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Uh yeah… so sometimes I’m not exactly the calm, intelligent music reviewer Tart you all know and maybe (?) like. Sometimes I’m a ridiculously, hand-wringing, babbling, about-to-cry, crazed fan who’s stood in line for 20 minutes to meet her musical hero for the first time. And then it’s my turn and god knows what I said, something about “Milkman of Human Kindness” being a magical song, and introducing him to my gurl, and then some more babbling on about politics and some crazy sociological term thrown in for good measure, and I’m sure I was about to break down because he just grabbed me and said, “Can I just give you a great big bear hug?” and oh I dunno… every time I think about it now I get a little teary-eyed. And he didn’t let go for the longest time.
And so that’s the 20 year-old girl who’s met her hero. And here’s why it means what it does: I was sitting in my dorm room, on the floor next to my boom box, it was 1984. Some guy in one of my classes had made me a mix tape, the old fashioned kind, a real cassette tape. And on it was this song, from Life’s a Riot with Spy Vs Spy which he must have got as an import at a real record shop. There wasn’t an internet back then, kiddos.
I loved that song, still do. And from that point on I sought out everything Billy Bragg did. I followed his life, his politics, and his music. We grew up together, he being only 7 years older than me. Later when I met the guy of my dreams, I played his albums for him, we fell in love to his music and argued politics to it. I turned that guy into a quasi Socialist over those lyrics. And a few years later, I met my gurl and fell in love with her and argued politics over this same music and turned her into a real Socialist (see the theme here?) and I played her “The Milkman of Human Kindness,” running into the bedroom to pounce on her and say, “Can’t you just imagine him writing this song and saying to his girl – this is it, isn’t it?!” Because when you wake up with someone you love and put that music on, it IS it. It’s exactly how you feel. Well, it’s exactly how I feel, ok. Luckily she agreed.
There’s a lot more to his music than that. There’s other love songs, the sad ones. There’s “The Price I Pay,” which he sang last night. And “Tank Park Salute” which reminds me now of Tom who’s dad’s passing we talked about so much in reference to it . He sang those two last night too and yes, the tears streamed down my face. And there’s so many songs we used when we worked in labor union reform (didn’t know I used to wear that hat, did ya?!) Yeah, you can’t be a real-life Socialist and get away without a healthy dose of Mr. Bragg’s labor songs. But more recently there was his wonderful work with Wilco on Mermaid Ave., the resurrection of Woody Guthrie’s songs, songs that were only lyrics from his archives. And two years ago there was Mr. Love & Justice, which has a theme he’s continued to spread: faith in (the) people to keep on keeping on in fight against social injustices like racism, homophobia, economic inequality and xenophobia. It’s not up to some Messianic political leader to change society and make it as we want, it’s up to us, each of us in our own way, to contribute to that effort. It’s a fitting message on September 11th. And that’s always been the message of Socialism if you actually read Marx and stay away from the ways he’s been realized in history (mostly.) So, going to a Billy Bragg concert is always a bit like going to Socialist church, the closest thing we come to “religion” I guess. We walk away feeling like we’ve built each other up, we’ve reminded each other of how much each of us has to offer to this effort to make our piece of the world a place we want to continue living in. It’s only corny if you’ve never been there. xoxo
P.S. He sounded better than ever last night! Seriously, I’ve never heard him sing so well… as my gurl says, “you don’t go to a Billy Bragg concert for the singing, duh.” But I’d not say that about last night.
The Voice Project features my hero Billy Bragg this week. He’s doing a cover of Joanna Newsom’s “On A Good Day” and it’s, of course, just lovely. I can’t embed it for you here, so hop over there and watch it along with all the other cover songs by artists you know and love and follow like: Peter Gabriel doing Tom Waits’ “In The Neighborhood,” Kitten doing Cat Power’s “The Greatest,” Steel Train doing LaRoux’s “Bulletproof,” Andrew Bird doing Cass McCombs’ “Meet Me Here At Dawn” and so many more.
