#141
April 1985
Thee Mighty Caesers
Beware the Ides of March
4.25 out of 5
Highlights:
You can’t Judge a Book By the Cover
Billy Childish is back. This time he’s mining a different 60s sound. The sound of a high school band trying to be The Kinks or the Byrds or The Zombies or ? & the Mysterians or [insert 60s garage band here].
In a way I’m reminded of Deface the Music by Utopia. In that case, though, it seemed like Todd Rundgren was just trying to prove that The Beatles music was easily replicated and, through that replication, show that the emperor had little clothes. Childish seems to want to BE Ray and Dave Davies. And he doesn’t want to rehearse. While I applaud the devotion to the sound, it hews too close to carbon copying than it does to emulation.
But, dammit, Childish makes me feel terrible about myself. I had one album and one ep in me. That was it. about 16 songs. I haven’t written a good one in 15 years.
He gets an extra 1/2 star for that.
