Billy Childish

“People would do better with a little more humility, a little less shopping and a little less intoxication with novelty.” Billy Childish’s comments to the BBC in 2003, as he explained why he repainted Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, resonate tonight. Pre-performance he and his cohorts become part of the audience: talking, listening. Even grinning. Posters are peeled as prizes, sketchbook keepsakes in place of the merchandising monoliths that don’t exist. Then there’s the music.

The Meteors stride on stage, looking like an Arthur Seaton collective with a transatlantic tie. English wit and playful posturing is cut with frenetic rhythms and six string statements, soaked in sustain that threatens to restore Roky Erickson and his Thirteenth Floor Elevators to where they belong. The band rides the R ‘n’ B wave that swept back across the Atlantic in the mid ‘60s, washing a swathe of white, American groups off the west coast and into a sea of chopped chords and foaming melodies. The stage is set for a night of moist-eyed nostalgia.

Perhaps the same pair of eyes that leaks with every viewing of The Who’s thunderous performance of ‘A Quick One, While He’s Away’ at The Rolling Stones’ Rock And Roll Circus. My eyes: stinging with bewilderment, joy and regret that they will never witness firsthand that type of energy. This fleeting notion of nostalgic novelty is burned alive, early into The Musicians Of The British Empire’s set, when Childish introduces keys-man James Taylor as the son of Pete Townsend and the band launch into the final section of that same Who epic.

The crashing rise and fall intro gives way to the repetitive refrain of “cello”, bassist Nurse Julie almost reaching Entwhistle’s falsetto, before the band propel notes, rhythms and harmonies with meaty, beaty intent. The sonic boom is incredible. Childish’s guitar combusts with white-light heat through a rock-hollered PA. Bass mainlines from the floor up, shaking ribs and convulsing the mid-point of the mind. And Wolf Howard’s drums roll with wrist-flicked precision around the 4/4 root, phrasing with hairy authority.

Childish says that he repainted Sunflowers to get closer to, and understand better, the artist who inspired him. It’s not a cop out to re-do what’s been done before, but a way of informing and educating yourself; giving authenticity to your own efforts. Musically, The Musicians Of The British Empire take the same path. ‘Joe Strummer’s Grave’ rushes in where ‘I Can’t Explain’ left off. ‘Date With Doug’ hugs the razor chords of ‘You Really Got Me’ and ‘Snack Crack’ feeds from the malevolent riffs of The Sex Pistols. But to use the word derivative as an accusation would be to miss the point. It’s Childish’s voice that states on ‘Joe Strummer’s Grave’, “I ain’t got time for the books of Marx, this is where the revolution starts”. Live, The Musicians of The British Empire build on the foundations of rock ‘n’ roll with an energetic zeal that is as relevant today and tomorrow as it was for any yesterday. Novel? No. Breathtaking, blood rushing and authentic? Right on. I hope he doesn’t die before he gets old.