Thee Headcoats - Heavens To Murgatroyd, Even! It's Thee Headcoats (Already)

A long-overdue resurrection of a garage rock classic! Originally released by Sub Pop Records in 1990 — during the height of the label’s grunge domination — Heavens To Murgatroyd, Even! It’s Thee Headcoats (Already) stands as a brilliantly unruly reminder that Billy Childish and company were blazing their own raw and raucous trail well outside Seattle. This new reissue comes with fresh artwork and two bonus tracks: “Girl From ’62,” first released as a single A-side on Regal Select Records (USA, 1991), and “Troubled Times,” the B-side of an Australian Dog Meat Records single from 1990.

The album’s title comes from the catchphrase of Snagglepuss — the bright pink, theatrically exasperated lion from classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons — a nod to the absurd humor and cultural playfulness that have always colored Childish’s world. As Billy explains, the phrase was also famously used by The Downliners Sect in their track “Leader of The Sect,” another wink to the lineage of raw British beat music that Thee Headcoats carried proudly into the 1990s.

So how did a Medway garage racket end up on the same label that launched grunge? According to Billy Childish, it all started when a young Steve Turner (of Mudhoney) saw Thee Mighty Caesars play at The Cricketers Pub in London years before Sub Pop existed. When Mudhoney later took off, Turner spread the gospel of Billy’s “maximum drums and racket” across the Atlantic, and Sub Pop visionary Bruce Pavitt invited the band to record an LP for the label. True to form, Childish famously responded to Pavitt’s request for a contract by asking, “What’s a contract — can you eat it?”

What resulted is one of Thee Headcoats’ most beloved records — a blistering mix of primitive blues, snarling punk, and Childish’s unmistakable sense of humor and authenticity. Heavens To Murgatroyd, Even! remains a cornerstone of the Medway sound, and this reissue offers fans old and new a chance to hear it in all its glorious, untamed splendor.