Album of the Week – After School Session by The Milkshakes

One of the coolest reissues of 2016 in all its glory. I know it’s not new but it is every bit as great now as it was way back in the day. This is from Damaged Goods…

THE MILKSHAKES

First re-issue for over 19 years, originally released in 1983 on LP on Upright Records in 1981 (UPLP 1), on LP again on Hangman Records in 1988 (HANG 24 UP) and in 1997 on LP/CD on Hangman’s Daughter (SCRAG 10)

THE MILKSHAKES were mainly Mickey Hampshire (Git/Vox); Billy Childish (Git/Vox); Bruce Brand (Drums); Russ Wilkins (Bass)

When punk rock group the Pop Rivets broke up in 1980, Billy Childish joined forces with Mickey Hampshire, a Pop Rivets roadie who had been performing in a group called Mickey and the Milkshakes with his cohort Banana Bertie. The two began writing songs together and the group released their first LP, Talking ’bout Milkshakes! in 1981. With Childish and Hampshire sharing guitar and vocal duties, Bruce Brand on drums, and Bertie on bass (later replaced by Russ Wilkins then John Agnew), the Milkshakes’ sound was a primitive blend of British beat groups, like the early Kinks at their toughest, and hard-rocking American guitar instrumentalists like Link Wray. This sound came to be known as the “Medway sound” and the core members have been playing a variation on it throughout their whole careers.

The Milkshakes were a very prolific group, recording nine records in their four years together, and the band was very much a blend of Childish’s primitive songwriting and Hampshire’s more melodic leanings. The group also masterminded and backed a Medway girl group, the Delmonas.

When Mickey left The Milkshakes in 1984 Childish, Brand and Agnew went on to form Thee Mighty Caesars. Mickey and Bruce now play in The Masonics along with Ludella Black from The Del Monas, and Russ lives in Scotland and fronts the Wildebeests as well as being Lord Rochester.

Damaged Goods – The Milkshakes