The Causey Way
WWCD (Put It On A Cracker)
by Marc Hirsh
The Causey Way
WWCD (Put It On A Cracker)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in Space City Rock, Fall 1999
The Causey Way is a rock band disguised as a cult disguised as a rock band. The rock band they're disguised as is fairly pathetic, and the cult doesn't seem to be much better. How bizarre, then, that the actual band behind everything turns out to be pretty damn good. An off-shoot of Man... Or Astro-Man? (they share a drummer), this is a group you find at one of those Night Of The Living Concept Bands concerts at your favorite club that makes you want to track down the members of Devo and let them know they've got some explaining to do.
Which, incidentally, is exactly where I found them, sandwiched between MOAM and VHS Or Beta (whose concept seemed to be standing around singing into vocoders and wearing black-light glasses). The Causey Way's set seemed silly, so much so that I tried to move to avoid being blessed by singer/guitarist/brainwasher Causey. But there, among the starched white uniforms, spastic nerd gyrations and 2 (!) Moogs and a Farfisa, some rock and roll was being made.
Sounding almost exactly like what the future of music must have seemed to electro-geeks in 1965, WWCD stands as a monument to being a dork, advertising it to the world and not caring one goddamn lick. And with the force of these convictions comes a pair of minor-key pop gems ("The Bottom Line" and "Maltreated"), a lot of comic relief ("Science Made Me A Homo(sapien)," "Plan C," "Chocolate") and a closing song, "Natural Disasters (God's Black Box)" which splits the difference. Over a technical beat and some synths, a drone-like (as in bees, not continuous sound) voice matter-of-factly states, "Natural disasters happen every day/Man-made disasters happen every second." Heady stuff, until Causey, sounding like Terrence and Phillip, starts screaming, "Blow, blow, blow, you volcano!" It's an incredibly stupid moment, and a brilliant one. These two lines intersect more often than you'd think, but the responsible parties usually bury or ignore it. Not the Causey Way; freak flag high, they salute the thing and start carving false idols out of the flagpole.