Album Review: Acorn Man by Wild Billy Childish & CTMF

It is said that Billy Childish, the Chatham-based artist and musician lionised by Jack White, among others, has made the same garage punk album umpteen times. This latest iteration is above par, as tongue-in-cheek and wise as it is acerbic and frill-free. Punk Rock Enough For Me mischievously celebrates Leadbelly, Dostoevsky, “a cup of tea” and “the Beatles without George Martin” as greats that meet with Childish’s approval.

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Billy Childish is the marathon man of British garage rock, a guitarist, songwriter, and bandleader who has cranked out over 100 albums of raw, primal rock & roll since he launched his musical career in the late '70s. Childish is keeping mum on what the name of his current ensemble, the CTMF, is supposed to stand for, but on his 2015 album Acorn Man, the music makes it clear Billy and his colleagues -- bassist and vocalist Nurse Julie and drummer Wolf -- are still flying the flag for his chosen style, where the growl of Link Wray's guitar, the amphetamine onslaught of the early Who, and the lo-fi smash-it-up spirit of the first lineup of the Damned find common ground. Acorn Man also delivers a classic Billy Childish rant with "Punk Rock Enough for Me," in which he offers an impressive litany of the things that live up to his standard of cool.

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Billy Childish’s creative output makes even Jack White’s no-days-off workrate appear Pink Floydian in comparison. With over a hundred albums to his name, Childish and his current CTMF trio can still spring surprises. Last year they coaxed members of The KLF out of retirement for debut ‘Die Hinterstoisser Traverse’. While CTMF revel in the uninhibited joy of overdriven ’60s mono, ‘Acorn Man’ finds Childish’s punk-blues released from the garage into the countryside.

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There are two ways of processing Billy Childish – a man who “gave up on music” in 1977. On one hand, you can applaud his determination (and success) in keeping authenticity in his art; but you can also bemoan the fact that nothing changes. A Billy Childish LP from 1980 is essentially the same as one from 2014… And God knows there have been enough of them.

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Artist. Poet. Stuckist. Novelist. Painter. Renaissance man. Primativist. Wild Billy Childish has been all things to all people since the late seventies, releasing at least four or five albums a year with little care for fanfare. Acorn Man is the second elpee from his latest ensemble, CTMF - which I ….

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