17% Hendrix Was Not The Only Musician

YOU JOIN US 40 YEARS INTO Childish's one-man proletarian art jihad against the western world. As a recent NME feature proved, that's more a testimony to his unique stubbornness than to his unique ability.



Eighty-odd albums in, and Childish is still the equivalent of an artist who only uses red paint. You wonder if he ever has the urge to go crazy and try a fourth chord. Probably not.



Musically, 'Hendrix...' is the usual hammered-together clatter of drums and guitars, enlivened by two great songs: a savagely hilarious assault on ex-girlfriend Tracey Emin ('Art Or Arse (You Be The Judge)') and a version of The Undertones' 'Teenage Kicks'. Otherwise, you should forget the music altogether and concentrate instead on the brilliant 90-page booklet that accompanies it.



A genuine work of art, it features poems, woodcuts, oil paintings, a biography, passport photos of Billy and his ex-girlfriends, an eloquent artistic manifesto and an extract from a novel about headless chickens rampaging through Chatham. More inventive than most of the music he's ever written, maybe it's finally time for him to lay his guitar to rest.