Billy Bragg and the Wonders of Fatherhood

They say you should never meet your heroes; something about being dissapointed. I just think they're heroes are shit to be honest. Johnny Marr, the Jarmans and Frank Turner were all great when I met them; I always felt Billy Bragg would be the same.

I've not long been a fan. Teenage years on heavy doses of Metallica meant I missed him and I reckon he would have been a huge influence on me. It was when I started to get comments from the over 40s at my shows saying I was similar that I considered a proper listen. A guy said to listen to Levi Stubbs' Tears and to this day it's one of my all time favourite songs. The same week a friend gave me Back to Basics. Never had I heard lyrics or guitar playing like it. Unmistakable.

A friend works the stage at Leamington Assembly and invited me up to see him. (Read the post I'm an idiot, listen to beans on toast to hear how I got the wrong dates). I finally got there on Thursday the 9th of December; the day of the student protests. Me and my friend sat in a wetherspoons and drank £1.60 pints of bitter watching the unbelievable heroics of our country's youth. (I feel my thoughts on this matter are much better left for another blog post).

The very quiet support band were ok but as always I wished I was playing. We drank Guinness and looked upon his trademark Burns guitar on stage. I was excited!

I spent two songs out front, 'The Digger' and 'To Have and To Have Not', which was apt considering the days events. I sang along with the mass of middle aged folk like the song had been a part of my youth as it had theirs. I saw the rest of the show side of stage and stood very close, looking on like a schoolkid seeing their favourite pop star! He talked between songs. This is only acceptable if you play solo. He spoke of his thoughts on the day; not preaching, just speaking the truth. Bragg for prime minister.

We learnt how Bragg Junior had been stealing his guitar strings and playing too loudly in the house. "I went to tell him to turn it down, but how on earth could I? He was playing this..." and dropped into Milkman Of Human Kindness. I pondered the day when I discuss Bragg, Turner, Dylan et al, with my son.

He did the classics and some new ones from a play he scored about the BNP taking Barking. It was inspiring to see one person hold a crowd like he did. Asking for requests he played Levi Stubbs Tears. That was me done, I could fucking die happy now.

Needless to say he finished with New England and in my drunken state (I was pissing his stage manager RIGHT off) I danced and sang! ...Done

In the backstage area (leather sofas, Tammy Winnette's trailer and a bar...amazing) we chatted with his tour manager. I promise I didn't shamefully speak about my own music... Billy Bragg walked in wearing a Christmassy jumper with an entourage of 5 older people who proceeded to follow him every which way he went. Eventually I got to talk to him, however briefly. If I'm honest I can't remember what the hell was said but it was worth every effort I'd made to get there.

I returned to London. The following Thursday and the day after my office Christmas party I decided to go alone to see him at The Troxy. You can read 'Going to Gigs Alone' for more thoughts on doing this. With a dreadful hangover I got to East London. Supporting was Grace Petrie; again I wished it was me but she was very good! Click for an amazing song on the student protests. I made a few friends that night and spent it with a father and son whom Billy Bragg had been a massive part of their life together. It was quite touching actually.

The gig was different. Slightly tailored stories and similar setlist (he played Levi Stubbs again) but overall it was a slightly quieter vibe; half full venue and a different crowd. Maybe I just wasn't as drunk or pumped up after watching the protests. Eitherway, the only reason I included this gig in the write up was because of the encore. He introduced his friend from Dagenham to play guitar with them and then, to everyone's amazement bought his son on stage. They all played A13, Trunk Road to the sea. His son, note perfect, was visibly excited and on the final chord he did the old 'shoot the crowd with guitar' sequence, threw his pick in the crowd and stood with both arms raised in the air... His Dad had his arms crossed and was shaking his head. It bought me back to the Father and Son thing. I look forward to having that kind of experience one day, but most of all I look forward to seeing my family this Christmas.

Tweet

The View From...Birmingham

Here is a guest blog post I wrote for A New Band A Day a few months back called The View From...Birmingham. It's part of a series of articles that document the music scenes of different areas of the world. I completely forgot to link to it so fill your boots. Have a mooch around the website too because it's a damn good music blog! Click the pic to read!




Tweet

Real Musicians vs The Drivelbuggers

On BBC1 last night there was a documentary on the making of "Darkness On The Edge Of Town", Bruce Springsteen's fourth album. For anyone that aspires to play music this is absolutely essential viewing. Firstly to show you the legal difficulties major labels frequently inflicted upon artists, but more importantly, the processes behind making a classic album. 70 songs written, 40 songs recorded, 10 songs made it. Not only is this prolific songwriting but it enabled careful selection of 10 tracks that worked as a whole piece. Plenty of the other songs were used on later albums as they were far from inadequate, just inappropriate.

