THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,674) The Sunsets — “I Want Love”
World-class garage rock from Australia’s Sunsets (see #403), who would morph into proggers Tamam Shud (see #1,058). Man, this unrelenting testosterone-fueled epic sounds like it came straight outta Cleveland or Corpus Christi. What do we want? Love! When do we want it? Now!
World Treasures Music writes:
Tamam Shud evolved from an instrumental surf band called The Four Strangers, formed in 1964 in Newcastle, New South Wales. . . . As The Strangers in 1965 they issued the single “Sad and Lonely” and then changed their name to The Sunsets. The Sunset’s tracks were used for two surf films – A Life in the Sun (1966) and The Hot Generation (1967) – both directed by Paul Witzig. Later that year . . . the group . . . changed their name to Tamam Shud.
Alec Paleo adds that:
[The Sunsets] smarted from press criticism that they were behind-the-times [because of the surf music], when in fact, after moving to Sydney permanently . . . the group had begun to psychedelicise at a rapid rate. By the years end [bassist Eric] Connell had quit and the group had become Tamam Shud.
liner notes to the CD comp Hot Generation!: 1960s Punk from Down Under
The authoritative Milesago: Australasian Music & Popular Culture 1964-1975 delves deeper:
[The band’s] origins lay in Newcastle instrumental band The Four Strangers — Dannie Davidson (drums), Zac Zytnic (guitar), Eric Connell (bass) and Gary Johns (guitar). They cut one well-regarded surf instrumental single “The Rip”/”Pearl Diver”, for the Astor label in 1964. Johns left the band at the end of the year and was replaced by singer-guitarist Lindsay Bjerre. . . . Under Bjerre’s guidance The Four Strangers . . . were steered into a more up-to-date beat/R&B style and they snared a five-year deal with the Festival label. . . . Their first Festival release was a gritty R&B single “Sad & Lonely”/”You’ll Be Mine”, which sold in respectable numbers in their hometown of Newcastle. At the end of the year they changed their name to The Sunsets and during 1966, as they became one of the top bands in Newcastle, they began making forays into Sydney. During this period they also recorded the music for the soundtracks for Paul Witzig’s surf-films A Life In The Sun and Hot Generation. While very successful, this link contributed to them being pigeonholed, quite inaccurately, as a surf band . . . . The Sunsets shifted to Sydney’s eastern suburbs in 1966 . . . . The big turning point came at the end of 1966 when The Sunsets were invited to play a three-month residency at a Surfer’s Paradise nightclub owned by TV celebrity Digby Wolfe.
Lindsay: “We played at this nightclub, Digby’s, just as 1967 came around and the whole LSD thing took off. The start of acid rock, the hippies, LSD, all those things first hit. The big revolution took place. We were doing covers, “Happy Together” by The Turtles, Eric Burdon & The Animals stuff, and [a] 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 Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow, Arthur Lee and Love’s Da Capo. We were all getting into jazz.”
As the year progressed The Sunsets, now immersed in the blossoming psychedelic scene, reinvented themselves as Tamam Shud. . . . They were certainly one of the first Australian groups to take up the new acid-rock style led by artists like Cream, Hendrix and Pink Floyd.
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