COMIN’ HOME BABY (Vol 1)

The lead track of this 1984 EP came to my attention thanks to it being included on the 90-track boxset compilation, Make More Noise! : Women in UK Independent Music 1977-1987, released a few years back by Cherry Red Records.

Here’s the backstory (with thanks to the website of Damaged Goods Records).

“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.

The Delmonas were a trio whose members went only by their surnames of Sarah, Hilary and Louise.  This EP was the first of their own releases:-

mp3: The Delmonas – Comin’ Home Baby
mp3: The Delmonas – Chains
mp3: The Delmonas – Woa’ Now
mp3: The Delmonas – He Tells Me He Loves Me

The first two songs were covers, while the latter two were penned by Billy Childish and Mickey Hampshire, and The Milkshakes provided the musical accompaniment.

The Delmonas would, over a four-year spell, go on to record and release a handful of EPs/singles along with three albums of material, all of which, in the words of the Damaged Goods webiste, ‘ mixed cover versions from the ’50s and ’60s with original compositions that sounded as if they came from that era — upbeat ravers in the spirit of the Shangri-Las, Lesley Gore, Nancy Sinatra, and other tough-but-tender girl acts. If they didn’t quite have the vocal range of those artists, they made up for it in attitude and enthusiasm.”

Make of these four tracks what you will.  The title track is to celebrate that Should be back in the UK today.

JC