The Voice Project is an effort by Northern Ugandan women to bring a message of peace to Africa’s longest running conflict. Here’s how they say their project works:
a. Artists do the cover chain episodes to spread the word (one covers another and so on)
b. We put the videos up at our site and
c. We use money from donations, sponsors and advertisers made there to support programs on the ground which aid in the peace, reconciliation and rebuilding efforts.
So go visit their site. Do as you will. And find a way to let music find its way to the people there who need it.
This song is from a fellow who goes by the name antiqcool. He sends me stuff from time to time and I love each and every bit of it, even if I don’t often get around to posting it here. This song seemed very a propos to the project that crossed my path tonight.
I don’t understand what it is about staying up late at night that makes me melancholy, but sometime around 2:30 a.m. I’m just dying inside and suffering that sickness that can only be described as bittersweet. At dinner with a good friend on Friday night we talked about getting older… she said “I still feel 17 inside, how can I be almost 35?” And yes, my birthday is soon, and I’m musing over what it will feel like to be 45. I honestly do still feel 22 most days, it’s always odd when people call me m’am in the stores and I catch a glimpse of my graying hair in the mirror. This dissonance is especially resonant when it comes to music. You know what I mean! You hear a song that you heard when you were 22 and damnit, it’s difficult to make sense of the fact that you’ve been listening to The Saturday Boy for 23 years already now! (click on the image below to buy it) That just cannot be possible. No. I refuse to accept that I’ve held this song in my mind for more years than I was when it first hit me.
And no one does this to me like Billy Bragg. (no I’ll not argue that he’s the most brilliant of musicians, don’t fret) but his lyrics… comeon! If there is another soul out there in the world that is as melancholy as me, it must be Mr. Bragg. He’s taken us back in time with him, to his youth, to his life with his lyrics. I was 22 (or 21?) when I heard Brewing Up With Billy Bragg for the first time, on a crappy cassette player in the cramped quarters of a college dorm. My best friend of the time and I listened to it over and over again, we were enthralled. It was music for our folk, from our folk, and it hit us at the moment when the world lay before us with all it’s problems and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. And we were learning about the killing fields and AIDS and the Sandinistas and the craziness of the Falklands and the closing of Head Start programs and de-institutionalization of the mentally ill, and all the things that our beloved President had been ignoring for years. But along with it, we learned about people who fought to bring these issues to light, to mobilize people and powers to change the order of things. And in our youth we idolized these struggles and these activists. And Billy Bragg was there, always there.
So now, I can’t possibly have been hearing this for 23 years can I? These horrors still exist, the world lay before me with all it’s problems and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. And I still idolize the those struggles against Apartheid, and against war, and the Sanctuary Movement and the struggle for union labor even in this post-union world. And Billy Bragg is still here.
But it’s the love songs that I turn to now. They speak to me differently than they did all those years ago. In that way I am 23 years older, (thankfully!). And now I feel that aching melancholy for highschool days that I never even had, and girlfriends’ brothers that I’ve never known, and rides home from somewhere with no one who tempted me to detour. Somehow his life’s story has melded into mine and been translated and reiterated into the fabric of my own history. Well, ok… maybe there was that one ride home that tempted me to detour! But such is the fate of growing up with a musician who writes such lyrics …. it’s inevitable
White Light Parade promises us they are “a band on a mission for a call to action and to rebel against the establishment.” Perfect fodder for your May Day celebrating, eh? They certainly promote rebellion in quite an appealing way. Watch that video, I mean, that is some downright pretty rebellion right there, folks!!! Fascism might be imminent but go to your window and yell angrily, because waking up the population to the possibility of a classless and free society will cure youthful dystopia and boredom. Yes, I critique this (partly) in jest. But of all the tracks on this album, “Wake Up” is the most prettied up, the sugar coated rebellion for the middle class, with it’s melodic chorus and cute boy lead singer prominently featured. The only other song that approaches the marketability of “Wake Up” just happens to be “Wait For the Weekend,” the other track of this album that has been released early as it’s debut single. This band is being marketed very shrewdly. Yet, it is “Riot in the City,” one of the harshest tracks on the album, House of Commons that is making someone a load of money as it’s featured in the soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto IV. I wish I could give it to you to download, but no tracks have been released from the album yet. Wood For The Trees, from a previous recording, gives you an idea of their range of sound in comparison to what you see on the videos below. (above track given with permission by Cannonball PR)
