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delmonas

Milkshakes (the)

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The Milkshakes – It’s You

Milkshakes Records – BILK-0 [1982]  
 It’s You / Please Don’t Tell My Baby 

Mickey Hampshire (guitar and vocals) and Mark’ Banana Bertie’ Gilbert played with two friends in a band called Mickey and the Milkshakes. They also accompanied the Pop Rivets (featuring Billy Childish on vocals and Bruce Brand on guitar) during a tour of Europe as roadies. When half of the Milkshakes lost interest in the band, and the Pop Rivets broke up, the natural move was to merge both bands. Childish learned to play the guitar in the process, and Brand switched to drums.

Childish and Hampshire quickly began to pen minor classics one after another, becoming the Garage rock equivalent of Lennon & McCartney, Childish bringing the Punk energy and Hampshire the melodic side.

The career of the Milkshakes was placed under the double influence of the early Beatles and the Kinks (with always some Link Wray thrown in for good measure.) The A-side of this single is clearly on the Kinks’ side. It’s You bears more than one common point with the Kinks’ I Need You (B-side of Set Me Free.)

Sung in a husky voice, Please Don’t Tell My Baby is more desperate and shows the band’s Punkish side. But lyrics like “Please don’t tell my baby I saw her last night / I saw her kiss that boy / Please don’t tell her that I know / ’cause when I catch her gonna get it all / I’m gonna put it on the line / That I’ll take her…all her lying / She made me very mad / I’m gonna treat her bad / She gonna wish she never told the lie she had” remain close to the Beatles’ Run For Your Life.

The Milkshakes – Soldiers of Love

Milkshakes - Soldier of love

Upright records – UP-6 [1983]
Soldiers of Love / Shimmy Shimmy

By 1983, Russ Wilkins, formerly of the Pop Rivets, had replaced Mark Gilbert on bass, but that was the only change in the band since, stylistically-wise, the Milkshakes didn’t change their musical formula. Their second single was a vivid demonstration of their love for the Star Club days of the Beatles. If both songs weren’t from the pen of Lennon and McCartney (Soldiers of Love was an Arthur Alexander song and Shimmy Shimmy derivated from a traditional jazz tune), the Milkshakes versions were obviously inspired by the covers of the same songs made by the Beatles; they even got the same wrong credit as the Beatles for Shimmy Shimmy.
Soldiers of Love is also the first apparition by the Milk-Boilers who soon became the Delmonas.

Debbie & Jackie

Delmonas (the)

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Delmonas (the) – Hello, We Love You! The Big Beat EPs

Delmonas

Big Beat Records 10WIK 348 [2021]
Comin’ Home Baby – Chains – Woa’s Now – He Tells Me He Loves me / Hello ,I Love You – I’m The One For You – Peter Gunn Locomotion – I Want You

When they recorded After School Session in early 1983, The Milkshakes asked two of their girlfriends (Hillary and Sarah) to provide backing vocals on three songs (Cadillac, Soldier Of Love and Goodbye Girl.) It worked very well, and after adding a third member, Louise, The Delmonas were born. Of course, the Milkshakes provided the backing band.
Their debut on records took the form of two EPs on Big Beat Records in 1984.
The first one featured two covers, Mel Torme’s I’m Coming Home and The Cookies’Chains. A pair of two Hampshire/Childish originals completed the set: Woa’ Now (that the Milkshakes recorded on Fourteen Rhythm & Beat Greats) and He Tells Me Loves Me (that later appeared on the Milkshakes’The Milkshakes’ Revenge!).
Louise takes the lead on Comin’ Home in a very voluptuous manner. By comparison, Chains is very lighthearted and pure fun. Woa Now brings back a touch of Garage and Beatles’ Hamburg days feel. The best track has been kept for the end: He Tells Me He Loves Me sounds like an instant Girl Groups classic in the style of the Shangri-Las.
The second single is based upon the same pattern: two covers and two originals. Hello, I Love You is the Doors song played on the music of the Kinks’ All Day And All Of The Night. Peter Gunn Locomotion owes more to Freddie Starr’s version than the original one. The two originals (I’m The One For You and I Want You) had previously been recorded by the Milkshakes. Still, the girls added a brand new dimension to these songs, with their (dangerous) charms and sensibility, especially on I Want You, which sounds like a lost gem from Laurie records.
Both singles are now reissued by Ace/Big Beat records on this superb 10” album. 

Available here

Delmonas (the) – Comin’ Home Baby (Volume 1)

Big Beat Records SW 101 [1984]
Comin’ Home Baby – Chains – Woa’s Now – He Tells Me He Loves me

Delmonas (the) – Hello We Love You (Volume 2)

Big Beat Records SW102 [1984]
Hello ,I Love You – I’m The One For You – Peter Gunn Locomotion – I Want You

Debbie & Jackie