Billy Childish in conversation with Ted Kessler

City Lights and Akashic Books celebrate the publication of

To Ease My Troubled Mind: The Authorized Unauthorized History of Billy Childish

by Ted Kessler

published by Akashic Books

The story of Billy Childish, the most famous artist you’ve never heard of, by legendary music journalist Ted Kessler.

IN 1977, SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD STEVEN HAMPER was a stonemason in the dockyards of Chatham, Kent, in England. His heart, however, beat in sync with the punk rock tremors of the era, seduced by its celebration of amateurism. So, in a gesture of revolutionary defiance, he took a three-pound club hammer and smashed his hand, vowing to never work again. In doing so, Steven Hamper metamorphosed into Billy Childish, a true Renaissance man.

Childish has since remained steadfastly true to punk’s DIY cred, becoming one of the most recognizable and authentic voices in whichever artistic endeavor he undertakes. He has released over 150 albums of raw rock and roll, punk, blues, and folk; and has written many volumes of searing poetry as well as several autobiographical novels. But what he is perhaps best known for in recent years is his painting, for which he is now critically, commercially, and internationally feted. He hasn’t changed course in any of his disciplines, though. The world just caught up with the sheer volume of his brutally honest work.

To Ease My Troubled Mind is a mosaic portrait collated over a year of interviews with Childish, as well as with close family, ex-girlfriends, band members past and present, friends, foes, collaborators, even his therapist. It is an unflinching, yet frequently spiritual and funny portrait of an artist who is now one of the most prolific and uncompromising of his generation. The volume also includes a foreword by British comedian Stewart Lee.

Ted Kessler was on the staff at NME as a writer and editor between 1993 and 2003, before joining Q magazine’s staff, working there for sixteen years. He was Q’s editor for four years, until it closed in 2020. His first book, Paper Cuts: How I Destroyed the British Music Press and Other Misadventures, was published in 2022. He also devised and edited the acclaimed My Old Man: Tales of Our Fathers, published in 2016.

Billy Childish is a painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist. He has led and played in such bands as: Thee Milkshakes, Thee Headcoats, and the Musicians of the British Empire. He has released more than 100 albums. Together with the artist Charles Thomson, Childish co-founded the Stuckist art movement.

Made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation

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