Archive Review: Nivana '69's Cult (2012)

Way back, in the pre-grunge mists of Merry Ole England, there was a band called Nirvana. No, not that Nirvana – years before Kurt Cobain was born, and while he was still in diapers, this British outfit was wowing critics with a unique musical vision that mixed folk-influenced rock ‘n’ roll with elements of psychedelic pop, jazz, classical, and even baroque chamber music. Comprised of Irish musician Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Greek composer Alex Spyropoulos, Nirvana turned quite a few heads, wowed a handful of British music critics, and sold a bucketload of records – literally, however many records could fit into a large-sized bucket. Yeah, that few...

The buzz around Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos caused Island Records founder Chris Blackwell to sign the pair, and with a bevy of professional studio musicians and a small orchestra, Nirvana recorded 1967’s The Story of Simon Simopath, what is widely considered to be the first bona fide “concept album,” the odd couple beating such world-renown acts as the Who, the Kinks, and the Pretty Things to the punch. Although the band’s music was exceptionally difficult to perform live, Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos pieced together a touring band nonetheless, opening for bands like Traffic and Spooky Tooth, resulting in a subsequent minor U.K. hit single in “Rainbow Chaser.”

Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos would record two more albums together, 1968’s All of Us, which was similar in sound and scope to their debut, and Black Flower, an allegedly difficult recording which Blackwell refused to release. That problematic third Nirvana album finally saw limited release in 1970, but by 1971 the pairing had run its course, with Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos splitting amicably. Campbell-Lyons would release two more albums under the Nirvana name before launching a solo career that fizzled out in the mid-1980s, when he reunited with Spyropoulos and re-launched Nirvana, the pair making new music well into the 1990s.     

Imagine young Master Cobain’s surprise when Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos filed a lawsuit against him and Geffen Records in 1992 for the appropriation of their band’s name. A rumored large cash pay-off allowed Cobain’s crew to continue using the Nirvana name, while Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos kept on trucking, virtually unknown in the United States, but evidently keeping a sense of humor about the whole affair, even recording a version of Cobain’s “Lithium” at one point.

By the time of the Seattle Nirvana’s commercial ascent to the peaks of stardom, the British Nirvana’s first two original albums had become a sort of Holy Grail of 1960s psych-rock collectors, fetching handsome prices on eBay and elsewhere, leading to a rash of CD reissues, some legitimate and some questionable, that only spread the band’s myth even further. Since many of these CD reissues of Nirvana’s The Story of Simon Simopath and All of Us were import discs, the band still remains a bit of an obscurity here in the U.S., notable mostly to the sort of hardcore collector type that will spend hours digging through crates to find that one album by Gandalf, the Millennium, the Left Banke, or Kaleidoscope to add to their teetering stacks o’ wax. Credited to Nirvana ‘69, Cult is a long-overdue CD compilation of early material from the British Nirvana, offered on these shores for what may be the first time.

Enquiring minds want to know, does this 1960s-era Nirvana live up to the hype spread around by the collectors’ community for the past three decades? Well, the short answer is, yes and no. Only the simple-minded and/or clueless would really believe that Nirvana ‘69 sounds anything like Cobain’s world-beating trio, so those of you expecting some sort of earth-shaking, proto-grunge cheap thrills can dash off to Pitchfork and see what new band you’re supposed to download this week. As for the rest of you, throw out any preconceived ideas you may have about psych-pop, British folk-rock, or any of that because, the truth is, Nirvana sounds both like nothing you’ve ever heard before and, curiously, like a lot of what you already love. If you’re a fan of such 1960s-era fellow travelers as the Zombies, Love, or the Left Banke, you’ll probably dig Cult nearly as much as any album by those folks.

