sacred cowboys

_{Headliner Kim Salmon: No fish out of water.   Campbell Manderson photo}

Every time I go to Melbourne, something elbows me in the ribs and, somehow, things don’t go according to plan. The last few weeks have been short pay weeks, so I didn’t have quite enough dosh as I expected.

Of course, I had also completely forgotten that hotels now want a deposit against impromptu extra day stays and so forth, just in case you take the toaster into the shower or, to settle an argument, see how just far down the emergency stairs you can surf on the bed.

So, somewhat impoverished, I set off for St Kilda, a once-magical place of genteelly-crumbling art deco, dread gangsters (the real kind), assorted equally impoverished students, musicians, dealers and migrants and so on and so on. The event is the 16th A Day By The Green, a long-running Melbourne rock and roll institution.

Now I have to be upfront here. During the early '80s I was a huge Sacred Cowboys fan. I only saw them twice in Sydney but felt they were The Real Deal: a band in this territory of cool, alternative cowboy/Delta punk be that was coming from USA via people like The Gun Club and Wall of Voodoo, yet with a savage savage edge that was a nod to the "Blood River" period Scientists.

“Nothing Grows in Texas” simply was one best Australian singles of the '80s. Of courses Molly Meldrum slagged them off on TV on "Countdown". So we all knew they had so much going for them. At the centre was Garry Gray and his sneering vocals, somewhere between Alex Chilton and Jonathan Richman with a belly-full of hard, home brewed liquor.

These are quite remarkable recordings. Yes, you've heard rehearsal tapes and demo recordings by garage bands before, but these are different. It's all about the timeframe, the intensity and the fact that they're Australian and were recorded in relative cultural isolation.

“Dumb-World” is a serious collection of raw demos and rehearsal tapes from future Sacred  Cowboys leader Garry Gray and his early bands between 1974-1978, featuring Judas and the Traitors, The Reals and The Negatives.

To place this in a historic context, the Australian musical landscape was fairly frigid. The local artists’ soundtrack was blaring from commercial AM radio, but it that was drab even though the live scene was flourishing and there were so many gigs for local musicians to play. 

Corporate con or well-meaning act of benevolence? History tends to deliver a verdict of the former. for "Lethal Weapons", the 1978 compilaiton album of Australian "punk". 

"Lethal Weapons" was a product on an offshoot of major Australian label Mushroom (the same people who brought you Chain, Skyhooks and the Sunnyboys) and it was clearly a cynical attempt to commercialise underground music scenes then burgeoning in Melbourne and Sydney, especially.

Compiled by would-be A & R man Barry Earl, the album was notable for its eclectic cast which included The Boys Next Door (soon to become The Birthday Party), JAB, The Survivors,  whose members would go onto Sacred Cowboys, The Moodists, Radio Birdman, Teenage Radio Stars and the Bad Seeds. 

Trevor Block went in search of many of the original protagonists in bands that signed to Suicide. We're reprising his article to mark 40 years of "Lethal Weapons", and the decade since its CD re-issue. 

Nothing Grows in Texas? Not so for Melbourne.

After selling out Thornbury venue Shotkickers three days before their comeback gig date, Sacred Cowboyshave announced a second and final Melbourne show for this year.

It's on the back of the two CD anthology "Cowboy Logic" but we have wind of fresh recordings being in the works. 

They’ll play St Kilda Bowls Club on Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, on November 22. Tickets just $20+bf via Trybooking here. Don't snooze or you'll lose. 

_{Sacred Cowboys on St Kilda Beach with the SS Minow.}

“Sydney audiences can expect to hear much of the ‘Diamond in the Forehead’ album and a number of songs that will comprise our second album. Expect rock and roll out of the early 1970s, expect high volume in the guitar department, expect Nobel Prize-winning freak flag songs”

Garry Gray wrote this to me, and I visualise him, pounding the keyboard with pride about his forthcoming shows in Sydney in mid-November.

Gray has been making music for 42 years. I imagine by now he knows when he has a killer album ("Diamond in the Forehead") and a killer live band (The Sixth Circle) locked in. As I wrote a few months ago who when I caught The Sixth Circle live at the Tote Hoteland was blown away by a great, pure rock, street-level band:

All that dark and shade in this set; theatrics and drama. The tempo pulls back with “Club Siren”. “Our God hangs #6” is wild rock beat and with the guitars blues-based. Gray’s menacing vocals howling: 'I got hung without a trial'. "Cadillacs” has that proto punk rawness and a blues progression. There are elements of deep soul with raw gritty urban blues, and a solid rock 4/4 backbeat. Live, it is a no-nonsense rock monster.

