The Sherlock Holmes Rhythym 'n' Beat vernacular is the great lost final Thee Headcoats album recorded back in 1999 on the dark streets of Chatham during the middle of the Buff Medways days of infamy and bird flu, if you believe the liner notes. Even if the record labels website claims this was recorded last year at the legendary Ranscombe Studios in Rochester by Billy Childish, Johnny 'Tub' Johnson, Bruce Brand and Thee Headcoatees, the album was engineered by Jim Riley.
The album opens with a raw throaty version of The Band Played Johnny B. Goode that is just the right side of ramshackle. If People Don't Like It (It Must be Good) is a title that kind of sums up Billy Childish's long anti-career in art and music, while Billy alludes to the over privileged and fate that was sealed from an early age, will he always be misunderstood.
100 Yards Of Crash Barrier is clearly not enough for a band careening out of control like Thee Headcoats are, this celebrates a monumental crash where the driver takes out that 100-yard section. A Common Disease of the sort you might catch if you indulge in random acts of rock & roll, somehow his gums are bleeding due to poor teeth cleaning skills no doubt, Caries are of course easily cured with some proper teeth cleaning and use of dental floss, but I'm sure they are on about more demonic diseases than caries as Billy goes on about dirty kisses.
Dearest Darling is a great garage stomper with a cracking riff for Billy to lay down all the things he wants from Dearest Darling. The Goddess Tree is the one they wish to worship at, in love with the idea of carving your name in that tree and sealing the deal with the guitars flying off.
The Friends Of The Buff Medway Fanciers Association that reworks the Italian Job's most memorable tune, replete with backing vocals by Thee Headcoatees, this lists all the things you need to know about the Buff Medways modus operandi, in ways that may make you join in chanting the title along with them.
The Devil & God Entwined stomps all over the place with a jackboot to your brain to make clear that man's duality is inherent and they want to overdose on the Bo Diddley beat every chance they get while necking straight Strychnine like proper hard cases.
Sally Sensation is the girl who has blown Billy's mind in every conceivable garage rock way, seeds style insistent riff driving the message home of just what Sally Sensation does to his loneliness and how he will lay down his feelings in the clattering guitar squalls.
Got Love If You Want it works around an imperious drum pattern and the resonating vocals making clear just how much love he has for you and no amount of talk all over town will make him change course or stop blowing that harmonica.
The Baby That Mutilated Everybody's Heart is a dark tale of the wrong sort of body modification and the usual concerns of the drunk at heart wild men of Rock & Roll, the louche sound driving them to all sorts of conclusions.
The album closes with Modern Terms Of Abuse that lists a good few ways to slag someone off in a modern up to date way, unlike the central guitar part that could come from 1968 allowing them to spend more time coming up with nasty modern insults.
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