To say that Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos had a grandiose musical vision is to put it mildly, and as shown by the nearly two-dozen tracks collected on Cult, the only limitations on the pair’s immense musical ambition seemed to be the restrictions of the studio itself. Cult includes seven of the ten tracks from The Story of Simon Simopath and nine of twelve from All of Us (the album’s actual title is too long for even me to recount here), as well as a handful of single B-sides, and even a new song in “Our Love Is the Sea.” While the bulk of Cult is pleasant enough psychedelic pop – a mind-bending musical garden that the Reverend only walks through a couple times a year – there are rare flashes of brilliance here that certainly justify the band’s legend.

Island Records definitely missed the boat by only issuing a pair of singles from the first Nirvana album, as I count four red-hot slabs from The Story of Simon Simopath that had a puncher’s chance to hit the U.K. charts hard circa 1967. In an era where singles were the currency of commercial pop music, it was almost malpractice to throw only one single into the marketplace. The band’s album-opening “Wings of Love” is a wistful little romantic number chock-full of poetic imagery, sweeping orchestration, a lovely melody, and odd little instrumental rumblings here and there which raise it about your normal “Summer of Love” fare. “Lonely Boy” would have made another rad single, the melancholy vocals clad in baroque-pop trappings with a dash of background harmonies, and an overall whimsical vibe.

“Satellite Jockey” is simply brilliant, reminding of both the Kinks and the Move, but pre-dating the Electric Light Orchestra with a complex pop melody welded to a classical construct. The album’s actual single, “Pentacost Hotel,” is a charming, elfish song with the sort of soft/loud dynamic that Cobain would later use to sell millions of records. This Nirvana slaps cascading instrumentation and orchestral finery onto a psych-pop framework with great results. The band’s only charting single, 1968’s “Rainbow Chaser,” would later be included on their sophomore album, and while it shows slight artistic growth over the aforementioned material from their debut, it doesn’t stray far from the classical-pop hybrid blueprint they used on that album. With swirls of orchestral instrumentation, the melody here is somewhat more syncopated, with wan vocals lost amidst the washes of violin and cacophonic percussion.

Curiously enough, “Tiny Goddess” was actually the band’s first single, but wasn’t included on the first album. I’m not sure why, because the song’ s ethereal arrangement, thundering percussion, flowery lyrics and vocals, and dazzling instrumentation fit like a glove with that album. Perhaps with a stronger melody “Tiny Goddess” might have delivered the band’s first hit. There are a couple of other high points from All of Us included on Cult, including the up-tempo “Girl In the Park,” a spry pastiche of late 1960s pop/rock and sunshine pop that hides its symphonic foundation beneath lively vocals and a strong melodic hook. “The St. Johns Wood Affair” is a catchy little number that blends jazzy flourishes with an unusual arrangement, sparse instrumentation, and a few surprising musical twists and turns before it’s all over.

Of the B-sides, etc to be found on Cult, they don’t detour much from the material from the main albums, although both “Life Ain’t Easy” and “Darling Darlane” both stand out, the former a hauntingly beautiful ballad with a lush orchestral background and melancholy vocals, the latter a mid-tempo romantic pop song that melds scraps of 1950s-era rock (think Gene Pitney) with a 1960s psychedelic sensibility (more like the Bee Gees than the Beatles). As for the “bonus tracks” on Cult, “Requiem for John Coltrane” is an unexpected outlier, mixing lonesome jazzy hornplay with odd noises and overall sonic chaos unlike anything the band had previously recorded. “Our Love Is the Sea” presents the 2012 version of Nirvana; benefiting from modern production and improved studio tools, the song builds upon the band’s 1960s legacy to deliver a fantastic bit of musical whimsy.    

The British Nirvana never found the fame and fortune that their later stateside namesakes did, but they were nonetheless influential far beyond their meager commercial returns would suggest. The making of the band’s first two albums involved a number of talents that would benefit from the experience of working with Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos to go on to bigger and better things. This list includes producers Tony Visconti (David Bowie, Marc Bolan); Jimmy Miller (The Rolling Stones); and Guy Stevens (Mott the Hoople, The Clash) as well as studio engineer Brian Humphries (Traffic, Pink Floyd) and musicians like Billy Bremner (Rockpile).

