Just Because

this is bloody brilliant.

It's kinda easy to take Billy Bragg for granted, he's always popping up somewhere with an opinion or two to espouse which is always interesting and sometimes wide of the mark, voting LibDem, doh! You sometimes forget how good he is at his main job..

This came on the personal stereo the other day and I was bowled over by how aggressive the guitar sounded and how clever he is with his lyrics.

Billy Bragg - Accident Waiting To Happen

Just Because

For about  two and a half minutes last night I was 16 again and everything was possible.

Thanks Billy.

Billy Bragg - To Have And To Have Not (Live)

Cold And Bitter Tears

I didn't expect to be in the position of doing a post this evening. I should be on my way to the Arches in Glasgow to see the big nosed bastard from Barking. However Billy, like my concert going buddy Stiff is stuck on one of the many closed roads on the west of Scotland tonight.

Anyway here is a track from Billy Bragg and Ted Hawkins recorded on the tour when I first saw possibly the finest protest singer of his generation at the Barrowlands way back in 1986.

Unfortunately it looks like I am also going to have to cancel my visit to Budapest tomorrow.

Billy Bragg and Ted Hawkins - Cold and Bitter Tears

Vive La France and Fuck Murdoch

I feel a rant or two coming on.

Firstly, I was all set to rant about Sleazyjet and how more times than not they are delayed and give some half arsed excuse and that is it. The reason for the rant was that I was stuck at Aldergrove for an extra 3 and a half hours last night due to my flight being delayed, meaning that I had five and a half hours sitting seething. Luckily my Wi-Fi was working ok and Icould fanny about on the net and send emails venting my anger to random lucky people.

When we finally got on the plane the tannoy made that bing bong noise and I awaited with baited breath to hear what nonsense the Captain was going to hit us with, I thought that it would be to do with the shitty weather us up here in the north of Britain are becoming increasingly used to. But no, the pilot informed us that " there are certain things that you can be asurred of, like the onset of spring [not much sign of that round here] and that the French Air Traffic Control will go on strike without warning, when they feel like it". I have to admit that this sort of lightened my mood. I don't quite understand why I felt better knowing that French Air Traffic Control were to blame rather than the incompetence of the orange airline.

You've got to hand it to the French, when they decide to go on strike, they don't just bring France to a standstill but like it to affect as much of Europe and beyond as they possibly can. Do they care? No. But when their strike begins to eat into my weekend and I don't get home until after 11pm on a Friday, I must admit I do not have a great deal of sympathy for what ever the fuck they are striking for.

In other news, I got my first ever Blogger take down notice yesterday and I have to admit I am a little confused.

During my long wait at the airport and after sorting out my emails and finishing off a report (dedicated employee, or what). I thought, I 'll check the blog correspondence, of which, there hasn't been a great deal of, of late but that's by the by. I opended up the hotmail account and found a mail from the manager of Doves, asking me about the Box.net withdrawl of the Weatherall mix of Compulsion, so I replied relating the sorry tale to him. After half an hour of checking out the other blogs, I went back into the in box to be confronted with the DMCA takedown notice. Now what is confusing me is that they have not deleted the post but have set it back to draft and state that I can re-post it if I remove the copyright offending material, however the link is dead as Box.net have already deleted the file.

I have come to the conclusion that there is fuck all that we can do about these notices as nobody actually looks at the posts that are offending them and just arbitrarily send out the take down notices.

I think that I, like North Country Bhoy may be heading to Wordpress in the near future.

Lastly, everybody needs to sign the 6 Music petition, to try to save the station, which along with the Asian Network looks likely to be axed due to all of the pish about the license fee and the BBC. These stories more often than not are first reported in the Murdoch press or his shitty Sky News channel, that shinning beacon of non partisan broadcasting.

I am totally pissed off with all of the stories about the BBC and the license fee and how our money is being wasted. Okay, that gobshite Jonathan Ross and the cunt known as the saviour of Radio 1 get paid far too much. I will also concede that  Mark Thompson needs to walk or take public transport a lot more and that the senior management need to be investigated. But if you think that you get a better deal for your 40 quid a month for constant repeats and live football, then you are as big a fool as Murdoch takes you for. 

People will only realise the value for money and quality of the output on the BBC, both radio and television , when they no longer have it and all of the news coverage, as an example, is as unbiased and as well informed as Fox News.

Here is a remix from one of my favourite french men, Pilooski as part of Discodeine.

