dave tice

2018 was a shit year but with some amazing gigs intertwined.

We have a sub-culture, in which fragments of our past local music scene survive from a time that was exciting (as Damian Lovelock said) “as England in 1966 or NYC in 1975”.

The folk who peruse and read this website are either musicians, sound engineers writers or rock pigs mostly from a by-gone era. Generally, a generation that was made of weekly trips for vinyl hunts on Sydney's Pitt Street, in particular Ashwood’s and independent record shops like Phantom and The Record Plant. A generation that had subscriptions to RAM Magazine, or Rolling Stone and read fanzines.

Our world was pre-gaming, home computers, no Netflix, no Internet, no YouTube. What mattered was music, and it was our obsession. We were playing in bands, producing bands, writing about music, collecting vinyl records before the hipsters made it expensive.

The new line-up of Buffalo Revisited, the Sydney band celebrating the music of Australia's first stoner rock outfit Buffalo, plays its first show at The Bridge Hotel in Rozelle, NSW, on June 3, promoted by The I-94 Bar. The band's last outing was a year ago. 

Singer Dave Tice gives us the lowdown in this promo clip. Tickets are available here.

A quick trawl through the memory banks shows that AC/DC books have figured more prominently on my personal playlist in recent years than almost any others. You’re entitled to ask why.

It’s not that I’m a fan of the band or anything like that. The personal take on them runs along these lines:

Their music is formulaic in a way other “band brands” like the Ramones have never been. Yes, the drummer (Phil Rudd most prominently) swings like the proverbial shithouse door in a cyclone, but there’s not much else doing in the songs apart from well-meshed, chugging riffs. The lyrics were inane (not always a bad thing), the solos predictable (one man’s classic is another man’s so-so), and the whole package was seemingly contrived (songs about venereal disease, schoolboys chucking browneyes) to attrract and repel a certain broad audience. Americans especially took to them in a way they never did with punk.

Frontman Bon Scott had a certain lewd charm but it always seemed that The Powers That Be (that’d be Malcolm and Angus) imposed a certain way of doing things – and god help anyone who wanted to depart from the template. 

Adventurous is one thing they have never been but, fuck, they have marketed themselves well.  

So why read books about them? 

From 1970-76, Buffalo were undoubtedly one of Australia’s greatest high-energy, rock and roll bands. They were a great example of four musicians whose combined musical chemistry created devastating results.

Their five original albums (on the great Vertigo label) sell for massive amounts of money on eBay. Decent condition copies are practically hard to come by, as most of Buffalo’s original 1970’s fanbase were drugged/drunken freaks who trashed those albums at their hippy parties.

After the band broke up Pete Wells put together Rose Tattoo, Dave Tice based himself in England where he joined great R & B/pub rock combo The Count Bishops.

First published in November 2005

He’s been called “the Godfather of Aussie stoner rock” and his status as co-founder of the legendary 70's band Buffalo (also home to Pete Wells who went on to Rose Tattoo) alone entitles Dave Tice to undying respect.

Tice also went on to front UK pub rockers The Count Bishops, formed Sydney’s Headhunters and his own Dave Tice Band. Long-running residencies with ex-ACDC bassist Mark Evans made the Tice and Evans duo a fixture in Sydney. His influence on the Australian rock, blues and heavy metal scene has been enormous.

The Sydney-based veteran still has one of the best voices in the business and is playing four dates in Melbourne to showcase his impressive back catalogue, partnering with a band of hot local players:

Thursday 24th September - Mr Boogieman Bar (Abbotsford)
Friday 25th September - Station 59 (Richmond)
Saturday 26th September - The Reverence Hotel (Footscray)
Sunday 27th September - The Flying Saucer Club (Elsternwick)

It’s been cited as one of the most influential hard rock albums in Australian music history. Buffalo’s “Volcanic Rock” turns 45 this year.

To mark the occasion, vocalist Dave Tice is playing some special shows with current band, Buffalo Revisited, playing the album and a handful of other hand-picked highlights from the band’s five-album career.

The first will be presemnted by the I-94 Bar at Sydney’s Bald Faced Stag Hotel on Saturday, June 30.

Recorded mostly live at United Sound in Sydney, “Volcanic Rock” appeared in August 1973 on the Vertigo label, also home to Black Sabbath.

Attracting minimal airplay, it was critically-hailed and tracks like “Freedom”, The Prophet” and “Shylock” wrote the template for stoner rock.

I copped this 2006 reish late (thanks ‘n’ a tip o’ the hat to Lou Ridsdale at Lance Rock Publicity), but the Barman is generously allowing me to weigh in with myYankee two cents’ worth.