I hate to even mention it in the same post but just take a look at everything in the charts at the moment...you done it? And take a look at what is all over TV and news...yep, I'm not even going to say its name but I'll probably catch a bit of it myself this weekend. So we have this bunch a talentless drivelbuggers and the people putting in the real work, actually touring and writing songs, they pass through the underground due to fad music and smaller marketing budgets. Not ranting; I think I prefer it like this.

It's this kind of documentary that flicks on a light in my head to write more and work harder. I've had similar feelings after All About the Destination (Frank Turner docu), and The Beatles on Record. There's nothing like insight into how your heroes work to give you a kick up the backside.

So this will be on iPlayer for the next week, I will no doubt watch it a few more times and you should too. Even if you don't like his music you get to see how it used to be done and that's important. Or just watch it for the bit where he's playing guitar topless. It's enough to turn most blokes!

Tweet

Frank Turner - Rock & Roll EP

Frank Turner released his new EP today. People (my mates especially) are probably a little fed up with how much I talk about the man but to be quite honest, I wouldn't have written any songs in the past three years if it wasn't for him so it's important.

I sat and listened through the short record this morning and tried to take in as much of it throughout the day as I could and admittedly, it's a slow burner. I felt like this with Poetry of The Deed though and after a few plays it was clear he had totally smashed it once more.

I could sit here and spout superlatives all night long about how great he is, but go and listen to him and you'll see for yourself. Go and see him and you will concede that the man has an adoring fanbase of guys and girls, young and old. Come this Sunday night, I will be singing back at the skinny wonder with 2000 others, and I can't fucking wait.

Go somewhere else for a review, I couldn't critique something that's so important to me. Don't listen to the NME though, they're just fucking idiots.

 

Tweet

Mark Twain, What A Man!

I'm currently finishing off a song about Mark Twain. This amazing being wrote Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer as well as numerous travel books. My fascination with him is more based around the life he led and his satirical outlook in a rapidly developing world. Take a read of his Wikipedia page and you'll quickly notice that this is no ordinary soul. His books are classic and you can live your life by his one liners. I love the song that I've written, it needs a couple more lines and it's likely to become a set finisher. Incidentally his autobiography was released last month. He declared it would be released 100 years after his death...what kind of person in their right mind would do that!? Mark Twain, that's who.

P.S. I want that moustache.

Im An Idiot / Listen to Beans On Toast

So last night (Thursday) I was due to see Billy Bragg. I took two days off work and headed back up to Birmingham on Wednesday night. Turns out Billy is playing NEXT Thursday which makes me a complete idiot but more importantly I chose that gig over Beans on Toast's album launch so I'm double gutted (and Villa lost to Blues and we lost the World Cup bid and it took me ages to get back to London). Gutted x 5. If you are not aware of Beans on Toast then I implore you to give him a crack. He has the groggiest voice you will ever hear on record but he sings in such an observational way he always brings a smile to my face. His new album "Writing on the Wall" came out yesterday, be sure to let me know what you think of it. I'll post on the Billy Bragg gig when I actually go to it...just to summarise, I'm a prick; listen to Beans on Toast.

 

Tweet

Two Very Fast Months in London

I've been in London for nearly two months. I've seen some music but wanted to comment on the comedy that i've managed to catch and a couple of projects i'm getting involved in.

The Three Englishmen
These guys have played at Edinburgh Fringe and to be quite honest I nearly pissed myself. We were rammed into a small room and my chances of getting to the toilet were minimal. My particular favourite was a blind chemist sketch that they did to the tune of goldfinger.

Jollie
John and Ollie actually supported the four englishmen with just an accordion and a tambala (is that what it's called, the drum you sit on and hit in different places). They have insane story based songs and
harmonies tighter than a gnats chuff. Brilliant!

Darius Davies
Verbal diarrhea springs to mind. I tried to regurgitate his 5 minute set at The Laughing Horse heats to so many people and they've just given me funny looks so just check out his youtube page.

Spicestock
Summer 2011 will see the third Spicestock festival at Belle eau Park in Nottinghamshire. It's early doors for promo but there will be some seriously mint acts this time around. Be sure to follow @spicestock on twitter for initial going ons.

Null&Void Radio
In the New Year there will be a relaunch from the guys that bought you Best Friends on LSRFM and The Waiting Room on Camden's Roundhouse Radio. Null&Void will have very funny guests, musical comedy, new music and best of all, the two dafthead presenters. Check out @null__void on twitter.

