The Medway Sound: Garage Rock From Chatham and Rochester
How a cluster of Kent river towns produced a rough, blues-soaked garage rock scene that still has a cult following around the…
HomeMedway & Kent Scene
Medway & Kent Scene
Garage rock from Chatham and Rochester, Billy Childish, the Sweeps and the night the Libertines played a Railway Street pub.
Photo: Magnus D / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Medway · Explainer
The Libertines Freedom Gig in Chatham, 8 October 2003
How a prison release, a hastily arranged club show and one photograph turned a Kent night into the defining Libertines comeback story.
Billy Childish: A Beginner's Guide to His Music, Art and Poems
One artist, three forms: how the Chatham-born songwriter, painter and poet built a huge body of work on the same rough, self-made…
Rochester Sweeps Festival: Guide to the May Folk Weekend
Morris sides, folk stages and a leafy giant on the High Street: what to know before a day at Rochester's free May bank holiday…
Chatham Music Scene: A Short History of the Medway Towns
From naval dockyard and art school to garage bands, punk poets and one famous reunion night, how Chatham built its own music…
From the Tin Archive
Earlier items on this subject from the venue website that once used this address
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The venue
The Venue: Five Bars on Three Floors in Chatham
How the Tap ’n’ Tin on Railway Street described itself: bands in the pool room, DJs upstairs, a beer garden, and plans for a salon and a tattoo studio.
Press cuttings
Press and Awards: The Tin in the Papers
Cuttings the venue collected in 2003 and 2004, from the Kent Messenger and The Face to NME and the national reviews of the Libertines’ reunion gig.
Gig review
The Libertines: Unity at Peter’s “Freedom Gig”
A fan’s review of the October 2003 night when Pete Doherty walked out of prison and the Libertines reunited on the pub’s top floor.
Press cutting
Multi-Storey Music: The Kent Messenger on the Tin
A Kent Messenger feature on a Chatham pub with live bands, DJs and indie nights on three floors.
Press cutting
Record Makers: A Chatham Pub Starts a Label
The Kent Messenger on the year the Tap ’n’ Tin became known well beyond Medway, and on its plans for a record label.
Press cutting
Poster Girl: The Artist Behind the Flyers
The Face magazine on the young artist who drew flyers for her friends’ bands, including the Libertines.
Press cutting
NME’s Number One Live Moment of 2003
The December 2003 issue of NME named the Libertines’ reunion at the Tap ’n’ Tin the live moment of the year.
The venue
The Salon Upstairs: A Hairdresser Inside a Music Pub
The venue briefly ran a late-night hair salon on its premises, open on club nights.
The venue
Future Primitive: The Tattoo Studio Next Door
A tattoo studio called Future Primitive was being fitted out next to the pub at the end of 2003.
The venue
The Message Board: Where the Regulars Talked
In 2004 the venue opened an online message board for photos, gig chat and the weekly mailing list.
Photo set
Rough Trade Night, 22 May 2004: The Photo Set
A Rough Trade Records night with Art Brut, Fuzz and Rory Keef, a DJ set from James Endeacott and Carl Barât in the room.
