Modernist Society: September 2017

Billy Childish formed The Buff Medways in 2000. Their full name was Wild Billy Childish & The Friends of the Buff Medway Fanciers Association.

During the 19th century a breed a chicken was developed peculiar to the Medway area. The breed, now extinct, was a table bird for the London hotel market. The BUFF MEDWAY project, based at Fort Amherst, Chatham, attempted to recreate that ancient fowl through a selective breeding project.

The BUFF MEDWAYS cut a dash with their Victorian army uniforms and vintage Vox amps. The gear may be old but as one critic wrote the band were “the snarled lip embodiment of rock’n‘roll spirit rather than nostalgia or shabby revivalism”. Live and on r ecord The BUFF MEDWAYS were all about great songs and vibrant raw energy – no frills!

The original line up was Billy on guitar and vocal, Johnny Barker (bass) and Wolf Howard (drums), both ex-Daggermen. Johnny later left the band and was replaced by Graham Day (The Prisoners).

They released two LPs for Graham Coxon’s label Transcopic Records Steady The Buffs & 1914, one on Vinyl Japan called This Is This. Their last album Medway Wheelers came out on Damaged Goods in 2005. A great 'Live & Sessions followed a few years later caqlled 'The XFM Sessions'

The Buffs called it a day in 2006, going out on a high with a sold out show at London’s Dirty Water Club on the 27th of October 2006.