All in all, if you’re a fan of 1960s-era psychedelic pop, you’re going to love Nirvana, and Cult is a fine introduction to, if not a substitute for, the band’s near-mythical original albums. (Global Recording Artists 2012)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine, 2012

Spotlight On Billy Bragg

Billy Bragg photo courtest of CD Presents

Billy Bragg Select Discography

• Life’s A Riot with Spy vs Spy (Go! Discs UK/Utility Records, 1983)
• Brewing Up with Billy Bragg (Go! Discs UK/CD Presents, 1984)
• Talking With the Taxman About Poetry (Go! Discs UK/Elektra Records, 1986)
• The Peel Sessions EP (Strange Fruit Records UK, 1987)
• Worker’s Playtime (Go! Discs UK/Elektra Records, 1988)
• The Internationale (Utility Records UK/Elektra Records, 1990)
• Don’t Try This At Home (Go! Discs UK/Elektra Records, 1991)
• The Peel Sessions Album (Strange Fruit Records UK, 1991)
• Live Bootleg [with the Red Stars] (self-released CD, 1995)
• William Bloke (Cooking Vinyl UK/Elektra Records, 1996)
• Bloke On Bloke (Cooking Vinyl UK, 1997)
• Mermaid Avenue [with Wilco] (Elektra Records, 1998)
• Mermaid Avenue Tour [with the Blokes] (self-released CD, 1999)
• Reaching To the Converted (Cooking Vinyl UK/Rhino Records, 1999)
• Mermaid Avenue, Volume II [with Wilco] (Nonesuch Records, 2000)
• England, Half-English [with the Blokes] (Cooking Vinyl UK/Elektra Records, 2002)
• Bill’s Bargains [live] (self-released CD, 2002)
• Riff Raff: The Singles 1977-1980 (self-released CD, 2002)
• Must I Paint You A Picture? The Essential Billy Bragg (Cooking Vinyl UK/Elektra Records, 2003)
• Live At the Barbican (self-released CD, 2002)
• Mr. Love & Justice (Cooking Vinyl UK/ANTI-, 2008)
• Fight Songs (self-released CD, 2011)
• Mermaid Avenue, Volume III [with Wilco] (Nonesuch Records, 2012)
• Tooth & Nail (Cooking Vinyl UK/Dine Alone, 2013)
• Shine A Light: Field Recordings From the Great American Railroad [with Joe Henry] (Cooking Vinyl UK, 2016)
• Bridges Not Walls (Cooking Vinyl UK, 2017)
• Best of Billy Bragg at the BBC 1983-2019 (Cooking Vinyl UK, 2019)

Photo by Philip Wigg, courtesy Yep Roc Records

Discography information courtesy of www.billybragg.co.uk

Find Billy Bragg albums on Amazon.com

Billy Bragg Mini-Bio

British singer/songwriter Billy Bragg is best for his folk-rock protest songs and social activism and although he’s been able to find more than a cult American audience, he’s enjoyed modest commercial success in the U.K. Too often dismissed by critics as an unrepentant lefty, Bragg’s songs display a much deeper intellect and humanity than mere shouted rhetoric, his material often infused with melody and lyrically traveling to the edge of art where romance and politics intersect.

Bragg developed an interest in poetry while in school and first picked up the guitar as a teen, often practicing with his neighbor and future bandmate Philip Wigg (“Wiggy”). Bragg’s initial musical influences were the Rolling Stones and the Faces, while Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel would influence his early songwriting efforts. At 20 years old, Bragg saw the Clash play in London on the band’s ‘White Riot Tour’ and again at a ‘Rock Against Racism’ concert a year later, events that would have a strong impact on his career and political philosophy.

