Billy Bragg
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Billy Bragg's Brave New England
Report and Interview by Mark Sinker, The Observer, 27 November 1988
2005 comment: Neil Spencer didn’t rate me or want to use me, according to Jon Savage – who told him (Sav told me) not to ...
Audio interviews
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages audio, November 1987
Art vs. commerce; pop and politics; materialism; the Second World War – the Bard of Barking on all of that and more.
File format: mp3; file size: 59.8mb, interview length: 1h 02' 14" sound quality: ***
Interview by Larry Jaffee, Rock's Backpages audio, May 1990
The Bard of Barking talks about being politicised, the Miners' Strike, experiences of racism in the Army, his new album The Internationale... and rather a lot about Margaret Thatcher.
File format: mp3; file size: 30.1mb, interview length: 32' 54" sound quality: ****
List of articles in the library
Billy Bragg: Captain’s Cabin, London
Live Review by Mary Harron, The Guardian, 1983
PLACING a heavy burden on a small but genuine talent, Billy Bragg has been hailed as the next big thing. ...
More Futurama 5, Leeds Queen's Hall
Live Review by Susan Williams, New Musical Express, 24 September 1983
BULKY MUTHAS guard the doors, lank ponytails asway, surly eyes surveying a multitude of peroxide quiffs, vaseline stiffened spikes and de Niro mohawks. Welcome to ...
The ICA Season: Rock Bands Find The Human Touch
Live Review by Simon Frith, The Observer, 1984
Billy Bragg/Prefab Sprout: The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London ...
Billy Bragg: Big Ben vs Little Billy
Interview by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 14 January 1984
AFTER NEARLY two years of playing the relentless troubadour all around this curious, fragmented isle, Billy Bragg and his guitar are starting to get noticed. ...
The Redskins, Billy Bragg, Bronski Beat: Institute of Contemporary Art, London
Live Review by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 14 January 1984
...THE POWER... THE GLORY... THE RED HARRINGTON!!! ...
The Style Council, the Questions, Billy Bragg: Dominion Theatre, London
Live Review by Neil Tennant, Smash Hits, 29 March 1984
OUTSIDE, COPIES of Socialist Youth are on sale and touts are trying to buy tickets because they can resell them for twenty quid to those ...
Echo & The Bunnymen, Ian Dury et al: Glastonbury CND Festival, Pilton, Somerset
Live Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 29 June 1985
"JESUS WEPT," from St Mark's Gospel is, I'm assured, the shortest verse in The Bible. That his Divinity did so over this event when 40,000 people decamped ...
R.E.M., U2, The Ramones etal: Milton Keynes Bowl, Buckinghamshire
Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 29 June 1985
THE LONGEST DAY ...
Billy Bragg: Life's a Riot With Spy vs. Spy (CD Presents)
Review by RJ Smith, Spin, September 1985
IT'S ABOUT time to write a deconstructionist regulation sheet to be posted in the halls of rockcritdom. I mean, surely it is so when a ...
Interview by Paolo Hewitt, New Musical Express, 18 January 1986
Can RED WEDGE kick new life into old Labour? Will our lovable lefty pop heroes transform Kinnock's party into a stylish outfit prepared for government? ...
Report and Interview by William Shaw, Smash Hits, 12 February 1986
"It's no good just complaining in your beer about things — you've got to come out and say it..." So says Spandau Ballet's Gary Kemp. ...
Billy Bragg: Talking With The Taxman About Poetry
Review by Lucy O'Brien, New Musical Express, 27 September 1986
SUBTITLED 'THE difficult third album', this is Billy growing into a Big Boy. Decorating the sleeve with Mayakovsky's poem, Bragg takes seriously his role as ...
Billy Bragg's record collection
Interview by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 14 February 1987
A HARE-BRAINED afternoon in the warmest room and things are not quite what they seem. The bookshelves may be burdened with Mayakovsky and miner's lamps; ...
Billy Bragg: Workers Playtime (Go! Discs LP/Cassette/ CD)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 17 September 1988
YOURS SINCERELY ...
Is Billy Bragg Pissing In The Wind Or What?
Interview by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 4 November 1989
Highway Through Hellas: a Greek tragicomedy in sex acts and three comic benefits. Starring Billy Bragg as Flash Gordon (protest singer, planet saviour and aspiring ...
Peter Jenner Journeys Through The Minefields Of The Rock World
Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 9 January 1990
IN HIS 46 years, Peter Jenner has seen a lot of rock 'n' roll, and a lot of rock 'n' rollers, come and go. He's ...
