Watch a Headcoats live blues session from 1997!

The Kings Of Medway Garage return with a blast from the past, getting downright Chess Records in one of NYC’s most glorious cultural outposts.

“Before you could stream music and movies on your computer and phone, there were megastores like Mondo Kim’s,” the greenwichvillage.nyc website recalls of this long-running NYC cultural landmark, located at 6 St. Mark’s Place. 

“From 1995-2009 it was the place for film buffs to rent movies,” the entry continues. “Before Mondo Kim’s opened the site was famed for its use as a public bath —- first as a Russian and Turkish bath in the early 1900s and then as the largest gay bath house in the 1980s. Now you can play ‘90’s themed video games inside at Barcade.”

Yeah, that’s about right.

When it was alive, it was three stories of CDs, books, magazines, and the most beautifully curated selection of videos you’d ever seen, chockful of the obscure and unusual. Available for rental were 55,000 titles, by a 2008 estimate.

I practically lived in the Mondo Kim’s CD department in my NYC days. They had one of the best selections of punk and garage discs in the city. Once early 21st Century Detroit garage rode on The White Stripes’ coattails into international prominence and  The Libertines inaugurated Britain’s early ‘00s garage boom, that was my go-to stop to grab all those releases. And yes, I kept up with whatever March 1st’s ‘Stack hero Wild Billy Childish was releasing at that time — which would’ve been his “dustbin mod” outfit The Buff Medways — at Mondo Kim’s.

So, why am I not surprised that May 13th, 1997, Thee Headcoats set-up by Mondo Kim’s import section and played the blues?

Posted November 18, 2023 at the ScottishTeeVee YouTube site, “Billy Childish – Live at Mondo Kim’s New York” is nearly 19 minutes of clear camcorder footage of this historic live session. ‘Stack subscriber Bruce Brand and his really nice fedora expertly thwacks brushes off a snare drum, hi hat and crash cymbal. Johnny “Tub” Johnson proves his multi-instrumental worth, eschewing his usual Headcoats position on the bass guitar to alternate between clean-toned six-string and blowing some very Little Walter-ish harp. Childish, resplendent in a striped t-shirt and a wide-brimmed porkpie hat ala Buster Keaton, operates an SG-shaped Melody Maker with finesse and grace, dropping at one point to purely front the band, reproducing his vocal-mic-into-a-guitar-amp recording trick by cupping his hands around the SM57.

They commence with a suitably Yardbirds-esque arrangement of The Shadows Of Knight’s adenoidal Yardbirds cop “Oh Yeah,” before heading into a sheath of Childish originals, including “A To Z Of Your Heart” “Everyone ‘ear this alright?” he asks after taking a swig of green tea. “This is the way we prefer it to sound like. It pisses everyone off.”

It can’t imagine anyone upset at this music. It’s drippin’ with juice, properly sauced-up and ready to go. The quality of these gents’ musicianship is evident and top-notch. Even the most puritanical blues bore would identify this as the real thing. Do yourself a favor and click this link now. This is truly how this music is done.

 

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