Bragg formed the punk band Riff Raff with his friend Wiggy in 1977, recording a series of D.I.Y. singles and performing live for a couple of years until breaking up in 1980. Bragg wandered through a series of jobs, including working at a record shop, and even joined the British Army. After finishing up several months of basic training, however, he decided that the military wasn’t his sort of career and, for the sum of £175, he bought himself out of the service and returned home. Bleaching his hair, Bragg began performing his punk-inspired folk songs as a solo artist, opening shows for other artists and busking around London under the name ‘Spy vs Spy’, a choice inspired by the comic created Cuban expatriate Antonio Prohías for Mad Magazine.

Recording a demo tape, Bragg got no response from the labels he shopped it to. By pretending to be a TV repair man, he got into the office of Charisma Records’ A&R exec Peter Jenner, who liked what he heard. Although Charisma was unable to sign the artist at that time, Bragg got a music publishing deal with Chappell & Co and recorded a series of demos that would subsequently be released by Charisma subsidiary Utility Records in 1983 as Life’s A Riot with Spy vs Spy. The album included Bragg’s song “A New England,” which would become a Top 10 U.K. hit when recorded a year later by singer Kirsty MacColl. When Charisma was bought out by Virgin Records, Jenner was let go and became Bragg’s manager. Former Stiff Records’ press manager Andy McDonald, who had formed his own Go! Records label, bought Life’s A Riot with Spy vs Spy from Virgin and reissued it in late 1983.

Go! Records would be the home for Bragg’s sophomore effort, 1984’s Brewing Up with Billy Bragg, which peaked at #16 on the UK albums chart on the strength of songs like the satirical “It Says Here,” the romantic “Love Gets Dangerous,” and the anti-war screed “Island of No Return.” England’s New Music Express magazine ranked the album at #6 on its “Albums of the Year” list for 1984. During this time, Bragg became known as a left-wing activist, performing benefit shows and attending political rallies. He helped form “Red Wedge,” a socialist musician’s collective that included the Jam’s Paul Weller. Bragg’s Between the Wars, a four-song EP, was released in 1985 and peaked at #15 on the UK singles chart. Inspired by the UK miners’ strike, the EP was explicitly political, and proceeds from its sale were donated to the striking miners’ fund.

Bragg experienced his first North American tour in 1985, opening for Echo & the Bunnymen with his old friend Wiggy as his tour manager. He would release his breakthrough album, Talking With the Taxman About Poetry in 1986, which became his first Top 10 charting LP in the UK. While earlier recordings primarily featured just Bragg and his guitar, this third LP included studio contributions by singer Kirsty MacColl, guitarist Johnny Marr of the Smiths, and keyboardist Kenny Craddock of Lindisfarne, among other musicians. Bragg enjoyed his first Top 30 hit single with the album’s “Levi Stubbs’ Tears” while a second single release, “Greetings To the New Brunette,” would only rise to #58 on the charts.

Bragg’s fourth album, Worker’s Playtime, was released in 1988. Produced by the legendary Joe Boyd, who had previously worked with artists like Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, and R.E.M. the album also included backing musicians like Bragg’s friend Wiggy on guitar, guitarist Martin Belmont (Graham Parker & the Rumour), and journeyman drummer Micky Waller (Jeff Beck, John Mayall). The mini-LP The Internationale followed in 1990; released by his manager Jenner’s short-lived Utility Records label, it was recorded in protest to Go! Records’ signing of a distribution deal with multi-national giant PolyGram.

Released in 1991, Don’t Try This At Home, recorded in the shadow of the build-up to the Gulf War, offered a mix of more commercial pop songs (“Sexuality,” co-written with Johnny Marr) and political material (“North Sea Bubble,” “Rumours of War”). Produced by Grant Showbiz (The Smiths, The Fall), with whom Bragg would work on better than a dozen albums, Don’t Try This At Home included contributions by Michael Stipe and Peter Buck of R.E.M. and would subsequently peak at #8 on the UK albums chart. Bragg had re-signed with Go! Records for a million pound advance, so the album was afforded aggressive marketing, music videos, and a grueling 13-month tour after which Bragg paid back the remainder of his advance for his release and rights to his back catalog of music.

