Levi Stubbs' Tears Again

Spent the day in Detroit on Friday.

Great Leap Forward

To Have and Have Not

When the world falls apart some things stay in place

Bragging right

Billy Bragg fans have a new way to connect with the spokesman for one generation or another.

Bragg is now a disc jockey on Q radio, and you can sample his shows live, or after the fact at the magazine's website.

On his first show he plays everything from Big Joe Turner to Fleet Foxes, with a Stevie Wonder feature.

He even plays, "My Friend the Sun" by Family. One of my faves.

Billy Bragg, Barack Obama, Laura Nyro and a "world of possibilities"

On his pre-election tour of the East Coast, Britain's Billy Bragg speaks movingly and convincingly of the possibilities of an Obama victory. He covers the beautiful and timeless Laura Nyro song "Change the Country." More in his blog of the tour.

A boy cries out for his mama, before he dies for his home

Red and black balloons blow across the wide lawns where collapsed folding chairs are piled ready for transport beneath the sweep of the enormous tents that had been set up for Wesleyan's graduation, and of course, for Barack Obama's visit (lots of good stuff on Wesleying this morning regarding the event).

This is the day when my neighborhoods shifts rhythms to the summer mode. With five houses on my block completely empty for the summer, the neighborhood would be something of a quiet ghost town if it weren't for the hoodlums who traverse the street at all hours shouting into cell phones as if the cells were tin cans attached with a taut string.

This morning we'll head down to the Memorial Day Parade where I, for one, will consider how readily our leaders dispose of the plentiful bodies of our patriotic young men and women. The dead are our country's heroes. The families pay the most horrible price. Our leaders are culpable. As Phil Och's sang, "It's always the old who lead us to the war. It's always the young who fall."

Michael Roth's words from yesterday's commencement echo large:

"You will hear people tell you that the greatest protection against violence is surveillance, that greater security is developed with higher fences to keep out the foreigners, or that we must project violence on distant shores to keep our homes safe. DO NOT BELIEVE THESE MESSAGES. Please remember that your education stands in opposition to non-sense and cruelty; please recall your capacity to create when others around you call for destruction."

For my part, the thought of God Bless America, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, or the National Anthem, while the easy choices for the day, are the least appropriate.

Here's what I'll listen to, and I invite you to join me:

Phil Ochs, I Ain't A' Marchin' Anymore

Billy Bragg, Everywhere (written by Greg Trooper and Syd Griffith)



Eric Bogle, The Green Field's of France (No Man's Land)



The Pogues, The Band Played Waltzin' Matilda (written by Eric Bogle, but turned into a classic by the Pogues)



Dan Bern, After the Parade

Mark Erelli, Volunteers

The bard of Barking's playlist

On vacation, one gets to the Sunday Times on Thursday afternoon.

And finds Billy Bragg's playlist in Arts and Leisure.

Bragg on internet royalties

I missed this Billy Bragg op-ed in the New York Times last week. He's been a proponent for a new model of support for musicians, and obviously feels betrayed by Bebo founder Michael Birch.

Come you masters of war

An interesting blog over at Politico gives several good reasons why protest songs have not resonated widely in our culture during this long war in Iraq - fragmentation of our listening experience, a volunteer army, a culture obsessed with a "reality" that is not a reality.

Reading the comments attached to the blog, and it's something you must do, it's clear that there are still as many brain-dead Americans as there ever have been who are willing to say, "it's because the songs suck and the singers are traitors"

Well, that's just not true. There were songs which resonated through our culture at the height of the civil rights and anti-war movement of the sixties and seventies: Blowin' In the Wind, Who Will Stop the Rain, Eve of Destruction, Where Have All The Flowers Gone, What's Going On, For What It's Worth, Fortunate Son, Ohio, Abraham, Martin and John, Woodstock. That was at a time when radio playlists where not enforced by corporate owners, and every boy in America was worried about being conscripted into an immoral war. But there were many songs written and played that did not hit the top of the charts, did not become "anthems for a generation" but have become standards in some circles. After all, it wasn't really hip to be singing along with Barry McGuire.

