Uncle Bill

Billy Bragg and I have previous. Lots of previous.

I'll go into that later because tonight, tonight in the ice and the snow and sudden mid gig queasiness about the difficult journey home I fell in love with Billy Bragg. Fell in love all over again.
I stood in the middle, twenty feet from the front, surrounded by other greying, bellied fans. Intermingled were the newer cohorts of fans but for the most part the audience reflected the main attraction, middle aged, self depreciatory and curious.
I wasn't beering it up and there was no smoke, it was my first HD gig.

Twenty years ago I had been at the same gig in another part of town and had listened to Billy rail against nostalgia. He had no time for it, the struggle had to move onwards, not back. Therefore he was not going to play any of the old stuff. That , along with every album after 'Workers Playtime' and up to 'Mermaid Avenue' put Billy on the back burner. I was 18 and he was singing about the difficulties involved with getting a decent babysitter.

Times change. Tonight I got a decent babysitter and drove the car to the University and watched Billy rail through his classic back catalogue. I don't think it's nostalgia, I think he has understood that he's an entertainer and that we want to be entertained, entertained by some of the most wonderful, lyrical, rock and roll of the past 30 years. We were also entertained and provoked by his observations, the banter and the two drunken extremists who started a fight in the corner and got thrown out. This would not have been relevant had it not been right at the front and the security men taken a long and somewhat heavy handed approach to the whole proceedings. It was almost like a piece of tourism form the 1980s.

A wonderful night, just what the soul had been asking for. Just what the ears needed.

Twenty years ago today! Sort of...

Stone Roses, Norwich Arts Centre, June 26, 1989. 

Small venue.

Big gig.

Ah, nostalgia, It's going to kill me.

album

Name an album you can sing, from start to finish, every song.

Backyard Glastonbury.

You know you are getting old when you see the coverage of the Glastonbury Festival on the BBC and think "Oh that's nice, I can have a beer on the sofa and watch that".

I've attempted to recreate a mild 'Glasto' atmos by getting a bit drunk and leaving the back door open.
(Frau Random Doubt is at a disco at the Ex Serviceman's club with my sister)

book learning #39

The Progressive Patriot. A search for belonging by Billy Bragg.

Ever since I picked up the 12 inch single "Greetings to the new brunette" in January 1987 I have been wedded to Billy Bragg.
It's been a pretty good marriage, there have been times when all I needed was to listen to 'Worker's playtime' or 'Talking to the taxman about poetry' and all was well. I had Uncle Bill, those strange teenage years were bearable.

Then came 'Sexuality' and all that success.

Then came some truly lean years.

I kept the faith and I kept going to gigs, I just lived in a different place, a different time.
I think that at one gig Uncle Bill talked a lot about his wife and son and how hard it is to get a babysitter and I felt pretty much marginalised. Added to which I thought that the album he was promoting was crap. I have always loved his hostile attitude to nostalgia but dammit, if there's one man who can make me feel nostalgic for so many things it's Billy Bragg 1983-1988!

However, I saw him a couple of years ago in New York and loved every minute of it, my estranged Uncle Bill had come home. OK, he'd not really come home,it was more like he was attending a family function on good behaviour, but still, here he was, just as chatty as ever and playing all his old classics in a gorgeous venue.

So, I read his book.

In the midst of a self imposed enquiry about Englishness and what it means, a self imposed thought fest about returning to England, I picked up this book and began to read.

Bragg tackles a most complex issue, a complex issue for any nation, the idea of national identity and awareness.

Phew!

It's not all that intense, it flows in the way that an Uncle Billy mid gig chat flows, he fills it with family history (he is an incredible and quite fascinating geek) and a left centred view on English domestic history. He quotes heavyweights such as George Orwell and Sir Winston Churchill as well as lighter notes Sir John Major and Lord Tebbit. Billy takes you on a ride and it's a great conversation, I love the fact that he apologises several times for being a Londoner who now lives by the sea in devon!

All this made me realise that you could read a book a day on Englishness (Billy makes the distinction that this bok is about being English, not British) and still not get halfway close to an understanding. It also made me realise that whilst I don't rate much of Billy's recent musical output, he's not a half bad writer (always was a superb lyrical poet) and his books certainly hold the reader and keep the interest. yes, it's a geeky read full of semi obscure English history and the need for a formal, written constitution, but it's also dead entertaining.

I'm listening to...

... early Billy Bragg.

Happy uplifting Aussie music

Dammit if it aint a Go Betweens kind of a day!

Currently obsessed with...

Jesus Christ Superstar.
It's sort of christmas music isn't it.

Currently obsessed with...

Jenny Lewis and the Watson twins.
(Thanks Listmaker)

Mondale's mix CD.

It's coming!
I just need to buy the CDs, write the cover notes and produce the damn thing. Should be ready by the end of the week!