After taking a five-year hiatus to help his partner raise their son, Bragg signed with the artist-friendly UK indie Cooking Vinyl for the release of 1996’s William Bloke, which was the artist’s fifth Top 20 charting album. A year later he released Bloke On Bloke, a collection of outtakes and remixes from his previous album that only rose to #78 on the UK chart. Bragg was about to undertake a major career move, however…Nora Guthrie, the daughter of American folk legend Woody Guthrie, asked if Bragg would put some of her father’s unrecorded lyrics to music. The result led to Mermaid Avenue, a critically-acclaimed 1998 album recorded with Americana band Wilco and singer Natalie Merchant (of 10,000 Maniacs) that would earn a Grammy® nomination.

Mermaid Avenue, Volume II was released in 2000 and a third collection in 2012, along with Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, released to mark Guthrie’s centennial. An argument about the mixing of the first album created a rift between Bragg and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, which led to the singer putting together a new band, the Blokes (including legendary keyboardist Ian McLagan of the Faces), to tour in support of the albums. The rise in right-wing nationalism in Great Britain inspired Bragg’s England, Half-English album, which was named for a book by British writer Colin MacInnes. Recorded with the Blokes and released in 2002, England, Half-English tackled such sticky issues as racism and xenophobia in the UK. Bragg published his first book, The Progressive Patriot, in 2006, expressing his belief that British Democratic Socialists could reclaim patriotism from right-leaning nationalists.

In 2007, on the fifth anniversary of Joe Strummer’s death, Bragg founded the non-profit Jail Guitar Doors organization. Taking its name from a Clash song, the organization supplies musical instruments to prisons and encourages prisoners to face their problems in non-confrontational ways. An American chapter of Jail Guitar Doors was launched in 2009 by the MC5’s Wayne Kramer. Also named for a book by MacInnes, Mr. Love & Justice was recorded with the Blokes and released in 2008, peaking at #33 on the UK albums chart. Bragg began branching out beyond music, playing a small role in the 2008 film A13: Road Movie and later wrote new lyrics for “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony which was later performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Bragg was involved with the 2010 play Pressure Drop at the Wellcome Collection museum and library, providing new songs and performing with his band. That year he was also asked to curate the Leftfield state at the Glastonbury Festival, which he has continued in subsequent years.

Bragg returned to the studio in 2013, recording Tooth & Nail with musician and producer Joe Henry, the album exploring the Americana genre and becoming his most commercially-successful work since Don’t Try This At Home, peaking at #13 on the UK chart. The album led to Bragg being honored with the “Trailblazer Award” at the first Americana Music Association UK event in London in February 2016 and the “Spirit of Americana Free Speech Award” later that year at the Americana Music Association US event held in Nashville. In between these accolades, Bragg released a collaboration with Joe Henry titled Shine A Light: Field Recordings From the Great American Railroad, which was recorded during a trip by train between Chicago and Los Angeles. The record was modestly successful and would become Bragg’s ninth Top 30 charting album in the UK.

Bragg published his second book in 2016; a history of the British skiffle movement titled Roots, Radicals and Rockers, the book traces the genre from its beginnings in the 1950s back to American folk, blues, and jazz music. A year later, Bragg released the six-song EP Bridges Not Walls with the new political song “Full English Brexit.” Record Collector magazine described the EP as “a solid gold collection of an always inspiring singer-songwriter finding inspiration in the actions of others.” In 2019, Bragg released the two-disc, 19-song collection The Best of Billy Bragg at the BBC 1983-2019 which offers a career-spanning retrospective of the singer-songwriter’s on-air performances. Bragg also published his third book, The Three Dimensions of Freedom, in 2019, a political collection that posits that accountability is the antidote to authoritarianism.