So there was Masters of War by Bob Dylan, I Ain't A Marchin Anymore by Phil Ochs, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy by Pete Seeger, Universal Soldier by Buffy Ste. Marie, Sam Stone by John Prine and many more.

This president and this war has inspired thousands of songwriters, some of whom I've written about here before, some who have written great songs. I don't know about the Tori Amos, anti-Bush song, but here are a few I'd check out:

Man of God and Highway 9 - Eliza Gilkyson



Dear Mr. President - Pink



Rich Man's War - Steve Earle
Volunteer and Seeds of Peace - Mark Erelli
Commander - Girlyman

Chickenhawk and Thanks for the Support - Roy Zimmerman




Dad's Gonna Kill Me - Richard Thompson



After the Parade - Dan Bern
Dangerous Times and Liar, Liar - Chuck Brodsky



Some Humans Ain't Human - John Prine


Dress Blues - Jason Isbell



Lives in the Balance (acooustic) - Jackson Browne



The Price of Oil - Billy Bragg



Guantanamo - State Radio



Mr. President - Spicewood Seven



Devils and Dust - Bruce Springsteen



This is by no means an exhaustive list, but an illustration. And another good reason to listen to independent radio stations like WWUH.

I keep faith today

Billy Bragg's first US single from Mr. Love and Justice just went on sale in digital format on iTunes today, along with two non-album cuts, Ash Wednesday and Goodbye.

So that's who Kate Nash is

Kate Nash sang A New England with Billy Bragg the other night at Roseland, and apparently it wasn't the first outing.



Since I don't still follow every heartbeat of the pop music world, I wasn't sure who she was, but she has had a big hit album in Britain. Listening to her songs on Myspace, I can see an affinity with Bragg.

BTW, Bragg's new album. Mr. Love and Justice, is wonderful. More thoughts on it in a few days after I've listened a coouple more times. It'll be out in the states on ANTI at the beginning of April.

Bragg in good humor and cowboy shirt

Declaring that he had just returned from South by Southwest in Austin where he had purchased several "cowboy" shirts because "everything in this country is a half-price sale" because of the wobbly dollar, Billy Bragg peformed a short, punchy, sharp-edged, funny set before the Pogues hit the stage at Roseland last night. He played a few from the new album (Farmboy, I Keep Faith), several old favorites (The World Turned Upside Down, Waiting for the Great Leap Forward), and a duet with Kate Nash on an old Shirelles hit, and on New England (which Kate introduced with a surprising good pennywhistle vamp).

A clip of Levi Stubbs Tears below with video that is seriously out-of-focus.

A thought about Irish cliches on St. Paddy's day

The good news is that Shane MacGowan showed up this year when I went to see the show last night at Roseland in NYC. (In other good news, Billy Bragg's opening set was tight, sparkling and enjoyable - particularly his duet with Kate Nash). Though he was intoxicated, and fell heavily to the stage after spinning between Philip Chevron and Jem Finer, Shane MacGowan seemed healthier than on many occasions in the past, and he still is able to find the lyrics to every song he sings somewhere in that pickled brain.

Which leads me to thoughts on the Irish cliche. For years, the Irish have had to overcome the "stage Irish" image that has been prevalent since the 17th century - poor, drunken, happy, poetic, drunken, funny, musical, maudlin, drunken, lovable, gullible, unreliable, drunken... In this century, the roles of Barry Fitzgerald in a plenitude of films was that of the irascible tipsy Irishmen.

In fact, in their prime, the Pogues were often accused of reviving the stereotype of the drunken Irishman as Shane MacGowan lurched about the stage, and vomited during interviews. They dismissed the idea readily, and with good cause. They were reviving Irish traditionalism, combined with a sharp-edged punkiness, but MacGowan's grasp of literature (Irish and otherwise), Celtic myth, and modern politics, made his songs amazingly dangerous tinctures of poetry and populism.

That's changed.

Last night may well have been my last Pogues show. The band themselves, and their volatile leader is not the reason, though I must say that last night was the first time I felt that they were all going through the motions, and not happily so. Who could deny them the ability to make a little cash late in their careers.

