mark ferrie

Sacred Cowboys
+ Belle Phoenix Band with Jeffery Wegener
+ Pete Ross and The Sapphire
Marrickville Bowling Club, Sydney
Saturday 18 April, 2026

WORDS: Ed Garland
IMAGES: The Barman

Tonight was one of the strongest bills for some time at the Marrickville Bowlo with the common thread that all three bands are on the legendary record label Beast Records.

Beast is an ultra-cool French imprint that has always gone for the musical underbelly, putting out soulful stuff with swagger and a sense of the street. And more importantly bands with great songs – acts like HITS, Kim Salmon, Six Foot Hick, Spencer P Jones and numerous others, The label is also part of the iconic Binic Festival where tonight's headliners Sacred Cowboys are playing later this year.

It’s been 20 months since I saw tonight’s opening act, Pete Ross and The Sapphire, when they supported Charlie Owen at the Camelot Lounge in Sydney. What I took away from  that night was that they were a class band of great players, with incredible songs and Pete Ross’s soulful voice.

More than a year-and-a-half on, they could still be the most underrated act on the Sydney circuit, but they remain unpretentious and humble. Tonight, they were playing as a three piece and you might say it was “The Sapphire going Nirvana”. They were certainly more direct and more rocking.

WORDS: ROBERT BROKENMOUTH
PICTURES: THE BARMAN

Some myths should be forgotten. As an AFL-denier, Melbourne's St Kilda/Collingwood rivalry has always smacked of juvenile footy gibberish. Besides, Sacred Cowboys were no strangers to Collingwood back in the day, and what was then remains then (and that's Zen) and what was then is certainly is not now (and that might be Zen, too). 

Then and now, from my own window Sacred Cowboys still embody so many of the varied aspects of Melbourne culture - their performance of “Nothing Grows In Texas” on an industry-led TV show I loathed (yet watched religiously), “Countdown”, showed them successfully crossing Melbourne's apparent “dividing rift” - as did The Models.

Some myths should be rediscovered, dusted off, celebrated and redressed, and we should dance with them around a maypole. 

In The Manifesto - Sacred Cowboys (Torn &Frayed/Beast Records)

It’s cause for a celebration whenever Sacred Cowboys release a new album. Principal member Garry Gray holds his freak flag high in a fight against mediocrity in music, and he’s now reunited with a fellow founding member in Mark Ferrie.

I have long argued that the Celibate Rifles captured the frantic and wild, surf-meets-Detroit Sydney Sound with their own laconic touch. Sacred Cowboys are a shining light of what the best of the Melbourne Sound. They play rootsy bar room blues, swampy while embracing post punk's excursions and maintaining a sense of punk's urgency.

^{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.