The Peckham Cowboys: Flog It!

Reprobate rock’n’roll from down south in London SE15.

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Looking like Dickensian urchins with a Faustian twist and sounding like the Faces if Trent Reznor had ever got hold of them, The Peckham Cowboys are not a band you’d trust to park your car.

Their most famous son is The Quireboys’ Guy Bailey, who looks as weathered and as sharp as he did in 1990 and musically hasn’t shifted too many gears since either.

Deliberately less palatable than you might imagine – with some heavy distortion, bleeding drums and vocals occasionally coming in like a weak radio signal from Finland – there’s no denying the strength of the racket they make.

Especially good is the rollicking Ain’t That Somethin’, the creeping Crackhouse Blues and the swing of Painkillers.

Philip Wilding
Philip Wilding

Philip Wilding is a novelist, journalist, scriptwriter, biographer and radio producer. As a young journalist he criss-crossed most of the United States with bands like Motley Crue, Kiss and Poison (think the Almost Famous movie but with more hairspray). More latterly, he’s sat down to chat with bands like the slightly more erudite Manic Street Preachers, Afghan Whigs, Rush and Marillion.