The Kid is All Right
Medway's biggest musical export flies under the radar. Plus we review Os' Camacheiros, our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more
Tom Hull is arguably Medway’s biggest musical export, but few people seem to know who he is. You will almost certainly know more than one song he’s had a hand in, though, following his work on some of the biggest songs of the past few years. Our music columnist, Stephen Morris, has been exploring his work and history. Further down, Steven Keevil reviews Os' Camacheiros over in Upnor, and we have our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more.
The Kid is All Right
by Stephen Morris
Here’s a Medway trivia question for you. What (or rather who) is the link between Harry Styles, Florence + The Machine and Jessie Ware? The answer - if you hadn’t already deduced it from reading this article’s headline - is Tom Hull, a.k.a. Kid Harpoon, who grew up in Chatham. He’s written songs – BIG songs - for all the above and more besides. When not writing, for example, ‘As It Was’ (best-selling global single of 2022) with Harry Styles, he’s been producing songs like ‘Flowers’ for Miley Cyrus (best-selling global single of 2023).
The start of Kid Harpoon’s story runs much like that of many other bands and artists from around Medway: the experimenting with being in different bands (first Lick, then Fuzz), the inevitable flirtation with a garage band sound.
Parallel to all of this, the Tap n Tin was gaining momentum as the place to go for live bands, good music and a great time. So, it was hardly surprising that Tom and his Fuzz bandmates gravitated towards this venue. Dean Fragile, who ran club nights and put on bands at the Tap, once told me that Fuzz were ‘one of the first proper bands that would play at the Tap n Tin and have it rammed out.’
Where Tom Hull’s story begins to part ways with the more familiar tale of Medway bands and artists is precisely when he decided to go it alone and become Kid Harpoon. In an interview with Alyssa Cotsalas for the podcast SongwriterSaturday, he explains how ‘in my hometown, all of my friends knew my band, and so in my little world I was in this band that I needed to break out from.’ The opportunity to make this break came when The Libertines’ Carl Barât, whom he would have met at the Tap n Tin, offered him a club night.
To help manage his transition from lead singer with a band to a solo artist, Hull decided to use a pseudonym – originally intended for use on one night only at Carl Barât’s club night. Pseudonyms are hardly rare in these parts: just look at Billy Childish. The name he chose had a similarly juvenile flavour: he’d recently written a story about someone using a harpoon to change the direction of a comet.
From this point on, his association with Medway became rather more detached as he gravitated towards London, specifically the Nambucca venue on London’s Holloway Road, where he regularly rubbed shoulders with Mumford and Sons, Laura Marling and Florence + the Machine. In a 2022 interview with Billboard.com, he recalled being ‘obsessed with her…I just remember us sitting in a park, and we’d write lyrics together.’
Legend has it that Tom Hull was not particularly well thought of back in Medway once he had become Kid Harpoon. You’ll hear second hand reports that “people” thought he had sold out. “People” thought he had stolen Lupen Crook’s nervy mannerisms on stage – and even copied that singer’s use of an unusual stage name.
To be honest, I’ve never knowingly met any of these people. That’s not to say they don’t exist. Medway has got something of an insular reputation at times when it comes to music. There’s a story, for example, of how the lead singer of a fairly typical garage band from these parts once interrupted a performance by the shoegazing alt-rockers The Ambience to say ‘this is not what Medway should sound like; this is awful!’
You’d like to think that “people” are bigger and better than that. This certainly felt the case when he performed a packed-out homecoming gig at the Tap n Tin in 2008 before heading out on tour with The Kooks. As memory serves, the audience absolutely loved him – particularly for his riotous take on Leonard Cohen’s ‘First We Take Manhattan’.
That Tap n Tin gig – and the Kooks tour – preceded the release of his, to date, only album, the appropriately named Once, in 2009. Produced by Trevor Horn and recorded in LA and London, it’s a bouncy indie-pop record with traces of folk that reflect the fact he might just have been spending a bit of time in the company of Marcus Mumford. Listening back to it, post-Harry Styles and Florence Welch et al collaborations, there are clear hints of what was to come once he started writing for other people.
Tom Hull’s story is a fascinating one – if only because it is so different to that of many other Medway musicians. What makes it even more intriguing is that – for whatever reason – it’s a story that’s not particularly well known.
