Wild Billy Childish and CTMF - Acorn Man

  by Mark Rowland

published: 18 / 1 / 2015

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You know what you’re going to get with a Billy Childish record, with some slight variation here and there. Billy’s musical influences are 60s beat and garage rock, punk, blues and old rock and roll – all of his albums feature various combinations of these, part of Childish’s decades long determination to preserve the culture of a simpler time. Childish has described the sound of his latest band, CTMF, as “the sound of yesterday, tomorrow.” What this means in reality is fuzzy, 60s beat-influenced music, no new ground for Billy, but great either way. Childish’s wife and bass player Julie Hamper (going by the name Nurse Julie in CTMF) shares the vocal duties with Childish on 'Acorn Man' – both sing together on most of the songs, with Julie taking the lead on songs like ‘Zero Emission’, a riot grrlish attack on modern materialism. In fact, it could be argued that the battle between technology and nature – or at least, the old and the new – is a very loose theme on the album. ‘He Wore a Pagan Robe’ ‘A Flame from the Fen’, ‘Acorn Man’ and ‘The Song of Myself’ (parts of Walt Whitman’s 'Leaves of Grass' set to music), all feature images of nature and man’s interactions with nature. Closer ‘Instantly delete’ plays with images from the digital world (“she instantly deleted me”). Elsewhere, Billy returns to favoured subjects: ‘It’s So Hard to Be Happy’ and ‘What is this False Life You’re Leading?’ are rock ‘n’ roll tales of lost love, while ‘Punk Rock Enough For Me’ returns to one of Childish’s favourite subjects: what constitutes good music.

Track Listing:-

1 It's So Hard To Be Happy
2 Zero Emission
3 He Wore A Pagan Robe
4 A Flame From The Fen
5 What Is This False Life You're Leading
6 Acorn Man
7 Punk Rock Enough For Me
8 Me Or Mine
9 Curious Filters
10 The Song Of Myself
11 Acorn Man (Slight Return)
12 Instantly Delete

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/billychildish

Label Links:-

http://www.damagedgoods.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/DamagedGoodsRecords/
https://www.youtube.com/user/Damgoodrecords
https://twitter.com/DAMAGEDGOODSREC
https://plus.google.com/108116426226489991283

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