This band suffers from an identity crisis. Or perhaps it is all young rockers who suffer from an identity crisis. Perhaps we will all suffer from an identity crisis until we’re forced to chose one. Can I say that I live out my political ideals in my daily life? Absolutely not, not by a mile do I make choices on the local level that reflect how I really feel about the power of the State and how it must be kept in check and by whom. But, that does not stop me from spouting off my opinions at various times and in various places, resulting in varying degrees of success. I reserve the right to both criticize and evangelize, regardless of my lack of 100% adherence to principles. I’m human, not a megalomanic bitch and I try to live in the real world. So I give White Light Parade a break for selling out to the MAN and providing Grand Theft Auto a soundtrack with which to desensitize our children towards violence and sexist behavior. The rest of House of Commons is really full of thought-provoking songs, only a few being more pop inspired than their politicized image can support. Enjoy this band’s success, we all need music for the revolution, and “Riot In The City” is indeed a great anthem for this generation of working class rock-n-rollers. Of course comparisons will be made to the Clash, for White Light Parade is a band from the UK, with that bang of the drums and clash of cymbals accompanied by sharp guitar solos and punctuated vocals that show their debt to that great band. I maintain that House of Commons remains an album with something to say, and it’s timing could not be better.
Tour Dates:
2 May 2009 Live At Leeds @ Cockpit Main Stage 3pm Leeds
9 May 2009 Wolves Little Civic Wolverhampton
14 May 2009 Water Rats London
20 May 2009 The Harley Sheffield
21 May 2009 Indie+ @ Warehouse 14+ Middlesbrough
24 May 2009 We Rock The Village Halifax
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Who else holds the torch for sticking it to the MAN in this time of economic collapse? I have to honestly say that I’m not sure, I’m not the perfect fan to ask. In all my dilettantism, I barely dabble in anarcho-punk music, in labor-folk and the music of the politically rebellious. I do know of a few sources: G7 Welcoming Committee remains a resource despite it’s best intentions You can order Propaghandi’s latest album, Supporting Caste, from them there. They’ll also tell you all about The Weakerthans too. Of course, Billy Bragg remains true to his calling and if you don’t know his political tunes you should. And of course, there is the World Inferno Friendship Society, who I’ve covered on these pages recently. I’ve not listened to much of The (International) Noise Conspiracy but they are legit anarcho-rock too.
Blogs you should know that I know: Cactus Mouth Informer which is a wonderful mix of social commentary, music, war poetry and some odd 80s stuff. Highlander has backed me up, taught me much, and made my day many times, xoxo Armagideon Time which is a crazy mixed up mess of cartoon snark/social commentary and music and good politics. And Andrew Weiss is probably the coolest person on the internet, I’m just sayin. Battle of Midwestern Housewives which feeds me all the pop/anarcho/melodic/punk I can eat and for whom I am forever grateful. Silverunity doesn’t wear his politics on his sleeve but I count him as a comrade in arms. He makes awesome mixes too.
If you want to read any books, go here to AK Press.
Many of my blogging friends are outraged and depressed over the passage of anti-gay marriage amendments in Arizona, California and Florida this past Tuesday. The simple fact is that in some of those states the very same people who voted in Obama voted out the rights of gays to marry and it’s making folks more than a little upset. Here at chez Tart, we remain unfazed. Why?
Marriage sucks. Marriage should be outlawed. Nobody should be married. Marriage is for neanderthals and pricks (no not the kind I like, ok?). The only reasons semi-right-minded people get married these days are:
for health insurance rights (an insult to our inherent rights as a human being to health and happiness)
to please our families (an insult to our independence and sense of self in the face of a worn out tradition that smacks of heterosexism and oppression)
to get a boatload of gifts that you could get anyway at a big ole party
in some states, (now Arkansas, as of Tuesday) to adopt children, yes for you straight people now too
to declare a legal relationship in order to inherit an estate at a reduced tax rate (that rate is currently zero)
Yeah, that’s my opinion. It’s insulting to some of you, I’m sure. And indeed MeatPocket M.Chutney, my lovely “wife” and I got “married” in that we stood up before a hundred or so of our friends and family and declared our unlawful love for one another 15 years ago. It wasn’t legal then, it isn’t legal now. It was SYMBOLIC folks, we had a blast doing it.