In brief
🏥 According to patient-led assessments, Medway Hospital has improved in all areas. The hospital saw the biggest gains in how it handles privacy and dignity, dementia, and disability.
⚽ Chatham Town Football Club were broken into this week, causing damage, loss of property, and the theft of money raised for charity.
🎙️ Medway Council has a Medway Local Plan Podcast for some reason. More bafflingly, 10,000 people have apparently watched it on YouTube.
Out to Lunch: Os' Camacheiros
In which Steven Keevil assesses the lunch options available in our towns. This week, he’s been down to Os' Camacheiros in Upnor…
This Portuguese family-run restaurant can be found in Upnor, amongst an interesting development next to Upnor Castle. The restaurant is open, and the serving team are friendly as you come in. The tables have an odd metal tree directly in the centre to hang skewers, making it odd when sitting opposite somebody. Or a blessing, depending on who you go with. They also have some of the most uncomfortable chairs, but I quickly swapped mine for a more comfy one.
We were instantly served a shot of a honey rum mixture while we looked at the menu. For a starter, I ordered pan-fried tiger prawns in a peri-peri sauce, a skewer of rump steak, and sides of sauté potatoes, coleslaw, and garlic mushrooms. With the bill, they also included a shot of homemade berry liquor, which helped to handle the price on the piece of paper.
The free shots were delicious. It may be a personal failing, but I found the tiger prawns tough to deshell, and due to the sauce, quite frankly, a mess was made. Once past that barrier, they were succulent, and the per-peri sauce was a wonderful addition. The rump steak was slightly overcooked for my liking, and it was impossible to both look sophisticated and remove the meat from the skewer. Once that was done, however, the meal was immensely enjoyable. The steak and mushrooms complimented each other, and the coleslaw was the nicest in the history of these reviews.
For good food and free booze, head to Upnor, but take a bib with you.
Events this week
🎸 Legendary Medway band The Singing Loins released a new album today and will be playing a launch show tonight (Fri 6 Sep) at the Three Sheets To The Wind pub on Rochester High Street. Free.
🚜 The Hoo Peninsula Heritage Festival is this weekend (Sat 7 - Sun 8 Sep) off Vicarage Lane in Hoo. The event celebrates 200 years since the birth of Victorian engineer Thomas Aveling and features live music, entertainment, vintage engines, tractors, cars, a Victorian fun fair, and more. Free.
🇷🇴 The Romanian Autumn Fair is being held this Sunday (8 Sep) on Luton Recreation Ground. The event promises Romanian food, folk music, and cheerfulness, and you can’t ask for more than that. Free.
📽️ Odeon in Chatham have a Scream Unseen on Monday (9 Sep), a spin-off from their popular Screen Unseen series. It’s a screening of a pre-release film, and it’s a horror. Nerds on the internet seem to think it’s The Substance, which looks great but don’t blame us if it’s something else. Tickets £5.
🗃️ Medway Archives Centre is holding a drop-in session on Medway’s tunnels. Includes the opportunity to see the blueprints for the Shorts Tunnels in Rochester (more on those below). Free.
More Authority
Yesterday, we posted a photo essay exploring the Shorts Tunnels under Rochester after we gained access to them last weekend. Medway has so much history under its feet (literally, in this case), and exploring this usually closed-off part of our towns was fascinating.
Going underground in Rochester
The Shorts Tunnels are a vast network of wartime tunnels underneath Rochester. Access to them is tightly controlled, but we were able to visit them last week. Many pages on the internet recount their history, so we won’t do that in great detail here. Instead, this is something of a photo essay of what was a unique way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Our upcoming Sunday interview is with Medway-born atomic archaeologist Vicky Robinson, who has one hell of a job description. These features are exclusively available to our paid supporters, who help us keep our main briefing editions free for everyone. If you’d like to support our work, you only have a few days left to get 25% off annual subscriptions for our third birthday celebrations.
Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Loner by Caroline Rose, The Overload by Yard Act, and Tigermilk by Belle and Sebastian.
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I have a poster from The Dirty Lucy club that Dean Fragile used to put on at Tap n Tin. The lineup on the poster is The Barbs, Rosemary, and Kid Harpoon.