Throughout his lengthy career, Billy Bragg has fought to bring humanism back to British society in the face of growing social injustice and right-wing nationalism. Both with his personal activism and through his art, Bragg has continued to shine a light on the plagues of fascism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia which has often brought him in conflict with far-right groups like the British National Party (DNP). Undaunted, Bragg continues to work towards “the great leap forwards.”

Archive Review: Billy Bragg’s Worker’s Playtime (2006 reissue)

“If you’ve got a blacklist, I want to be on it…”

By the time of the 1989 stateside release of Worker’s Playtime, punk-inspired folkie Billy Bragg had found an unlikely measure of commercial success in the UK and had developed a loyal cult audience in the United States. Whereas Bragg’s first two albums, Brewing Up With Billy Bragg (1984) and Talking With the Taxman About Poetry (1986), featured many politically-charged songs delivered from the singer’s left-leaning perspective, they also offered up intelligent romantic commentary such as “Levi Stubb’s Tears” and “Love Gets Dangerous.” It is the tension of this dichotomy – the soapbox rabble-rouser shouting political rhetoric and the hopeless Celtic romantic singing love songs – that drives Worker’s Playtime.

Billy Bragg’s Worker’s Playtime

Working for the first time with noted producer Joe Boyd (Nick Drake, Fairport Convention), Bragg pretties up many of the songs on Worker’s Playtime with finely tuned melodies and lush instrumentation, a stark contrast to his sparse previous work. The angry young man of Bragg’s early EPs and debut album has, a half-decade later, mellowed somewhat, allowing the romantic songwriter to come to the foreground. The result is a superb collection of material like “She’s Got A New Spell,” the melancholy “Valentine’s Day Is Over” (featuring just Bragg’s voice, guitar and a piano), and the rollicking, self-effacing “Life With The Lions.”

The most striking moment here, however, is “Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards,” the song building from Bragg’s lone piano-backed vocals to a swelling crescendo of choral voices and a grand finish. It’s the defining moment of Worker’s Playtime, an affirmation of the singer’s social consciousness. Even so, the song displays Bragg’s growing disenchantment with politics as well as his wry sense of humor. Although proclaiming that “revolution is just a T-shirt away,” Bragg asks, “will politics get me the sack?” In the end, Bragg’s surmises “start your own revolution and cut out the middle man,” evoking Dylan’s “don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters….”

She’s Got A New Spell

Worker’s Playtime proved to be commercially questionable, fans and critics alike seemingly confused by the album’s tentative nature and artistic contradictions between the “new” Billy Bragg (stronger production, more instrumentation) and the “old” (guitar and vocals). In reality, the album’s sublime strength lies entirely in its uneasy nature, Worker’s Playtime showcasing Bragg’s evolution from street busker to self-aware musician. Somewhere between album number one and number three, Bragg realized that there might actually be a future to this music thing.

The material on the bonus disc of this excellent Yep Roc reissue – studio demos and outtakes – supports this critical perspective, showing Bragg experimenting with different ways to express his music. The demo of “She’s Got A New Spell,” with the Attractions’ Bruce Thomas and the Jeff Beck Group’s Mickey Waller, evinces a rock aesthetic while “The Short Answer” sounds like low-key Graham Parker, complete with the Rumour’s Martin Belmont on guitar. Other material, such as a stark, powerful cover of the Jam’s “That’s Entertainment” and an uncharacteristically soulful live reading of Tim Hardin’s classic “Reason To Believe” display different facets of Bragg’s talents.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

In retrospect, Worker’s Playtime is a solid collection of songs that served as an invaluable stepping stone to Bragg’s work on albums like Don’t Try This At Home as well as his collaboration with the band Wilco on Mermaid Avenue. It is in these grooves that you can hear Bragg becoming comfortable in his role as artist and musician, the album an important part of the artist’s overall catalog and an influential release in its own right. (Yep Roc Records, 2006 reissue)