Mandela's Day — The Journey To Freedom
Report and Interview by Ted Mico, Melody Maker, 28 April 1990
TWO YEARS AGO, THE POP WORLD TURNED OUT IN FORCE TO CELEBRATE HIS 70TH BIRTHDAY AND DEMAND HIS RELEASE FROM PRISON. ON EASTER MONDAY, NELSON ...
Billy Bragg: Don't Try This At Home
Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1991
"WHAT DO they know of England who only England know?" enquires Billy Bragg, Bard of Barking. He is quoting, with a tiny adjustment, Rudyard Kipling, ...
Who The Hell Does Billy Bragg Think He Is?
Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, October 1991
Here he comes again: "pop's political conscience" in his dilapidated trousers and sensible shoes, worthily correcting the unenlightened and uplifting the downtrodden with his unsubtle ...
Billy Bragg: Don't Try This at Home (Elektra)
Review by Rob Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone, 31 October 1991
ALTHOUGH BILLY Bragg is often a great songwriter, it's no surprise that his socialist-propaganda ditties haven't converted young Americans to the teachings of Marx and ...
Billy Bragg: Don't Try This At Home
Review by Michele Kirsch, Select, November 1991
ON 1988's Worker's Playtime LP, Billy Bragg was "Waiting for the great leap forwards". It's been a long time coming, but he's made that leap, ...
Report and Interview by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 7 March 1992
OH DEAR. I am going to marry Billy Bragg. It's like this; Billy and I are in a tacky sort of '50s retro gift shop ...
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Q, March 1996
Only one thing could possibly save us from vicious '80s Conservatism: the assembly of pop pinkos that made up the Labour-supporting Red Wedge organisation. Johnny ...
Billy Bragg & Wilco: Mermaid Avenue (Elektra)
Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 21 June 1998
IF HE WERE around today, it figures that Woody Guthrie would make music that sounds like Dylan and Springsteen, Costello and the Clash. In this ...
Songs For Woody: Billy Bragg & Wilco's Mermaid Avenue
Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 7 July 1998
WOODY GUTHRIE bequeathed us his jumble. Willing in life to play straight man for many right causes, in death he left a tangle of words ...
Billy Bragg: England, Half English (Cooking Vinyl)****
Review by Gavin Martin, Uncut, April 2002
FIRST ORIGINAL album in six years from Bard of Barking, celebrating joys of collaboration and national diversity ...
I Smell the Blood of a Half-Englishman: Billy Bragg
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Harp, May 2002
What does it mean to be an Englishman? Billy Bragg explains it to Geoffrey Himes. ...
Interview by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, January 2008
As BILLY BRAGG blows out 50 candles on his birthday cake, TERRY STAUNTON sharpens his pencil for a musical history lesson ...
South by Southwest: Where The Weird Get Going
Report by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 26 March 2010
The freaks were out in force in Austin, Texas, for the South by Southwest festival. Stephen Dalton revels in the music ...
Essay by John Lewis, Do Not Disturb, Summer 2011
How do the British address their cities in song? With bathos, pathos and a large helping of silliness, says John Lewis ...
SXSW: Billy Bragg plays songs from new album, plus one inspired by the Bible
Report and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 15 March 2013
"THE PROBLEM with most protest songs," Billy Bragg said Wednesday afternoon, "is people spend all their time on the protest and not enough on the ...
Billy Bragg: Barking's Woody Guthrie on 30 years of songs and activism
Interview by John Harris, The Guardian, 26 March 2013
From agitpop to love songs, Bragg has brought his audience through life with him, creating a soundtrack to thousands of lives ...
English national anthem: Is 'Jerusalem' the hymn we've been looking for?
Comment by Peter Silverton, The Independent, 10 March 2016
In its 100 years, the hymn 'Jerusalem' has been sung with feeling by those of all political colours, says Peter Silverton. ...
Memoir by Martin Colyer, Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week, 19 May 2017
IN THE LATE summer of last year, I received an email out of the blue from Billy Bragg. ...
Billy Bragg interview: "I can't watch Question Time anymore — it's like the Coliseum"
Interview by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 18 September 2019
ON THE SONG 'Old Clash Fan Fight Song', a bash-em-out deep cut from the Fight Songs album of 2011, Billy Bragg sings of "a mate ...
Billy Bragg: Best Of Billy Bragg at the BBC, 1983–2019
Review by Tony Burke, Morning Star, 24 October 2019
The radical pedigree of Billy Bragg's latest compilation release shows why he's in danger of becoming a national treasure, says Tony Burke. ...
Billy Bragg: "Boris was trolling me the whole time. We've got a wind-up merchant as PM."
Interview by Jude Rogers, The Guardian, 29 October 2021
As the bard of Barking tours a new album, he reflects on modern politics, his scraps with the Daily Mail and why he could do ...
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