Enough comedy, I've just moved into my new gaff in London. This basically means I have my own place to write again so expect some stuff in the new year. Check out the people above and I promise to try and keep writing here.

The Move

I spent a long three days at InTheCity in Manchester last week where I had the pleasure of meeting these guys -



Whilst there I had a job offer and so I was dealing with a Monday morning start. No time to get excited...

After a cafe gig for oxjam and a few bevvy's to say bye to friends I only had Sunday morning to throw some stuff in a suitcase and train it down. Proper 'Dick Whittington' I felt.

As the train pulled out of New St I didn't feel like I was saying goodbye, it just felt like another days work tomorrow. As the days have passed it's started to dawn on me that I've actually moved away...

Big Chill 2010

The weekend forcasted rain. Not a good start, however, I got fully into the festival mindset by going and buying a crap load of alcohol with my mate Paul. The trolley was full of cider, boxes of wine, crates of beer, blue shnide (fake RedBull...), vodka, mixers, beans, crisps, bread rolls, 24 club biscuits, corned beef and a massive bottle of salad cream.

Game on then. In the que we met a group from Aberdeen. I have never been to Aberdeen but from bumping into this group throughout the weekend (and seeing their 2p sized pupils) I imagine it is fucking mental.

With the tent pitched and chairs out, the drinking commenced. We had a spacious back garden and what with being sat in it, the respectful British festival goers, conscious of avoiding confrontation, found elsewhere to set up shop. We were then mercilessly invaded by the French and our camping space thus diminished.

There were only a handful of people on the line up that I was adamant in seeing and so I spent most of it sauntering about, checking out whoever might attract my aural interest. In general the festival was (and I must have used the word about 500 times) "Chilled". With my experience being multiple Reading and Benicassim's over the past five years it made a refreshing change to not have people pissing on/burning your tent or being sick from bad spanish pills.

From the people I hadn't heard of, The Black Seeds were particularly noteworthy. After some research it seems that Brett from Flight Of The Conchordes was once a member. Apparently they're chart topping in NZ and rightly so, although I can't see the dub-funk genre breaking through our mainstream drivel.

I think my highlight music wise was Newton Faulkner. Now, admittedly I have never been a huge fan but being the only real acoustic guitarist/singer-songwritery act on the bill I was dead set for this... Throw me a vowel...the guy smashed it. Playing string parts with his feet, an electronic kick drum, his insane tapping and his guitar banging made for one of the most interesting sets i've seen in a long time. I took a fair amount of inspiration from his ability to work the crowd, telling a story in a song build up to get people jumping. He ended with Bohemian Rhapsody and just tore the place apart - unreal, I implore you to go and see him if he is in your area.

Throughout the first two days of the festival there were murmurings of a human art installation taking place on the Sunday morning. Turns out it was Spencer Tunick. I was familiar with his work but didn't realise the magnitude of his fame. Turns out getting a load of people naked in a public place is a bloody lucrative business. So Paul, being the 'Life Experience' enthusiast, signs up for this demo. After a heavy saturday night caning the vino, true to form, Paul got up at 7am and walked off into the sunrise while I dehydrated in my polythene greenhouse. Some 4 hours later Paul returned (I was still asleep). Not only was he grinning from ear to ear he was covered from head to toe in royal blue body paint. After I nearly passed out from laughing he began to explain that this Tunick bloke had painted the 600 participants different colours and arranged them to form a protest picture of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. After demonstrating his disdain for being part of a political endeavour he summed up his morning by saying 'Yeh I was just lay there for an hour with my cock on some girls face and she was just smiling'.

Here are one liners for some of the other people I caught:

MIA - Boring as hell, walked off. Didn't get paid due to causing a stage invasion and injuring security. What's the American word for stupid mare?
Easy Star All Stars - Paul and Sam didn't know any Floyd or Radiohead songs so this was a none starter.
Roots Manuva - About 10 times better than at Warehouse project last year. Fearsome set. His hype man was a tad annoying but hey ho.
Paloma Faith - Pleasantly surprised by her voice, performance and songs.
Lily Allen - Pregnant, this raised a laddish conversation to which we all came to the same conclusion. Paul lost his load when Professor Green came out - the expletives aren't repeatable.
Delta Maid - American country singer (when singing) - Riddled with scouse (when talking) Great songs!
Submotion Orchestra - Stunning ethereal vocal. LEEDS LEEDS LEEDS LEEDS LEEDS...

So there you go. It's a late post and i could probably go on forever but you get the picture. It's a festival; shit goes down, people get squiffy and Spencer Tunick gets to play puppet master.