Review originally published by Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog

Buy the CD on Amazon.com: Billy Bragg’s Worker’s Playtime

Archive Review: Billy Bragg's Life’s A Riot With Spy vs Spy (2006)

When originally released in 1983, the seven-song EP Life’s A Riot With Spy vs Spy earned Billy Bragg a reputation as a historical curiosity. After all, punk rock was still hanging on while new wave and Goth had begun to excite U.K. audiences. Bragg, on the other hand, was a wandering English troubadour, singing of love and justice and freedom…definitely an anachronism in the modern, trend-driven, media-savvy world.

At that time (as now), if you weren’t a beautiful actor/model/coverboy-girl with a set of safe, bland, over-produced songs, you need not apply. Bragg didn’t fit into that mold, relying instead on talent, attitude and sheer guts in his attempt to make life-changing music.

Billy Bragg’s Life’s A Riot With Spy vs Spy

Somehow, Bragg succeeded. Never a commercial artist, but always an influential one, his creative emphasis was on the lyrics, especially with his earliest work, which eschewed niceties such as production values and lush instrumentation in favor of the word, the voice and a guitar. The result, on these seven songs, was simply devastating. A talented wordsmith with a taste for the bizarre turn of the phrase, Bragg had a sharp eye for the absurdities of modern life and relationships, and a satirical wit that sinks a razor-sharp rapier into the jugular of the subjects he aims at. Bragg’s political material voiced the most radical worldview since the early days of the Clash (Joe Strummer a major influence on Bragg’s songwriting), the songs made even more effective by the sparse musical accompaniment. Bragg’s love songs are both emotional and bittersweet, never maudlin, and infected with a contagious romanticism more common to the folk genre than to punk rock.

In the thirty-three years since its original release, Life’s A Riot With Spy vs Spy has aged well, songs like “A New England” and “The Busy Girl Buys Beauty” benefiting from the timeless style of Bragg’s writing and performances. The Yep Roc Records reissue of the EP features the original seven-song EP on one disc, and a second “bonus” disc of unreleased rarities, alternative versions and a great cover of John Cale’s “Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend.” Personally, I would have liked to have seen the label include the four songs from Bragg’s Between the Wars EP here, to flesh out the first disc somewhat. However, this is a minor cavil, and since Bragg personally oversaw the Yep Roc reissue series, it was his choice, not mine…

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

In 1985, when the vinyl version of Life’s A Riot With Spy vs Spy hit these shores, I wrote that Bragg had “a great artistic future,” and that although he would never become a “big star,” he would always be an “interesting and dedicated performer.” Through the years since, Bragg has never proved me wrong. (Yep Roc Records, 2006 reissue)

Review originally published by Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Billy Bragg’s Life’s A Riot With Spy Vs Spy

Archive Review: Billy Bragg's Talking With the Taxman About Poetry (2006)

“But if you think all I do is press words other people use into my service Comrades, come here, let me give you my pen and you can yourselves write your own verses!” – Victor Mayakovsky, 1926

By the time of the 1986 release of Talking With the Taxman About Poetry, Billy Bragg’s self-professed “difficult” third album, the artist had become the poet laureate of the musical left. A tireless troubadour of socialist leanings, Bragg placed more fervor, energy, passion and emotion in a single phrase or turn of a word than most artists are capable of mustering throughout an entire album.

After a couple of critically acclaimed British EPs and a full-length indie album, Talking With the Taxman About Poetry represented Bragg’s major label debut in the United States. Although Bragg had softened some of the rough edges that endeared audiences to his early work, the lyrical arguments presented on Bragg’s third album proved no less passionate, his penchant for radical polemics no less zealous.

