Current mood: SALUTE THE FLAG!!!
Category: SALUTE THE FLAG!!! Music
Downstairs at The Boston used to be a Dancehall. Now it's a wide open space and yesterday it hosted one of it's weekly stapples The Dirty Water Club.
To read more about the history of the night and club, check this interview piece from earlier in the week. To read about the gig itself, read on...
I arrived late early:
Late for my rendezvous, but early enough for the venue to be unopened.
On the walk up Fortess Road, I saw a man standing stock still outside a rather grandiose house: Dressed as a robot!? Practising Mime?? A real life alien?? Another quirk in the day...
But, getting to gigs early is a habbit I find hard to break even though I've never missed a band I've intended to see. I still have the idea I will (unless I get in very close to opening time) ..
This is a bad plan when your sum cash total for the night is something in the region of 9 English pounds..
Oh well...
I missed nothing, enjoyed excellent company and still got drunk..
HOORAY!!!
And, Wild Billy Childish and The Musicians Of The British Empire??
More or less exactly what I expected - though I didn't spend much time thinking about what I was expecting...
Currently playing as a 3 piece, Billy Childish and The MBE's play edgy blues rock punk rock. His sound exhibits everything from Nirvanna to John Lydon. The White Stripes to The Who. Some of these acts influencing and some influenced by Mr Childish. He knows what he likes and he does it and then he does it again. He lives in a bubble of his own and he properly enjoys it...
There were no suprises, no synthesizer solos are samples and no lazer light show using THE LATEST GEAR!!!!.
As they watch, the crowd are almost hushed respectful into silence. You get the sense people are looking on in deep respect and awe. Deep respect for someone who's had the courage and definacy and a solid vision about what and who interests them..
This last week or so, I've come to understand that my issue with all things retro isn't anything to do with disliking the sounds of years gone by - or their repetition by contemporary acts, but in people falsely replicating them unaffected, without the emotion or difference of a real and genuine interest.....
Billy Childish is most definately retro, but he perorms and creates with emotion and passion that give his music the life that so many other retro acts lack.
I like this, but I wonder about the cut off....
Yes boss, there seems to be a date sometime in the early 1970's where Billy Childish stops...
The Stuckist International art movement (named after the alledged comment made by Childish's ex-girlfriend Tracy Emin that Childish was 'STUCK STUCK STUCK') has some validity.
As it states on The Musicins of The British Empire myspace
(PLEASE NOTE THIS SITE IS MAINTAINED BY DAMAGED GOODS RECORDS, BILLY DOES NOT "DO" EMAIL, MOBILE PHONE, OR MYSPACE)
I wonder why not???
I don't think any technology takes away from an art. Good art is created on myspace the same as on mobile phones, on an electric geeetar or a Lute. There's no technological cut off after when the creative world stops turning and no level of technology that cannot be art...
But that's just a matter of popinion
Wild Billy Childish, likes what he likes and he knows what he likes, and in an age where most people are bought and sold by marketing machines 9 times a day with complete and absurd ease - that's extraordinarily refreshingly good to hear...
Yes boss, I most definately like the deep and honest innocence of Childish. I like anyone who plugs away for years on the dole knocking out more good work than any job club can even understand to vacant looks and endless misunderstanding and presumed laziness...
I like people to follow their own ideas and not worry about vapid marketing or timeframes of fiscal success AND THEN QUIT!!! I like the bucking and indifference of trends. I like artists to be so secure in the importance of what they're doing, that they don't care half a shit about how they're portrayed or understood..
Billy Childish flies that flag true and loud...
And I most definately salute it..
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