The Glass Child

Just a quick one. A girl wrote this about me on her blog. It was a really nice thing to read about myself and made my bank holiday. Check it below -

THE GLASS CHILD

Upcoming Dates

Fri 16th July - LIVERPOOL, Zanzibar

Tue 27th July - LEICESTER, The Shed

Wed 28th July - LEEDS, Elbow Room

Thu 29th July - MANCHESTER, The Roadhouse

Wed 11th August - LONDON, Camden Rock

Sat 14th August - BIRMINGHAM, Scruffy Murphy's

Fri 27th August - LONDON, The Constitution (Camden)

Sun 29th August - NORTHAMPTON, Roadmender

&U8I // Oren Lavie // Billy Bragg

&U&I - Chancer's Paradise

I'm happy to see that despite the ridiculous break up of Blakfish some months ago the remaining three have already recorded an EP due for release in October.
"&U&I" is well easy to type on a keyboard too.


&U&I - Chancer's Paradise from Grant Harrington on Vimeo.


Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance

I would in no way call myself an expert in stop frame animation but I do have a small amount of experience. Enough, that is, to know how frustrating it can be to achieve a quality result. Not only is this one of the best video's I have ever seen it's a really good song.




Billy Bragg - Levi Stubbs' Tears

I'm just throwing in a video I found of Billy Bragg's 'Levi Stubbs' Tears'. Sometimes one man and a guitar can be more powerful than a backline of 4x12's and beligerent drummer. Case in point...(and one take!)

Go to gigs alone!

This is my new resolution that i'm going to implement wherever possible.

Being the lovely person that I am, I offered to do some promo for Twin Atlantic for their support slot with Gaslight Anthem at Birmingham Academy last week. To my surprise Sharks were first support. When I worked at In The City in Manchester last October I was repping for both these guy's gigs so I was pretty chuffed for them both to be playing.

I had a massive bag of free Twin Atlantic downloads and was trotting around the venue giving them out, chatting to people etc... So I get talking to a group of friends from Oxford that were up for a few days and I latched onto them for the evening. Being the local I showed them about a bit and just had a top evening. Had a little chat with Gaslight's sound engineer in The Victoria too and she was telling me loads of interesting things about Frank Turner.

My general point is that people you have known for a long time don't ask questions of you. They are used to your behaviour, know where you grew up, what school was like for you. I am in no way saying ditch your friends and just keep making new ones, just simply, once in a while, endeavour to meet some new people or your life will stagnate...

First London Show

So I'm playing at The Constitution in Camden on the 27th of August. It's an acoustic show. I don't particularly mind this at all as recently the acoustic shows I've played have gone really well. Usually there is some dude singing some classic song and thanking the audience a million times and saying he has a sore throat and then belting a song out and hitting high notes to rapturous applause despite his supposed hoarseness. At which point I stroll on, say 'Hullo', and play what by the look on peoples faces MUST be disheveled noise...Rant over...

I wholly appreciate the need to play and meet people in London which is why I am venturing South. Most of my shows have been Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool so it will be a new one. If it is supposed to be "The next level" though then I know precisely 5 people in and around Greater London so it will more likely be more of the same. For now at least...

New Track - While It Lasts

While It Lasts - Neil Ward by neilwardmusic

Here is my sparkly new offering to you all. Wrap your gills around it...wrap them hard!

Following up...

OK, so Alice In Wonderland was average. Pulled through by Helena Bonham-Carter and Johnny Depp. 3D films are ridiculous and make your eyes fucking hurt! Give me a super 8 camera any day (although admittedly that makes your eyes hurt too).

In other news I’m looking to get a logo sorted so if there is anyone with mad design skills that wants a pop at it then I’d be eternally grateful for anything conjured up. I’m also tying my best at the moment to get some harmonica sorted for a track or two. Will just add something different whilst playing live. I’ll be getting some photo’s/artwork done with Jack Adams soon, proprietor of the two sterling blogs below:

Uber Brum
This One Goes Up To Eleven

The other day I finally got myself a mint new guitar that sounded great, felt great, played great and was supposed to last me a long long time. Fell in love with the thing. As soon as I plugged it in I realised that the sound was actually shit and that it was about as reliable as an 80’s Skoda. Needless to say, it will be going on ebay. So back to the hunt for a new guitar…

I'm playing in Manchester for Paddy's day so if I see you then, wicked, otherwise i'll catch you at one of my Birmingham gigs or just round and about!

Heading north....

First gig in Manchester tomorrow night (later today). I will be at the Roadhouse so if i have converted you and you are reading this after i have played then hello to you. Feel free to take my music away and share it with whoever.