Billy Bragg’s Talking With the Taxman About Poetry

Whereas Bragg’s early songs featured only his thickly-accented vocals and an accompanying guitar, Taxman was fleshed out with a few additional strings, a horn or two, and even an occasional background harmony. The music remained stark, simple and effective, Bragg’s folk-punk musical style serving to underline the importance of his lyrics. First and foremost, Bragg is a poet; a hopeless romantic with a revolutionary bent (not unlike Byron), whose lyrics deal almost exclusively with love and politics – not an entirely inappropriate combination, for one inevitably involves the other. Bragg aims his pen mercilessly at the governments, institutions and the societies that would oppress the seemingly unflagging human spirit.

Bragg champions the worker as a noble creature, envisions romantic love as the Holy Grail and, at times, jabs so deep in the heart with his lyrics and often times brutal lyrics that he is able to invoke the tears/passion he himself obviously feels. The recent Yep Roc Records two-disc reissue of Talking With the Taxman About Poetry includes the entire album, remastered and spiffed up for the digital age, along with a bonus disc of rarities and inspired covers. Songs like Gram Parson’s “Sin City,” Woody Guthrie’s “Deportees,” and Smokey Robinson’s “The Tracks of My Tears” reveal the depth and scope of Bragg’s musical influences and display the artist’s charm and joy in music-making.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Even after 20 years and better than half a dozen album releases, Billy Bragg remains an acquired taste. His music has never been a commercial commodity, although he has enjoyed a hit song or two along the way. As this critic wrote at the time of this album’s release, Bragg “is one of the most important artists to enter the rock arena in years – perhaps the most political folksinger since young Bobby Dylan strode into Greenwich Village with a guitar in hand.”

Bragg remains a man with a message, a poet of uncanny vision and a socially concerned artist whose work remains as fresh and relevant today, in the days of Bush and Blair, as it was during the Reagan/Thatcher era two decades ago. Much of today’s “folk revival,” the acid-folk music of artists like Devendra Banhart, owes a great debt to Bragg, an artist who, inspired by the music of Joe Strummer, would go on to create inspiring music of his own. (Yep Roc Records, 2006 reissue)

Review originally published by Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Billy Bragg’s Talking With the Taxman About Poetry

CD Review: Fairport Convention's Live In Finland 1971 (2016)

For those unfamiliar with this legendary band, Fairport Convention was one of the first wave of British folk-rock outfits that masterfully welded British folk tradition to an electric rock n’ roll framework. The early sound of the band, upon its formation in 1967, was built around the delightful guitars of Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol. Over the first four or five years of the band, and with classic albums like Unhalfbricking and Liege & Lief, Fairport Convention also featured talented vocalists like Sandy Denny and Iain Matthews.

That’s not the version of Fairport Convention that you’ll hear on Live In Finland 1971, but that’s not to say that’s necessarily a bad thing. Denny was long gone by the time of this August ’71 show, Thompson had just gone out the door, and Matthews had already launched his solo career (with help from his former bandmates) with 1969’s Matthews Southern Comfort album.

Touring in support of their overlooked and underappreciated Angel Delight album, this version of Fairport Convention – now comprised of bassist Dave Pegg, drummer Dave Mattacks, and fiery fiddle player Dave Swarbrick along with founding guitarist Nicol – raised a bit of a ruckus with a rowdy set that featured a couple of songs from Angel Delight (the traditional “Bridge Over the River Ash” and the original “The Journeyman’s Grace,” penned by Swarbrick and Thompson”) but otherwise relied heavily on traditional British folk tunes.

While the first couple of songs (the aforementioned Angel Delight tracks) are a wee bit wonky with the fiddleplay for my taste, there’s a fine instrumental balance on “Matty Grove” (from Liege & Leaf) and the lively “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament” is a spry, foot-shuffling medley and jig and reels guaranteed to get the blood flowing. The sound on Live In Finland 1971 is excellent, especially given the era in which it was recorded, and the performance showcases the solid talents of this latter-day Fairport Convention line-up. Grade: B (Real Gone Music, released June 3, 2016)

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Fairport Convention’s Live In Finland 1971