing of the music of two legendary Australian underground legends, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in Sydney in 46 years: Tamam Shud and Buffalo Revisited are playing a double-headliner show at the Bald Faced Stag Hotel in Leichhardt on Friday, September 9.
Regarded as Australia’s true progressive, surf and psychedelic music pioneers, Tamam Shud recently celebrated 45 years with the release of a new album, “Eight Years of Moonlight”.
Buffalo is held in the same high regard and was recently lauded as the Australian “inventors of heavy metal” by UK magazine Classic Rock, which said they’d paved the way for scores of hard rock and stoner acts.
Forming in 1971 and releasing five albums in six years, Buffalo dissolved after making their mark as a live act despite a lack of commecial radio acceptance. They’d left a potent legacy before bass player Peter Wells went on to form Rose Tattoo.
Archetypal bad boys, Buffalo’s early albums “Dead Forever”, “Volcanic Rock” and “Only Want You For Your Body” have been reissued numerous times and original copies change hands for hundreds of dollars in collector circles.
A year ago, following constant approaches from fans, Dave Tice assembled a line-up to re-visit the original band’s legacy. They’ve since played a handful of select gigs, including a 40th birthday celebration for iconic Brisbane radio station 4ZZZ.
Tamam Shud was the first Australian band to issue an album of entirely original songs, “Evolution”, in 1968. Their second album, “Goolutionites and the Real People” (1970) was one of Australia’s most important environmentally-concerned records and they were part of “Morning Of The Earth”, the soundtrack to the iconic surf movie of the same name.
You can read a recent interview with singer Lindsay Bjerre here. The Shud are credited as an influence on the likes of many subsequent acts like such as Midnight Oil, INXS, Celibate Rifles, Pond and Tame Impala.
Said Oils drummer Rob Hirst: “Bands of the 1990’s such as Midnight Oil, Inxs and the Celibate Rifles, must all in some degree be indebted to the Northern Beaches sound, as pioneered by the legendary Tamam Shud. Vive Le Shud!”
Putting Buffalo Revisited and Tamam Shud on the same stage makes perfect sense in the city that was home to both of them in their emerging years and makes for a bill conceived in psych-hard rock Heaven. Incredibly, band members think the pairing only occurred once back in the day, probably at an open air gig on Sydney’s Northern Beaches in 1970.
Tickets are available through moshtix.com.au Doors open at 8pm and playing order will be determined by a coin toss on the night.
Disclaimer: The I-94 Bar has an associaiton with Buffalo Revisited.