But with MacGowan incapable of creating anything new, the band hashes through the same twenty-five songs like a sorry rock and roll revival band.

Then there's the crowd. I wasn't the only member of the audience in my sixth decade, but I can assure you we were not in legion. Most of the fans were thirty and forty somethings who grew acquainted with the Pogues through the recordings long after the band had broken up in their first incarnation.

And a majority of the fans seemed to be less interested in the music (though most know the lyrics well enough to belt out a chorus at the top of their lungs), and more interested in deifying MacGowan and emulating his disease, alcoholism. In fact, there seems to be a game played at these concerts - who can get drunker than Shane.

As fans carried unstable fistfuls of plastic cups filled with beer between bar and buddies, they plowed through onlookers, glassy-eyed, stumbling and the picture of an Irish cliche. I witnessed two fights, gallons of spilt brew, and one beautiful young woman who ambled toward the bar, incoherent, with one of her lovely breasts inadvertently dangling from her spaghetti-strapped dress.

During the Bragg set, the crowd was polite, though there were pockets of Pogues fan consuming fuel for the main event. Up front, near where I was standing, as soon as the much began, the first eight rows turned into the expected scrum. What none of us expected was the rush toward the stage by drunken louts from the rear of the house, toward the stage, knocking aside any who might keep them from jigging in front of their beloved, toothless, poet-king of intoxication, Shane MacGowan.

The abuse of alcohol at the show was really frightening (considering many of these idiots were going to climb behind the wheel for drives back to Jersey, Connecticut and beyond). The goal of drinking to oblivion by a good portion of the audience made it, at minimal, uncomfortable for the rest of us, who would have been happy with a Guinness or two, a chorus of "And a rovin' a rovin' a rovin' I'll go," and a glimpse of a legendary band in their decline. Instead, we spent the evening sidestepping lurching beer zombies intent on perpetuating an Irish cliche.

If it sounds like fun to you, there's always St. Paddy's day today - the annual vestige of Celtic shame.

Billy Bragg, Shane MacGowan and me

It's a story I've told often, but never here, but today there's reason to.

This weekend, the Pogues, the famed Irish/punk/rock band returns again to New York City and on Sunday, the midpoint of a three-night stand at the Roseland, Billy Bragg opens the show.

For me, the connection between Billy Bragg and the Pogues in inextricable. In a way, if it weren't for the Pogues and Billy Bragg, I might not have been doing my radio show for the past 23 years.

In 1984, I was invited by my friend John O'Neill to accompany him to a mutual friend's wedding in Bacup, England. We landed in London on September 3o, and scanning the local papers, I found that Elvis Costello was playing at the Hammersmith Palais on the next day, October 1. We got tickets, and the next night, after a fish and chips dinner, went to the show. The Men They Couldn't Hang, opened with a combination of country and western/folk and punk mixed roughly together. Then a group of young men, and one young women, all dressed in cheap suits and fedoras, ambled onto the stage and began to play the most enchanting mix of traditional Irish and ragged punk on acoustic instruments. The drummer stood with a snare and a kick drum, and the crowd sang along and pogoed. I asked the kid next to me who the band was. He said, "The Pogues. They used to be called Pogue Mahone until the BBC nicked the name because they found out it meant 'kiss my arse' in Irish." I was entranced, and while Elvis was great that night, I went away wanting more of the Pogues. I picked up their debut LP, "Red Roses For Me," which had just been released, and guess that I was one of the first people in America with the record.

A few days later, we made a long, late-night drive from London to Bacup, in the North of England. On the way, we listened to John Peel on the radio. Peel played a lot of new, and unrecognized music, and then introduced a new song from someone named Billy Bragg. He played "This Guitar Says Sorry," and from the moment the Bo Diddley rhythm played on a single reverby electric guitar leading to a ragged voice with a thick urban London accent, I was completely intrigued. I found Bragg's debut LP in a small record shop, and after reading a story about Bragg in one of the music inkies, I left England a confirmed fan.

