POP MUSIC REVIEW : WILL SEXTON AND BAND: RAW, SPIRITED MELANGE

He’s a hotshot guitarist, he doesn’t have to shave yet, he’s got great cheekbones and his last name is Sexton. But it wasn’t Little Charlie playing the Whisky on Tuesday--it was Littler Will, the younger of the Sexton brothers and another Texas prodigy.

Will Sexton made his local debut under far more modest circumstances than his ballyhooed big brother did back in May. But that’s as it should be, because Will Sexton and his band, the Kill, are raw, formative and ragged, full of possibilities but unsure of where to go. In other words, they’re what you’d expect from an outfit led by a 15-year-old, and while Will’s also signed to MCA Records, he doesn’t yet warrant the kind of scrutiny Charlie’s undergone.

Will and his three musicians still wear their influences on their sleeves. You can tell the guy was weaned on blues and rockabilly, you can tell he learned to play by listening to Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan, and you can tell he must’ve really fallen for the Clash around the time of “London Calling.”

What emerged was a too-derivative but honest and spirited melange of Lone Star boogie, English-style pop-rock and punkish drive, all in all a reasonably persuasive roadhouse-style set that really took off when a saxman joined the lineup and when big brother Charlie strapped on a guitar for a rip-roaring medley of the Ramones’ “Rockaway Beach” and Jonathan Richman’s “Roadrunner.”