Marriage was created as a legal contract between two parties to establish lineage in order to retain property rights. Period. It is not a spiritual union, it never has been. All that churchy stuff was tacked on to make it seem like a nice community oriented matter in order to sell it to the public and mask its true commercial nature and to provide for yet another opportunity of collective effervescence (aka. a party with drunkenness and general good feeling to bond us together). As capitalism grew as a dominant force in world power, the marriage contract grew in importance — wealth accumulated and we needed to know who would inherit it! But with all the fun we were having at weddings and baby christenings and bachelor parties (not in that order, obviously1) we didn’t have our minds on the accumulation and protection of wealth, did we?
In the 20th century, with the advent of a multicultural and postmodern society, (which values tolerance and inclusiveness), stretching the definition of marriage and allowing other types of couples to enter into that contract should be seen as simply a business arrangement transacted for the benefit of the economic forces at hand. Logically, there is no reason to prohibit two men or two women from entering into this type of contract for their common welfare and the welfare of their children. Just as 40 years ago there was no logical reason for prohibiting two people of different races (at that time African-American and white) to be married. However, those old religious trappings have a lasting impact. People have become wed to the mask and have forgotten the original meaning of marriage. That is what capitalism seeks to do, and what it does so well. That is the essence of its success. It takes what is mechanical, inhuman, and purely market-oriented, and masks that with something that thinks, feels, and acts in a way to react to the lived experience of capitalism itself. In other words, it takes a market transaction and makes it feel like a human experience. When any disruption in forces is sought out or naturally comes about to change the workings of capital intentions (the smooth operations of mechanistic contracts) then conflict arises – emotional flareups occur. Read more after the tunes, it’s long, sorry.
Nina SimoneBe My Husband Let It Be Me (such a sad song, surely no recommendation for marriage!)
Nina SimoneMarriage is For Old Folks I Put A Spell On You (here, she really tells it like it is)
Billy BraggThe MarriageTalking With The Taxman About Poetry (well, he did it anyway, alas!)
The ReplacementsYou’re Getting MarriedStink (the song NOT to give someone about to get married)
Amy Ray and The VolunteersLet It RingLive From Knoxville (gotta have one protest song or I lose my membership in Dykes Anonymous!)
Jeane mp3The SmithsTroy Tate Sessions, 1983 – the original.
Jeane mp3The SmithsHand in Glove (Sandie Shaw version), 1984 – Sandie Shaw, a great pop singer of the 1960s whom Morrissey and Marr idolized, makes a guest apperance on this track. You can hear Morrissey doing awesome, howling, back up vocals.
Jeanne mp3Billy BraggThe Peel Sessions, 1991, or earlier as this is a collection of performances up to that date – fast paced, straining on the high notes, but for Bragg it’s surprisingly in tune. This is my favorite version, although I hated it at first listen.
Jeane mp3Billy BraggReaching To The Converted, 1999 – a slow, out-of-tune-starting version. Classic Bragg, he made this song his own, all full of angst, strongly accented with his Cockney inflection. Bragg says,
The Smiths cast a long shadow over this compilation, either in the person of Johnny Marr or in the influence on my songwriting. I felt they were my comrades in a struggle to bring the focus of songwriting away from production and videos and back to good tunes and great lyrics. They stopped playing this song so I picked it up and looked after it for a while.
Jeane mp3Billy Bragg – unknown source
As far as I can make out, this track came from the great blog, This Recording, but I can’t find any tag information for it. Do any of you know? It’s labeled as track 18 but that didn’t help me at all. Maybe it will you. Of course it doesn’t help that I’ve found the title spelled as both “Jeane” and “Jeanne.” It sounds like an older Billy rather than a younger one, so I’m guessing it’s a late 1990s or early 2000s recording. It’s in a lower key, with less angst, and more resignation to the delivery. Bragg’s songs become less regional sounding as he ages, and yet still he gives us a gorgeous tune.
