Gloomy Tunes: Ty Segall, “Caesar”

You want to know how much Obit loves you? Well, instead of doing the easy thing, and just embedding The Ides of March’s “Vehicle” here and calling it a day (nothing against that 1970 single, mind you. The pride of Berywn, Illinois reeled off a nifty bit of gruff blue-eyed soul—think Chicago, only with balls—with that 1970 single, hitting #2 on the Billboard chart, but lead singer Jim Peterik went on to form Survivor, writing their biggest hit, “Eye of the Tiger,” acts for which he still cannot be forgiven), we put some thought into it, and remembered Ty Segall’s “Caesar.”

Segall’s a California singer/songwriter who plays a kind of garage-folk. Caesar,  a single from his second album, 2010’s “Melted,” starts out with a simple, choppy riff, played just sloppily enough, with a righteously fuzzed-out bass. “Backstabbers tremble with fever,” he howls, his voice distorted, as if singing through a cheap microphone. The latter half of the song hinds him whining “why must the people cry for me” a petulant emperor, as an incongruous flute floating in as the song stumbles to its last.

Steven Mirkin

Steven Mirkin’s diverse career has taken him from politics to pop culture to high art, offering him a front row seat to some of the most fascinating events and personalities of our time: writing speeches, fundraising appeals and campaign materials for Ed Koch, John Heinz and independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson; chronicling the punk/new wave scenes in New York and London; interviewing musicians such as Elton John, John Lydon and Buck Owens; profiling modern masters Julian Schnabel, Paul Schrader and Jonathan Safran Foer; and writing for TV shows including 21, The Chamber, Let's Make A Deal, and Rock Star: INXS.