Thee Milshakes — Photo by Leonardo Sanches on Unsplash

November 18, 2022

Medway Garage Rock & Portsmouth Psychobilly

Rocking that whole Kinks 'So Tired Of Waiting'/'All Day & All Of The Night' riff, The Milkshakes aka Thee Milkshakes (and many other variants) with the track 'It's You' released on their own 'Milkshakes' Record Label from 1982.

Thee Milkshakes Were:

Bass Guitar – Bertie
Drums, Vocals – Brucie
Guitar, Vocals – Billy
Lead Vocals, Guitar – Mickey

Another one of those no-surname bands that I love so much!😉

Medway Garage Rock

Thee Milkshakes were part of the Medway Scene, the Medway being a river in Kent and the 'Medway Towns' surrounding are places such as Rochester, Gillingham, Chatham and Strood, the areas spawned many bands back in the day. The Billy, of the Guitar and Vocals mentioned above actually being Billy Childish born Steven John Hamper who is an artist, poet and singer/songwriter born in Chatham, he started the 'Stuckism Art Movement' promoting figurative painting and also kicking off many bands, his first being TV21 and The Pop Rivets. Have a look at some his wonderful artwork at carlfreedman.com/artists/billy-childish/.

The first track I heard from them was from a compilation album I brought at the tail end of the 80's/early 90's and the track by them was called 'Ambassadors Of Love', originally released on the independent 'Big Beat' Record Label in 1984, again catching that riff that sounds like it is from a time before.

I suppose at the time when they first came out I hadn't heard of them, but I had heard of 'The Cramps' a fusion of psychobilly and garage rock, certainly of the same sort of vein and a sound that I loved.

For more of that 'Medway' Sound and artists check in to my other post The Medway Indie Scene also the Essex garage rock sound at Essex Garage Rock Vibes and finally the tag on this site which covers some of sounds of the genre at Garage Rock.

You Can't Polish A Turd! 💩

...Just purely for amusement sake have a check of another of the Stuckist Art founders and associates of Billy Childish who is also from Kent called Sexton Ming with his amusingly entitled track called 'You Can't Polish A Turd' released on the Independent Hangman Records label in 1987.

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Portsmouth Psychobilly

Another area of the U.K. with some cool sounds is Portsmouth. Catch a load of a band with their own twist on psychobilly called 'Emptifish' from Portsmouth, allegedly they were awesome and tended to get 'banned' at local venues due to crowd mayhem. The cool video of 'Surfboard Song' is at the link, it is brilliant, I love the vibe. Emptifish, Surfboard Song taken from their 'Best Of' album and at detourrecords.co.uk. The video is kind of like a psychobilly 'Madness'!

Emptifish Were:

Bass – Ricky Sonic
Drums – Damian O'Delic
Guitar (Lead) – Ian Sonic
Lead Vocals/Rhythm Guitar– Georgie Wipeout

Band & Formation

They were formed in Portsmouth in 1983 and lasted until 1987 re-forming again in 2006. They were a bit notorious with trouble at many of their gigs and were issues 'banning orders' from many of the local venues after crowd trouble erupting. You can catch some of the headlines at michaelcooper.org.uk which also features many other Portsmouth acts from the day. And also the Emptifish's Facebook page at en-gb.facebook.com/emptifish/.

You can catch more Portsmouth vibes on this site at the link Are You Pop Art Experienced? which includes the Emptifish track 'I Want That Girl' another psychobilly/garage rock gem released on the Crystal Records Label in 1986.

Oh! And if that isn't enough Emptifish catch this awesome song and gig at Guildhall Portsmouth recorded back in 2007 at the link Emptifish Live. Just to give you an idea of their stage 'brylcreem' brilliance.

I guess some of the bands mentioned here got missed by me back when they started out, the trouble with small 'Independent Labels' sometimes was that they were very 'regional' unless I guess you were from the area at the time you probably wouldn't have heard the music, not like today in that there are many websites and youtube of course with a lot of the 'smaller label' material, back at the time it would have been via 'word of mouth', local 'flyers' (usually obtained from a local record shop) and if lucky a local radio station📻 picking up on a band or John Peel on the BBC Radio 1 who liked to 'champion' non-mainstream sounds, so perhaps today, although sometimes we may moan about it, there is some Good Technology out there.