OUT NOW! – Talking ‘Bout, After School Session, The Knights Of Trashe & Milkshakes’ Revenge!
THE MILKSHAKES were mainly Mickey Hampshire (Git/Vox); Billy Childish (Git/Vox); Bruce Brand (Drums); Russ Wilkins (Bass)
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.
When Mickey left The Milkshakes in 1984 Childish, Brand and Agnew went on to form Thee Mighty Caesars. Mickey and Bruce now play in The Masonics along with Ludella Black from The Del Monas, and Russ lives in Scotland and fronts the Wildebeests as well as being Lord Rochester.
Damaged Goods first got involved when they reformed for a tour of Japan in 1991 and we released a storming (long deleted) 7” called ‘Red Hot’ (damgood 3).
We then re-released three albums…‘In Germany’ 
was originally released in 1983 on Wall City records from Berlin, Germany. It has never been re-issued and has never appeared on CD before. The artwork had been lovingly restored by original Milkshake Bruce Brand and its also been remastered from the bands original master tapes. Original copies have been selling on e-bay for over £75! ‘Nothing Can Stop These Men’ was originally released in 1983 on the bands own MILKSHAKES records based in Kentish Town London. It has never been re-issued and has never appeared on CD before. This artwork has also been lovingly restored by original Milko Bruce Brand and its also been remastered from the bands original master tapes. Original copies have been selling on e-bay
for over £60! and then the 1986 Media Burn compilation ‘107 Tapes’ (Early demos and live recordings) of demos from July 1981 and a couple of German live shows from April 1983, on double LP for the first time in 24 years ad CD for the first time ever.
In November 2016 we reissued 4 more Milkshakes albums ‘Talking ‘Bout’, ‘After School Session’, ‘ Thee Knights Of Trashe’ & ‘Revenge – Trash From The Vaults’ on LP and two 2-ON-1 CDs as well.
The 2-ON-1 CDs sold out pretty quickly. Such was the demand in May 2022 we reissued these four albums in a 4CD set complete with booklet entitled Milk Box. And very nice it is too!