Photonz - Trember (Discodeine mix)

I don't have anything defending the BBC but here is a track from Billy Bragg warning about Murdoch and sadly it is as relevant today as it was twenty six years ago.

Billy Bragg - It Says Here

Use Your Vote!

If you are reading this in the UK , like me you are probably totally switched off by politics and have very little trust in the politicians at Westminster.

No matter how hacked off I am at the moment with politics , I still believe that it is my duty to vote in the European election today and I urge everybody feeling disillusioned to do the same, no matter who you vote for, even the SNP if you must (in Scotland anyway).

If you believe that by not voting you are lodging a protest against the system or the main parties then I think that you are gravely mistaken. By protesting in this manner you may be aiding the odious BNP or the equally ridiculous UKIP to get a foothold in mainstream politics; especially in England where local elections are also taking place.

I have had the arguments with friends as to what is the point of voting, the stock argument being "my vote doesn't make any difference anyway", this is what the BNP and UKIP are hoping for; that enough people think like this and in combination with the lies that they have been peddling to people who are sick of what has been going on and yes, gullible. I wasn't going to say that but to vote for these parties you really have to have either fascistic tendencies or be very stupid to believe the hatred that they spout.

So please use your vote, no matter who you vote for. Apart from either of the jokes mentioned above, if you intend to vote for them fuck off, you're not wanted here.

I know the system isn't ideal but it's what we've got. To quote a famous Tory (I never thought that I would ever be doing that)- Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time

Billy Bragg - An Accident Waiting To Happen

The Men They Couldn't Hang - The Ghosts of Cable Street

It Was Thirty Years Ago Today !

It was thirty years ago today that the general election campaign that ushered in possibly the most devise decade of the 20 century in Britain started in earnest.

In just over 3 weeks Margaret Hilda Roberts would walk through the door of number 10 Downing Street for the first time and would take up residency there for 11 years.

I blame her for most of the world's ills, I may be right but am probably wrong, however one thing is for sure, if there had been no Thatcher there would have been no need for us to have invented Tony Blair.

The Groove Armada - Hands of Time

Billy Bragg - Days Like These

Mixing Pop and Politics

The mid to late 80's were a good time if you were an earnest young man with lofty ideals and a rudimentary knowledge of politics and class struggle. Not so good if you were a miner, shipyard employee, steel worker or any of the other "traditional industries" that were decimated during that decade.

By about 1983/84 I had become quite politicized after being introduced to Crass via my best mate's older brother's record collection (when he was out). I had avidly sought out music on Crass's label and bands with the same anarcho punk leanings, however there were a couple of problems for me in most of this otherwise worthy output. Most of the music was rudimentary at best with lyrics spat out at 100 miles an hour. Lyrics that made me think and question my own beliefs. But was it music? Possibly. Could you listen to it on a daily basis? No. Did I really believe that we could live in "anarchy, peace and freedom"? Not a chance in my neck of the woods, Strathclyde or any where else in the UK for that matter. For me there was a gap waiting to be filled. Yes I could listen to Dylan but it said nothing to me about Britain under Thatcher and although I loved all the political punk/new wave stuff such as TRB, SLF, The Angelic Upstarts etc, they belonged to the guys a few years older.

Then one Friday night I was sitting in the living room as usual watching the Tube and it happened, this guy with a big nose and a guitar was singing" just because your better than me doesn't mean I'm lazy, just because your going forwards doesn't mean I'm going backwards". I had found my protest singer, who was saying what I was thinking and with the bonus of being reasonably tuneful.

Through the 80's I got involved with a few political/protest movements, Red Wedge, although I was not yet age to vote, the Anti Apartheid movement, Amnesty International and CND. I remember this time as being thoroughly fucking grim but with a great soundtrack of protest songs by the likes of Bragg, the Beat, the Redskins, the Communards, Chumbawamba etc and up here Dick Gaughan.

The first track up is the track that first put me on to Billy Bragg, from the 6 track mini lp Life is A Riot with Spy vs Spy.

Billy Bragg - To Have And To Have Not

Secondly, a track from the first Chumbawamba lp "Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records". This was long before they signed to EMI, released Tub Thumping and were involved with the debacle at the Brits with John Prescott.

Chumbawamba - Whitewash

Lastly possibly my favourite of Bragg's own political tunes recorded live for KEXP.

Billy Bragg - Waiting For The Great Leap Forward.