The Sacred Cowboys
Town Hall Hotel,
North Melbourne
Friday, August 28, 2024
PHOTOS: James Stewart

You may have seen a few videos of this secret warm-up gig on Sacred Cowboys leaderr Garry Gray's Facebook page.  They're great but being there was something else.

See, unlike the two English twonks who recently announced another culture-sucking reformation tour, when we'd all assumed they'd been safely banished to a tiny island in an oasis in a vast desert, the Sacred Cowboys are a kind of poke in the moral and political eye, as well as being the kind of rock band people actually enjoy when it's parked in front of them. 

Despite coming from the same melting-pot that punk initially came from, The Sacred Cowboys could never have been called “punk” with any accuracy. If they resembled anything, it would be a band from the early 1970s stages of Max's or CB's. They have a kind of outsider-taint to them, an aspect both foreign and familiar. Still do have it, you know.

Also, while there was a reason Molly Meldrum dissed the band on “Countdown”, he'd been told to play them, and he had no choice. The truth is that the Sacred Cowboys were their own coiled critter, intent on their own mayhem. That their lyrics were also broadly and potently political added to their attraction. 

^{Nothing Grows on St Kilda Beach: Original Sacred Cowboys in their element.} 

Eclectic label Kasumen Records is marching past its 10^th anniversary with some compelling releases and the latest is “Cowboy Logic”, a compilation douible CD anthology of Sacred Cowboys live and studio material.

The band will return to live stages at Shotkickers in Thornbury, Melbourne, on October 11, trckets for which are here.

Founders Garry Gray (ex-Negatives) and Mark Ferrie(The Models) will be joined in the new line-up by Tim Deane (Ron Peno's Superstitions), Anthony Paine (Black Cab) and Damian Fitzgerald (Sore Eyes.) There are plans to record a new album and to play more shows.

Cowboy Logic – Garry Gray & Sacred Cowboys (Kasumen Records)

It was 1982 when Sacred Cowboys emerged. It was a time when an Australian music tidal wave sweeping over pubs and clubs full of punters across Sydney from Palm Beach to Darlinghurst to Cronulla, and Melbourne from St Kilda to Frankston to Geelong.

Garry Gray was in his mid-20s and already a veteran of the Melbourne music scene when he formed the Cowboys. He already had street cred with foundations that stretched back to 1975. His influences came from the pages of Creem magazine and life in a blue collar suburb, rubbing shoulders with Sharpie gangs and devotees of AFL footy. He and his mates were discovering The Modern Lovers, the Stooges, the Stones, the Velvets and Alice Cooper, one record at a time.

Top Ten Time in Ten Town! Four gigs – five albums – one book – by Garry Gray 

The buzz.
Garry Gray is winging his way in like a true angel to deliver his Top Ten Commandments for the I-94 Bar for 2023 – formerly of Sacred Cowboys, Negatives and Garry Gray & The Sixth Circle – and recently with Ed Clayton – Jones – without G.G. there would be no Chainsaw President ….

’The truth is I never left you, All through my wild days, My mad existence, I kept my promise, So keep your distance.’’ – now read on!

GIGS:

Adalita - Melbourne Town Hall
Adalita performed in the magnificent space of the Melbourne Town Hall, with J.P. Shilo playing the four storey-high Grand Organ. They were accompanied at various stages by Adalita's band, plus backing vocalists Charm of Finches and The Letter String Quartet. Adalita's emotive and well-crafted songs were driven home by her powerful guitar playing and the brooding sound of the swirling organ. A contender for one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen in my life.

Ed Kuepper and Jim White  - Rising Festival
Ed Kuepper and Jim White opened the ill-fated Rising Festival in Melbourne at the Comedy Theatre and what a show it was. It felt pretty exciting to be at a gig in another iconic building. There was also an element of fear - in this seated though crowded space, was I going to get out of there virus free? All in the name of rock ’n' roll!!!

The Rising Festival had an eclectic, artistically challenging and ambitious programme of events but unfortunately was closed down on the second day due to you-know-what. Another one bites the dust.

Liz Reed photo

_{Ian "Ollie" Olsen.}

Australian underground music has lost two important figures in Melbourne’s Ian “Ollie” Olsen and Andrew Picouleau.

Picouleau was best-known as a member of Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes, The Metronomes and Sacred Cowboys, while Olsen was in Whirlywirld, Orchestra of Skin and Bone, Noand Max Q, the short-lived but high-profile collaboration with Michael Hutchence.Both passed last week after protracted health issues. 

Multi-instrumentalist Olsen was a key driver of the Australian post-punk electronic movement of the late 1970s whose punk lineage went back to The Young Charlatans (home to Rowland S Howard) and The Reals. Her was musical director for “Dogs in Space”, Richard Lowenstein’s gritty 1986 depiction of Melbourne’s underground music scene, and went on to make a mark internationally in electronic music and soundtracks.