Australian musician Alex ‘Zack’ Zytnik has died at the age of 79.
Alex was a founding member and lead guitarist of the 1960s psychedelic rock band Tamam Shud.
News of the rocker’s death spread on social media and friends and fans rushed to offer their tributes.
One fan, Nicci Davidson, shared the news of Alex’s passing on several Facebook groups in November.
“Goes to Aussie rock royalty, Alex Zitnik (Zac), who passed away today,” he wrote.
The post continued, chronicling Alex’s musical career, which began in Newcastle in 1964 in the band The Four Strangers.
Beloved Australian musician Alex ‘Zack’ Zytnik, founding guitarist of Australian psych rockers Tamam Shud, has died aged 79.
Nicci also paid tribute to Alex’s musical ability and the influence his work with Tamam Shud has.
“Zac has left an indelible mark on the Australian classic rock scene of the 60s and 70s, which gave life to Newcastle’s surf rock culture,” the post continued.
‘RIP Zac, you will be sadly missed, but your music will live on; I hope they give you a concert in rock and roll paradise.
The post was met with an avalanche of tributes from friends and fans who took to social media to remember the guitarist.
“I first saw Zac in late 1963 at a church dance in Wickham, Newcastle, in a band that shortly afterwards was called The Strangers (later changed to The Four Strangers),” one fan recalled.
‘The guitar he had at the time was bought when he bought his Fender Stratocaster. His musical legacy will always be the numerous recordings he made with the bands he worked with.
‘His musical ability was always above that of his contemporaries. RIP Zac.’
Another responded with a simple: ‘RIP old friend.’
News of the sonic architect’s passing (pictured, second left) spread on social media, with friends and fans rushing to offer their tributes.
Alex released only one album with Tamam Shud, Evolution in 1969, before being replaced by Tim Gaze for the band’s second album, 1970’s Goolutionites and the Real People.
Despite Alex’s limited output for Tamum Shud, his influence loomed large, particularly in the burgeoning Australian surf culture of the late 1960s.
Alex formed Four Strangers with Eric Connell, Dannie Davidson and Gary Johns in 1964.
After some name and line-up changes, the band took the name Tamam Shud in 1967.
Alex released only one album with Tamam Shud, Evolution in 1969, before being replaced by Tim Gaze for the band’s second album, 1970’s Goolutionites and the Real People.
Despite Alex’s limited output for Tamum Shud, his influence loomed large, particularly in the burgeoning Australian surf culture of the late 1960s.
Four tracks from the Evolution album were used in a surf film from the album, and after Alex’s departure, Tamam Shud provided songs for the soundtrack of the iconic 1972 surf film Morning Of the Earth.
The band also has the honor of playing at the first open-air rock festival: The Pilgrimage of Pop, held in Ourimbah on the New South Wales Central Coast in 1970.
Rock historian Ian McFarlane said the band was one of the first in Australia to be influenced by the psychedelic sounds emerging from San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury scene of the 1960s.
‘Tamam Shud were one of the first local bands to embrace the late-1960s psychedelic sounds of Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pink Floyd, Eric Burdon and The (New) Animals, as well as the San Francisco style of The Grateful Dead and the like. ‘, wrote.
‘As a consequence of the acid-rock movement, Tamam Shud was able to translate the music into a uniquely Australian context.
“Tamam Shud became inextricably linked with the surf fraternity, with audiences seemingly transfixed by the band’s enveloping acid surf prog rock.”