Reviews

Ain’t life grand, two days of all things Childish, just as it sez; music, paintings & poetry. And all of this in fuckin’ Haarlem, a city so dull I can’t even begin to tell ya. There’s really very little to recommend about this place, yes it’s the birthplace of comicbook genius Peter Pontiac, and yes local r&b piano player Rob Hoeke made some fine records with his band in the mid-sixties, but that’s it, nothing else, nada. Why do people wanna live there?. Why do people wanna go there?...mmm, well O.k. I did go there, ‘cauze for some reason someone put up this Billy Childish "tribute" thing right there in this hub of civilization known as Haarlem.

The festival started friday afternoon with the opening of an exibition of Billy’s paintings at gallery Klerkx & Van Heerden,actualy two rooms in an old building so small that with about 20 people inside the place was packed when I arrived. The proceedings started with a short speech by a guy, who later turned out to be festival organiser Peter Bryun, after that we got introduced to a local blues singer who was gonna sing one of those old standards either "John Henry" or "John Hardy", a song with about 80 verses we were told.

Here I was standing in cramped art gallery with absolutly no room for a run to either the door or the table with the free wine and snacks, and this guy is gonna do a song with 80 verses.....Oh man, this is just great...
Thank god he mubbled he was only gonna do four of ‘em, I could have done with just two, but anything is better then 80. I really hate those fourty-something blues dorks who’s main problem in life seems to be that they’re not suffering enough to really sing the blues.
After another short speech, Billy and Kyra made a quick exit and the rest of the attendees started babling, the time was right to have a close look at the paintings, most of wich were new to me.

Most eyecatching were about 15 large painting on canvas, all with bright clear colours and thick layers of paint, completly different from anything I’ve previously seen of Billy’s work, much more abstract, and lacking the craftsmanlike quality wich makes a lot of his work so special. Also on display we’re a number of drawnings on old letters and envelopes, a good idea, but somehow they didn’t realy work like they should, something to do with the backgrounds and drawnings fading into each other instead of each bringing the other to the foreground. Highlights were two paintings on wood and two woodcutprints in the style familiar of the Hangman books and record sleeves, and especialy the small black and white print "Man with guitar" made with an attention to detail sadly lacking in the bigger and more colourfull paintings.

Yes I was dissapointed, Billy has found perfectly good ways to express himself in music and poetry, and up ‘till now I found his paintings to be on the same level, but with these new paintings it feels like as if Billy the musician would be detuning his guitar ‘cause he thinks he’s becoming to good at what he does best. Doing the same sort of thing for a long time does not mean you’re stuck in a rut, listen to his music; new ideas and influences heft crept in over the years, yet it’s all very much his own style, these new paintings are too radical a departure of what I’ve become to like.
you can call me conservative, ‘cause I am.

Flash forward a couple of hours....

I could tell you almost the exact some story of Haarlem’s only rockclub the Patronaat as I did of the town itself, but I’ll spare you the details, lets just say the sight of the barstaff consisting of three hobgoblins with matching beards and glasses is something i won’t forget very soon.
While I entered the place, Beyond Lickin’ the first of four "Childish inspired" Dutch bands was already playing. Everything I hate in Dutch bands was there, four guys trying very hard to stand on the exact some spot for the entire gig, a deadly leaden beat wich would be very groovy if we all would still walk around on wooden shoes, but in these high tech days of aircushioned sneakers it sounds a bit stiff, this was of course brought to us on a deafening volume wich could easely reach 30000 people in some football arena, but sadly there were only about 30 early visitors. Like the first band, The Waistcoats played several Childish songs, but again without much inspiration, it was like my girlfriend said "They all make it sound as if he (Childish) has just died". The bass player tried to move around a bit with some Bruce Foxton type moves wich is cool, but the singer looked as if he was absolutly terrified to be on stage, I’m against drugs use of any kind, but this guy deffinetly needs something to loosen him up.
What was anounced as a short Billy Childish solo performace turned out to be a six song blues set by Thee Headcoats. Starting with Bo’s "Oh yeah" and with a mighty fine version of "A to Z of your heart" this was a pretty sharp set with some amazing harp playing by Johnny.
Sadly most of the audience used the unplugged like volume level to reaquint themselves and discus important matters like the weather and the upgoing price of locoweed.
Next up were the Perverts, a band I hated up ‘till now, but they actually put on a pretty decent show, tough I still think their singer is an idiot and would be better of doing bingos or presenting miss wet t-shirt contests. Billy got up on stage to sing "I’m out of control" with Bruce and Johnny joining in on backing vocals and a good time was had by all.
Last band on were the Firebirds, with Johnny guesting on harp. Probably the best live band in Holland at the moment, they play an amazingly potent mix of garage, frat and surf tunes (all covers) they are the ultimate party band, making it obvious that it’s not pretense that counts but prensence, seeing this band play I always get an uncontrolable urge to yell, scream and dance, none of witch I do on a regular basis. Go see ‘em if you can or at least by their records. You won’t be sorry.

Second day (slightly hungover)

A busy bookstore on saturday afternoon is not the best place to listen to poetry, with cash registers rattling and children crying that they wanna go home it’s hard to concentrate.
Billy read and sang several poems beginning with "Tushunka Witko" and ending with "in five minutes youll know me"(!), I like his poems, on ocassion he becomes too bitter and spitefull and croses the border to selfindulgiance but most of the time he hits the nail right on the head, there’s the same raw nerve that runs through all his work, it’s something you don’t want to be confronted with on a daily basis, but you keep coming back to it to get things back into perspective. Billy balanced all the praise that was lauded on him this weekend a bit by reading both "dead funny" and "billy". He also read a part from his novel "my fault", Chapter 4 the biscuits episode, wich got a whole new funny dimension hearing the man reading it, (anyone even slightly interested in the Childish fenomena should get this book a.s.a.p.).

Fast forward again

Closing night of the festival was ofcourse a Headcoats/Headcoatees gig, again at the Patronaat. What can I say, the punky agression of Thee Headcoats mixes fine with the more shambolic fun of Thee Headcoatees. Surprises this time were two new songs during Thee Headcoats set (one called "Footprints" and another one in wich Billy kept yelling "punk rock ist nicht tod" over and over) as well as the return of "what ‘cha gonna do abou it" (pistols version). Thee headcoatees brought back "my boyfriends learning karate" and did "Boztic haze" live for the first time (Kyra reading the lyrics from a piece of paper and apolagizing for it in Dutch). And yes there was that grand finale of "davy crocket", "youngblood", "action time vision" and "shadow", what beter way to end an evening...

Stuck for a conclusion of this review I came across this little editorial piece in a magazine called "Here ‘tis" (This fine magazine is available through Sundazed p.o.box 85 coxsackie, ny 12051, usa) written by Jeff Jarema in a piece on Mott the hoople(!) But it sums up neatly why I dig this whole Childish "thing" so much;

"..."Honesty"...Now just what in the hell does that have to do with rock’n’roll? In recent years, I’ve gotten just crusty enough to deduce that rock’n’roll ain’t that different from advertising, marketing, what-have-you, it’s full of crap. Now, for me, it ain’t just the VH-1 stable of phonies. I’m also bored outta my skull with most of the current low-calorie substitutes for 60's punk, surf, etc. (Where the sleeve art (as marketing) is on many occasions perfect & far outpaces the lousy, predictable music housed within). Sorry, but at my advanced age, I can’t pretend to be satisfied with the same old shit, especially when it’s reheated slop. I need more.
by J Vedder