Lord Buffalo Cancel European Tour Following Drummer’s Detainment
Well, here we are. The stories are everywhere and varied around the basic theme of ‘Brown person gets illegally disappeared’ and even as the United States postulates to white South African refugees fleeing I’m not sure what for the dickish optics of racism, actual legal residents are having their rights thrown away in favor of harassment and illegal imprisonment. If you were going to travel here for any reason, be it vacation, work, or just to see that big fancy arch in St. Louis, do yourself a favor and stay home. This place is a shithole run by psychopaths who believe in either nothing or nothing other than their own holy ascension and what profit they can make from it. You could easily do better, nation-wise. Canada or Mexico, for example.
Lord Buffalo were ready to go when drummer Yamal Said was grabbed and taken nobody knows where to, let’s assume, catch a ration of bullshit no one has ever needed in their life. Beaten, starved, kept in cages — these are the things the United States does to prisoners. Solitary confinement for days. These are unconscionable acts apart from being immoral, and my greatest fear about this awful moment in US history is that when it’s over — and it will end; all authoritarians die — no one will be held accountable and my countrymen will learn nothing and nothing will get better in any meaningful way.
Because that’s where we are. The fuckups have already happened, are already happening, and to repair trust in basic institutions let alone standing in the rest of the world is going to take decades, probably more than the rest of this century, to happen, if it happens at all. I sincerely doubt I’ll live to see it, not the least from the forward-into-brick-wall trajectory of American foreign and domestic policy, taking institutions that were basically functional and supported the infrastructure of the broader government and axing the people who know how to make them run. An economic approach like bad improv jazz. Still genocide. And at home the roads crumble, the schools get worse, everything gets more expensive and the news blinks when the head of the executive branch takes a $400 million bribe in open public.
We are backward and terrible, and if the experiment of the United States was to coexist and move into the future as a successful multicultural society, that experiment has failed in the face of a few rich white motherfuckers who don’t even have the common decency of past generations to build things like libraries or sculpture gardens. Radical wealth redistribution now. Disband ICE now. Fuck all fascists, including your friends, neighbors, family, cops and local and national government. This is how a halfway decent idea for a country dies and deserves it.
From social media:
[UPDATE 05/15: The word is that Said was picked up for a warrant and taken to local jail, not detained by immigration enforcement. I’m not sure how ‘regular old police state’ is supposed to make me feel better about things, but there you go. The band apparently didn’t know. They did the correct thing and got him a lawyer. People are still being grabbed off the street every day in this country for the purpose of stoking fear and division. It doesn’t just have to happen to someone in a band for you to care.]
We are heartbroken to announce we have to cancel our upcoming European tour. Our drummer, Yamal Said, who is a Mexican citizen and lawful permanent resident of the United States (green card holder) was forcibly removed from our flight to Europe by Customs and Border Patrol at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Monday May 12. He has not been released, and we have been unable to contact him. We are currently working with an immigration lawyer to find out more information and to attempt to secure his release. We are devastated to cancel this tour, but we are focusing all of our energy and resources on Yamal’s safety and freedom. We are hopeful that this is a temporary setback and that it could be safe for us to reschedule this tour in the future. In our absence, our touring partners Orsak:Oslo will continue to perform the tour. We urge everyone to go see this amazing band and support them over the next couple weeks.
Affected dates:
LORD BUFFALO is:
Daniel Pruitt – guitar, bass, piano, vocals, melodica
Garrett Hellman – guitar, sub-bass, piano, synths
Patrick Patterson – violin
Yamal Said – drums, percussion
https://www.facebook.com/lord.buffalo.band/
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https://lord-buffalo.bandcamp.com/
http://www.lordbuffalo.com/
https://www.facebook.com/bluesfuneral/
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https://bluesfuneralrecordings.bandcamp.com/
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This is so fucking scary. The sheer helplessness everyone involved must feel is just devastating. I really hope Yamal gets released quickly.
Jesus what a time to be alive. Life in the US just seems to have gone fucking crazy. I can’t imagine ever wanting to visit now and that’s such a devastating thing to say. Unfortunately I don’t think this shit hole island in the north Atlantic is far behind either. Hold on to your hats it’s going to get rough. I hope Yamal is found quickly and is dutifully released to get on with his life. Fuck Trump and fuck all those arsehole lickers around him. And fuck those fucking idiots that voted for him and fuck those tech whizz kids that screwed the vote in his favour too.
Are we winning yet? Didn’t think so…
There should be no quarter given to all that have enabled this disgraceful “administration” and their abuses, and yet, much like you, I doubt they will be held accountable.
They’re saying he had a warrant for violating a restraining order and thus it wasn’t immigration related. The band hasn’t commented on the couple pieces of news I read. Still bummed as hell for them and not being able to see them play, but if it’s true, it does change the circumstances a bit. Have to wait and see how all this plays out.
https://www.kut.org/austin/2025-05-14/austin-texas-lord-buffalo-drummer-removal-from-flight
For fuck’ sake, this is ridicolous. I really hope that is released asap!
Growing up as a white, English-speaking Christian in South Africa we were targeted by the Afrikaans resistance movement (the AWB, not unlike your KKK, swastika-like symbol and all). The Christian multi-racial school in the 1970’s and 80’s that I attended was bombed; our anti-apartheid clergy were sometimes assassinated either by bombings or by bullet. The major towns and cities seldom saw a month ago without a restaurant or church bombing, by either side of the political divide. As soon as we turned 16 we were assigned our military service numbers by national government, for Compulsory National Conscription, often serving with the very same type of person just alluded to; failure to comply resulted in a prison sentence. Some of us served during the Cold War, fighting wars on our borders and beyond, sometimes clandestine and with the backing and support of the US, in Angola; Namibia; Zimbabwe; Mozambique and even Botswana. No-one says anything though but the former white South African soldiers, taken from their families and forced to fight someone else’s wars at the tender age of 18 or 19, the trauma we had to endure…
Suicides, then and even now so many years later, were not uncommon. At the time we were considered one of the best bush warfare armies in the world, but I can still recall seeing the lists of fatalities broadcast nightly.
The ’90’s dawned – and with it, democracy thankfully. However, even that was fraught with violence – assassinations, bombings and protests erupted across swathes of our country. As a troop in the then-military I expected civil war to erupt.
In retribution for the horrific crimes of the past, white people were – and still are – faced with Affirmative Action policies. The name of it has changed but we are faced with it on a daily basis. I still have the letter from 1997 stating that I cannot be employed by the State because I am a white male. It took me more than 15 years to move from contract work to permanent employment. I do not know if and where my son and daughter will ever work, in this country anyway. My oldest son emigrated years ago, as have most of my mates.
Crime when perpetrated against a white person is quite frequently violent, due to a lingering hate that exists towards us, not helped by the likes of politicians like Julius Malema who sing songs like ‘one bullet, one Boer’. White farmers have always been a target, even in neighbouring countries.
Please don’t misunderstand – I am blessed, having been watched over by the Lord as an orphan of the very state that eventually disowned me and I live in a wonderful country. South Africa is vibrant, beautiful and so biologically diverse; our people are mostly loving and kind, just trying to make ends meet; I have much to be grateful for – I have a job, a roof over my head, a meal on the table, and a loving family – but it ain’t no utopia. As the saying goes, Africa is not for sissies.
And if you’ve made it to the end of this post, perhaps now you are more familiar with the concept of white refugees.
God bless you All and may you navigate these trying times well.