Current mood: ANTICIPATING...
Category: ANTICIPATING... Music
From time to time, I see a gig advertised and I try and get myself invited along gratis for the purposes of review and likely adulation..
Yes boss, I know I’m getting old and have less and less enthusiasm for running about seeing bands (instead favouring sitting รก casa watching Giant Snails) but there are exceptions...
Well, one such exception has just occurred and mutated into quite a revelation...!)
Yes boss, there’s one artist, I’ve been looking to catch up with for a while and his name is Billy Childish..
Seeing Mr Childish down to play a London venue I was completely unaware of called The Dirty Water Club I couldn’t help but enquire as to WHAT THE FUCK??? AND CAN I COME????.
Forward and backwards went the spazzing messages between myself and a man I still only know as Mr Dirty Water and out of these has come the tickets and a rather interesting history of not only the development and history of a night, but also a brief insight into the work and attitudes of Billy Childish...
So, if you’re in London, about and available on Friday night, get your dancing shoes on and do come on down to The Dirty Water Club @ The Boston in Tufnell Park (just over the road from the Tufnell Park Tube)
If you’re not, plug yourself in and get ready to learn some...
PG£:) Until seeing the Billy Childish night, I knew nothing of either the venue or the night you promote. So for all those similarly ignorant, please talk a little about both...
Mr Dirty Water:) Well, back in the mid-1990s one of the few people to be providing a space for garage-punk bands (along with the much-missed Frat Shack club) was a chap named Slim who put on gigs in the Wild Western Room at the St John’s Tavern (now a gastropub) just up the road from the Boston. (Billy Childish’s then group Thee Headcoats had a monthly residency there.)
When the owner of the St John’s Tavern needed to use the gig room to hold a wake for his recently-deceased brother, a gig by Thee Headcoats (on 22 August 1996) was hurriedly moved down to the Boston Arms, where Professor Blinding was employed to organise the sound equipment.
A couple of months later, for a variety of reasons, Slim decided to move his gigs permanently to the Boston Arms and asked me to help out by DJing (he knew I had lots of records) and designing flyers (graphic design being my job). Slim named the gig nights at the Boston, ’Dirty Water’ (after the Standells’ 1966 US hit single of the same name which contains the refrain "I love that dirty water, Boston you’re my home").
However, in March 1997 Slim, for personal reasons, decided that the time had come to quit the gig promoting business/game/hobby (delete as appropriate). Me and the Professor wondered what to do. The Professor said: "Let’s carry on with the six weeks’ worth of gigs that Slim’s got booked up and see what happens."
In October 2006 we celebrated the club’s tenth anniversary with a three day event, with the undoubted highlight being the first (and only) visit to the UK by legendary sixties group The Monks. As Joss Hutton says on i94bar. com: "From the moment our black-clad heroes hit the stage and into ’Black Monk Time’, the place went apeshit." It was a dream come true for me to get them to come and play for us and they were as amazing as I’d hoped, and expected, them to be.
An event like that has inspired us to carry on into our second decade. But what keeps us doing it more than anything, I think, is the wonderful people who come along week after week. I think it’s the friendliest crowd of people that you’ll find anywhere. You can turn up there, on your own, for the first time, and go home at the end of the night having made some new friends.
PG£:) Is there a general theme to the night or a particular type or style of band you like to book??
Mr Dirty Water:) Mostly we like a sound that’s directly (or sometimes less directly) influenced by sixties garage rock - stuff like the Sonics, the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, the Standells (of course), the Seeds, the Chocolate Watch Band, the Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart. We like it best when there’s a hint of the blues in amongst the punk rock. We like to call it "rock and roll". Rock is good, but not if there’s no roll. And vice versa.
Of course, these days there are more kids picking up guitars and thinking that they’re in a "garage band" than when we started out (as well as so many more venues who are receptive to and interested in the music). Often it bears little relation, on the surface, to what we would think of as a "garage band". But youthful verve and enthusiasm can all too often make up for what’s lacking elsewhere. By which I mean, yes the Dirty Water Club does have this particular musical ethos - but it’s not too rigid.
PG£:) What other activities and nights happen at the venue??
Mr Dirty Water:) All sorts of stuff goes on at the venue. At the moment there’s a lot of unsigned indie bands being put on by a promoter who has these "battle of the bands" type events, there might be an Asian music night, a drum’n’bass thing, or the room might be in use by an Irish family celebrating a christening, for example.
PG£:) Tufnell Park isn’t an area well known for happening London nightlife, but I’m increasngly of the belief that the best acts perform the obscure places not the same old same olds that everyone knows. Do you feel creating scenes in places like Shoreditch or Camden makes for a good fighting pool of talent or does it lead to too much wanking about and style mongery??
Mr Dirty Water:) Being somewhere like Camden Town or Shoreditch would probably be good for getting more people through the door every week. We’d get more people who just come in because we’re there. But because we’re a mile or so off the beaten track for a lot of people, those who do come are there because they choose to be there, they want to be there. My mate Paul’s old band Raggity Anne had a song called "Only Square People Think It’s Cool To Be Cool". And I think that kind of sums it up. The people at Dirty Water *are* cool because they’re not trying to be. Our crowd are into the music first. Down in Shoreditch fashion seems to more importnat; they’ll change their musical allegiances as often as they change their socks.
PG£:) I admire people who stick with it and continue to produce the work on their own, until more attention is on them is forced on the basis of consistent quality of work. In this regard and others, Billy Childish strikes me as being very important. His individuality and quiet dedication makes him prolific across the arts...
Have you booked any of his other musical projects and do you feel there’s a significant difference or development between his projects??
Mr Dirty Water:) Billy is a man of great integrity. He doesn’t do something because he thinks it will be popular, he doesn’t try to please. He does, at all times, what he thinks is right. What feels right to himself. And he does it without feeling the need to tread on other people, to exaggerate his own importance, or self-importance; there’s absolutely no bullshit at all with Billy Childish. He’s true to himself and his beliefs.
Back when wee started Billy’s group was Thee Headcoats. They also had a female vocal quartet, called The Headcoatees, who would come on and do a set with Thee Headcoats backing them. Their sound being a mix of seventies punk, sixties garage rock with a bit of British beat and R&B (that is, R&B in its proper, original sense - rather than the limp pop music that gets called "R&B" nowadays).
Then his group was the Buff Medways, who weren’t entirely different but had a bit more of the Who and Jimi Hendrix in the mix. With the departure of Graham Day, Billy’s got his wife in on bass and changed the name to the Musicians of the British Empire. Again this is punk and garage rock and blues all mixed in and coming out sounding like nothing else but Billy Childish (and the numerous soundalike bands from the Childish fans around the world).
The DIY ethos of punk rock is imbued throughout everything Billy does, the sense that anyone can (and, perhaps, should) do this. That means keeping things at a basic level, not trying to be too clever. But, at the same time the music is actually more clever than a lot of people give it credit for. And in the lyrics too, Billy has a way with words and a sense of humour that’ll put a smile on your face whilst you’re jumping around in the audience.
So having gone back and re-read your original question... no, I don’t think there are huge differences or developments between Billy’s various projects. After all, if it ain’t broke why try to fix it? And as for trying to come up with something new and different, I agree with Billy’s own statement that "originality is overrated". I mean, there’s plenty of stuff out there that could be considered "original" and plenty of bands who are trying to "develop as musicians" - and plenty of them are BORING! I’ve probably seen Billy Childish perform live more than just about anybody else. And, more than 20 years after first seeing him on stage, I am still not bored with anything he does.
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