Damaged Goods
HEADCOATS, THEE - Conundrum LP
Long-out-of-print 1994 classic.
"Ripping off the Non-Entities of Yesterday / Influencing the Stars of Tomorrow..." So it was written on the back cover of the original Conundrum release, almost a decade before The White Stripes and The Hives broke through - how prescient they were.
Thee Headcoats were mainly BILLY CHILDISH (guitar, vocals), BRUCE BRAND (drums), and JOHNNY JOHNSON (bass). They formed in 1989, after Billy Childish's previous band, THEE MIGHTY CAESARS, gave up the ghost. By 1992 they had already released something like six albums and 15 singles. Conundrum was originally released on the legendary garage label Super Electro Sound Recordings (co-founded by Steve Turner of Mudhoney) in the USA, and later by Billy Childish's Hangman's Daughter label in the UK; it's been unavailable since the mid-'90s, until now.