So how come we seem to ignore his genius?
LAST WEEK, Billy Childish played a Medway comeback gig at Dusk Til Dawn in Rochester High Street. But rather than being a performance by an ageing rocker in the twilight of his career, the Chatham maverick grabbed the opportunity to step out of the shadows.
Much has been written about the writer/poet/artist/musician, but very little heard in the Medway Towns.
On Thursday of last week, it was the chance for a select group of devotees to see how the local lad had grown up. With his group Thee Headcoats (Johnny Johnson, bass, and Bruce Brand, drums) and sometimes Thee Headcoatees (partner Kyra, plus Sarah and Holly), it was a musical tour-de-force.
Blues, garage and punk rock combined to whip an expectant crowd into a pogo-ing frenzy. A majorityof the songs were originals, some were obscure 1960s covers, but all had the trademark Childish attitude.
Most interesting about the gig were where Billy and co had been before and were going to afterwards. Such as when the Royal Festival Hall had just rocked to the sound of Thee Headcoats and Chicago and San Francisco were about to.
Billy's passport has also been inspected by Japanese officials, whose fellow countrymen go overboard for his music. Whenever Billy plays his monthly residency at the Dirty Water Club in London's Tufnell Park, Japanese tourists pack it out and Japanese Top 10 band Thee Michelle Gun Elepant flew over to England especially to record in the same studio as Billy.
If that was not enough, there is a website devoted to his exploits and the BBC is making a documentary about Billy's career. But still, sadly, in Medway he does not receive the widespread acclaim he rightly deserves. Because Thee Headcoats are not in the public consciousness they are somehow branded obscure or plain weird. But what is marginal about covering Top 10 hits from three or four decades ago? Isn't that what many pop stars do today?
Tellingly, as the satisfied crowd poured out onto the street, up above in the sky were searchlights from a newly-launched historic attraction at Chatham Dockyard. Shouldn't Billy's home town celebrate his talents before he, too, is history?
Matthew Devenport