Nope, no hidden meaning in the lyrics of this one for me. I just loved playing around with the different versions this evening and seeing how Bragg, a favorite artist of mine, took something and gradually molded it to his own style.
buy The Troy Tate Sessions… well, keep checking here, you might find one!
Well as my co-blogger Puppet Show last posted his confessions I guess with some behind the scenes arm twisting (oh kidding!) I’ll oblige and do the same. It’s true, when we were just becoming friends, I asked the Pup what his secret sins were in terms of music? What did he like to listen to that his friends would tease him for or that people generally wouldn’t expect a guy like him to be into? I love knowing other people’s secrets! It’s interesting to know what the secrets are and also to think about what they’re willing to really tell you. So here we go (and in the interest of keeping this “short”) MY Top 5 musical skeleton confessions and why.
5. Tell Me Something Good mp3, Rufus: Rufus, 1973. Now once you get to know me, and especially if you realize my weirdo intra generational existence you’ll understand this, but at first glance it seems odd. I’m 44, so technically I came of age in the late 70s, early 80s and was a bit young for the real age of funk music. But all my siblings were much older than me, and my brother was a huge influence on me, so Funk hit me hard. In my mind the best, most get-down-and-dance Funk is the early 70s, epitomized here by Rufus’ Tell Me Something Good, with the wonderful Chaka Kahn on vocals and written by Stevie Wonder.
4. Billy Bragg: The Peel Sessions, 1988(?). Ok, cultural whiplash, sorry! I’m obsessed with this man. It’s almost shameful but I take comfort in the fact that I agree with most of his politics and his roots are in some fine punk music. So while he may have mellowed in our collective middle age, Bragg is still a great musician and an amazing lyricist. And no, he’s never claimed to be a first rate vocalist so that just blows all my claims to what makes a great song, oh well! The Short Answer is so bittersweet, I love the story it tells and I love the way this version presents it so simply. Also kudos to the best opening line in any song ever! “Between Marx and Marzipan in the dictionary there was Mary…”
3.Light The Skies (Retrobyte’s Classic Electrobounce Mix) mp3, Armin Van Buuren, A State Of Trance 2007 [CD1]: I was totally shocked at myself when I discovered trance music! Being an old flapper who gave up the club scene ages ago, I somehow missed all this. A friend gave me a mp3 track last year and said, what do you think of this? It was love at first listen. After hearing a lot more trance music (about 5G more!) Light The Skies is still my favorite track. (yeah, the first 20 secs or so are silent/quiet, sorry for that!)
2. Green Grass and High Tides mp3, The Outlaws: The Outlaws, 1975. Biography might help here (oh god, I’m hoping!), I spent the second half of my youth in the South, the deep South of the U.S.A., and well, we were barely removed from being hillbillies before that. So, whatever you want to call this song, be it Southern Rock, Country-Rock, or just Rock (which if you live in the South is what we called it), this is the quintessential song. Dual lead guitars, one on each stereo channel, and beautiful vocal harmonies make this a classic track of Americana. I remember hearing it on the radio a few times a day for years, they probably still play it down there. I can’t help but hear this as “normal” music though I think it might sound weird to you indie fans out there.
1. The Sky is Crying mp3, Steveie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble: The Sky Is Crying, 1990. How can I live in Chicago and not be a blues fan? I actually came to this city long ago, from the South and the transition was made so much easier because of the Blues. There’s nothing like standing on the corner, waiting for a bus, in the cold and rainy early Sunday morning with Stevie Ray wailing out The Sky is Crying. Nothing like it.
It’s all good stuff that I listen to, it’s just not the kind of music that you might expect Although as this blog takes shape, I’m beginning to realize that even I don’t know what to expect on these pages!
Although as this blog takes shape, I’m beginning to realize that even I don’t know what to expect on these pages!
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