THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,058) Tamam Shud — “Jesus Guide Me”
“[L]ead singer Lindsay Bjerre is almost screaming the words ‘Jesus Guide Me’ as if he is crying out in desperation for help” in this powerful, stark, spiritual, and “rocking song” from “a very psychedelic album” by the legendary “Australian surf acid[] rockers”. (AtomicCrimsonRush, https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=5732)
Tamam Shud* “took up the mantle of a progressive blues-based concert band, renowned for performing long instrumentals. Initially adopted by the burgeoning psychedelic and drug scene, their popularity rapidly took in the surfing fraternity and the college circuit. Their two original albums are considered progressive and adventurous.” (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/tamam-shud-mn0000160048#biography)
The definitive Milesago: Australasian Music & Popular Culture 1964-1975 goes deep on the early Tamam Shud:
Tamam Shud was one of the most original and innovative Australian groups of the late ’60s and early ’70s, and they played a very important part in our musical development as pioneers of acid-rock and progressive music. . . . Shud’s origins lay in Newcastle instrumental band The Four Strangers . . . . [A]t the end of [1964] . . . Lindsay Bjerre [became lead singer, and under his] guidance [the band] now renamed The Sunsets [see #403] — were steered into a more up-to-date beat/R&B style . . . . [They] recorded the music for the soundtracks for Paul Witzig’s surf-films A Life In The Sun and Hot Generation. . . . [A]t the end of 1966 [they] were invited to play a three-month residency at a Surfer’s Paradise nightclub . . . . [Bjerre recalls] “We played at this nightclub . . . just as 1967 came around and the whole LSD thing took off. The start of acid rock, the hippies, LSD . . . . The big revolution took place. We were doing covers . . . and few of our own things and we were playing six nights a week and it made the band incredibly tight. The whole band took LSD and no longer were we innocent surfie guys. All the people we ran into around the drug scene were putting us onto Albums like like Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow, Arthur Lee and Love’s Da Capo. We were all getting into jazz.” . . . As the year progressed The Sunsets . . . reinvented themselves as Tamam Shud. . . . They were certainly one of the first Australian groups to take up the new acid-rock style . . . . [T]hey were soon recognised as one of Australia’s most innovative bands, with their sets including long, improvised instrumental sections. . . . Over the next five years Shud became one of the most popular live acts of the east coast scene, playing at all the major disco and ‘head’ venues in Sydney and Melbourne. . . . [T]he major fan base for them . . . was on Sydney’s university and college dance circuit, and with the ‘hippy’ audiences at inner city underground venues . . . . Their first LP [Evolution] . . . has been justly hailed by Ian McFarlane as “one of the first wholly original rock albums issued in Australia”. It was made independently, the session financed by filmmaker Paul Witzig to provide music for his surf film Evolution . . . . Four tracks . . . were used in the film. . . . [which] were later re-recorded, along with eight other originals, for [their] debut . . . . Most of Witzig’s budget was committed to the considerable expense of transporting and filming surfers in exotic overseas locations . . . so the budget for the music was minuscule. Consequently, the twelve songs that make up Evolution were recorded live, with very basic equipment, in a single 2-1/2 hour session, and mixed in a mere 1-1/2 hours. . . . Although the recording quality is fairly rough, both the material and the performances are very strong . . . . Bjerre’s strong, soulful vocals carry the songs with ease . . . . [B]oth the film and its soundtrack were very successful . . . .
http://www.milesago.com/artists/tamam.htm
* The band took its name from “a Persian phrase meaning ‘the very end’ . . . taken by Bjerre from the closing words of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”. (http://www.milesago.com/artists/tamam.htm)
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