Garry Gray launches the new album at The Tote. Danny Semmler photo.
Molly Meldrum’s worst nightmare, Sacred Cowboys, are playing rare shows in Canberra and Sydney in April to launch their new album “In The Manifesto”, out on Torn & Frayed (Australia) and Beast Records (France).
Sacred Cowboys play Smith’s Alternative in Canberra on Friday, April 17 with hard psych prog rockers ZZG, and Marrickville Bowling Club on Saturday, April 18 with Belle Phoneix and her band and Beast Records labelmates Pete Ross & The Sapphire.
Presented by I-94 Bar, tickets go on sale at 9am (AEDST) on Friday here for Sydney and here for Canberra. Read our album review here.
Sacred Cowboys are, to quote their bio, “a moody hard rock band with a dry sense of humor”. “In The Manifesto” is their sixth studio album and first since 2007. They started playing in murky Melbourne dive bars in 1982, quickly attracting a rabid following.
With the release of their iconic first single, “Nothing Grows in Texas”, they were catapulted to national TV notoriety on Countdown where the clueless compare famously labelled them "the worst group I've seen in five years". An affirmation that the band was a world class act.
OH&S laws preclude it these days but at one stage, singer Garry Gray took theatrics to the crowd by brandishing a chainsaw. The mercurial frontman is one of punk's founding figures in Melbourne, leading early pioneers Reals and Negatives.
At the Sydney show, Garry and another pioneer, Jeff Wegener (drumming for main support Belle Phoenix). will enjoy an overdue reunion. Both worked with Ollie Olsen, who was guitarist in Reals and later Young Charlatans.
Sacred Cowboy co-founders Gray and Mark Ferrie revived the band in 2025 and enlisted Timothy Deane, Anthony Paine, and Damian Fitzgerald.
“In the Manifesto” sees the band returning to a French label. Their first album was released on New Rose in France in 1985. Subsequent albums followed the pattern of coming out on European imprints with “Trouble from Providence” on Germany’s Normal in 1989, and “Cold Harvest” on Bang! Records from Spain in 2007.
“In the Manifesto” has been attracting airplay in France and Italy, and hometown Melbourne. It was launched at a sold-out St Valentine’s Day gig at The Tote in Melbourne and is now being heard on Sydney community radio.
This will be the band’s only trip to the ACT and NSW before heading to France for the Binic Festival in July.
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