The evolution of Shud was typical of many groups of the era, beginning as an instrumental band, moving through 'beat' pop and psychedelia, to progressive rock. The group originated in a 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 Astor in 1964 after which Johns left the band and was replaced by singer/guitarist Lindsay Bjerre at the end of the year. Lindsay was a natural musician and performer who began singing at an early age. According to rock historian Noel McGrath, his first public appearance was an impromptu but well-received performance in a Tamworth pub at the age of 15. Unusually for a pop musician, he was also able to read and write music and his keen musical instincts proved extremely important for the band's future development.
xxx A rare shot of the original lineup of Tamam Shud onstage at a Ray-O-Vac Batteries Pop Spectacular in Sydney, probably in 1969:
L-R Lindsay Bjerre, Dannie Davidson, Zak Zytnic, Peter Baron.
[Image courtesy of Terry Stacey]

Under Bjerre's guidance The Four Strangers -- now renamed The Sunsets -- were steered into a more up-to-date beat/R&B style and snared a five-year deal with the Festival. Their recordings are highly prized by '60's beat fans, and no less than four Sunsets tracks -- Sad & Lonely,When I Found You, I Want Love and Hot Generation have been anthologised on various compilations. When I Found You is now available on CD on the essential Festival 3-disc compilation So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star?.

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, as Lindsay Bjerre recalled in a 1996 interview with Ian McFarlane:

"Paul Witzig had us as The Sunsets doing the soundtrack to A Life In The Sun. We were just like any other band. I was writing all the singles we did through Festival, and they did well and we weren't doing any surf music at all. Paul actually said 'I want you to play surf music, instrumental, for this movie'. But that did us a lot of damage because we actually went backwards momentarily. Doing that whole instrumental thing for the movie. So Festival released some of it and it went up the charts. So here was The Sunsets with an instrumental song sounding all surfie and it was making the tag even more so than it was. I remember Molly Meldrum bagging us in Go-Set and it wasn't representative of the band at all."

Hot Generation has attracted a particular following over the years, and the title track has been covered by both the American all-girl group The Pandoras (1985), and Australia's Psychotic Turnbuckles (1989).

When The Sunsets shifted to Sydney's eastern suburbs in 1966 they hooked up with the Harrigan Agency, playing at their venues Surf City, The Star Club and Sunset Disco, and touring with other Harrigan acts like Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs, Max Merritt & The Meteors, Ray Brown & The Whispers and Chris Hall & The Torquays. 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 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."

All these changes proved too much for bassist Eric Connell who, according to Bjerre "... couldn't really handle what was going on. He was basically a straighter guy". Connell left the band when they returned to Sydney at the start of 1967, and apparently quit the music scene entirely. Davidson and Zytnic wanted a seasoned professional to replace him, but Lindsay felt that the players on offer were too straight and he was determined to find someone with "the right attitude". His eventual choice was Peter Barron. Bjerre had by then moved to the Sydney harbourside suburb of Manly, and he had seen Barron around the area. When someone mentioned that Peter played bass, Lindsay decided to give him a try. He felt that Barron was the right person for the group<>despite his youth and inexperience, and within a couple of months he was "playing great".