Back in the US I searched for new Bragg and Pogues music as it was being released, and found most of my needs made at the late, great Hartford record store, Capitol Records. But in visiting the small folk record shop at the Speediest Printer in Town I found that proprietor Bill Domler had never heard of the Pogues or Bragg. He invited me onto his Monday morning folk radio show at WWUH to play some of the music, and then invited me to a training session to be a show host myself.

I missed Bragg's debut in the US when he opened for Echo and the Bunnymen (with a stop in Hartford at the Agora), but I did catch him on his first solo tour at an Iron Horse sponsored show, (which I think was in Sunderland, Mass). At that show, I did my first radio interview for WWUH with Billy Bragg.

In 1985, I attempted to promote a show with Billy Bragg at Hartford's Mad Murphy's with Paul LeMay. When Bragg had the opportunity to tour the US with The Smiths, his manager Peter Jenner called to ask if he could beg out of the date. We let him go with the promise that he would return one day (he's not played Hartford since). And I got to see the Smiths/Bragg show at the Orpheum in Boston.

Since then, I've been to many Bragg and Pogues shows, and if you're a listener, you know that I still play their music frequently on the air. As I've said, I've met Bragg several times, and joined the Pogues backstage at Toad's in New Haven after interviewing Jem Finer, and spending the evening drinking beer with Terry Woods.

But Sunday will be the first time that the show pairing will actually rekindle my discovery of this music so many years ago.

Bragg has a new album out, Mr. Love and Justice (my copy just arrived in the mail yesterday), and the Pogues are coasting on reputation, but I'm looking forward to a night of lusty reverie.

Farm boy

A new mini-site has been launched for the new Billy Bragg album, Mr. Love and Justice. It's out in Europe in a week, and in the US, it'll be out in April on Anti. The site has four new studio videos with a total of 14 promised.

I keep faith

On his last, and abbreviated, tour of the US, Billy Bragg introduced a new song as one he had written for all his fans. As Dick Gaughan might say, I Keep Faith is a love song of a different kind. Bragg sings encouragement to all those who have been involved in trying to change the world in one way or another. You can hear the song as a preview to his new album, Mr. Love and Justice, on his myspace site.

You can also pre-order the new album at his website, and as a bonus, get a download of a song that won't be on the album.

And don't forget, there are still some tickets left for the March 16 NYC Roseland show with Bragg and the Pogues.

Pogues payback

Many of you know this story. On last year's US tour, the Pogues cancelled one show, at the last minute, due to an injury to lead singer Shane MacGowan. I didn't find out until I had traveled all the way to NYC, and was standing in front of Roseland, where notices of the cancellation was posted. I cursed all the way back to Grand Central, and vowed never to buy tickets to a Pogues show again.









Then they went on sale this year.

I bought a pair of tickets to the Roseland show on the day before St. Patty's (I'm too old, cynical and delicate to brave the streets and the club on that holiday). Yesterday, I found out that Billy Bragg will be a special guest on the one and only night for which I purchased tickets. I feel as if a little bit of the luck of the Irish has been spread before me. But I won't count my chickens until the night of the show.

BTW, Bragg's new album will be out just before his US appearance.


The ultimate coincidence is that I was introduced to both of these artists in a trip to Britain in 1984 where I saw the Pogues open for Elvis Costello at the Hammersmith Odeon, and I heard Billy Bragg for the first time when John Peel played a new cut over the radio as I was heading to Bacup for the wedding of a friend.

Two new Billy Bragg songs and videos

To be featured in the new film Mama's Boy, the songs Bed, Bath and Bullshit and Old-Fashioned Girl.

Billy Bragg - "Bed, Bath and Bullshit" from Mama's Boy


Billy Bragg - "Old-Fashioned Girl" from Mama's Boy

A reflection on a great night out

There are nights out, and there are nights out.

Last night was memorable. My sister Patty took the kids to Illiano's for pasta, and knowing they were in safe hands, Lucy and I fled to Northampton.

It was warm, and muggy. It seemed like the trees had turned overnight, and the streets were filled with punks and students and life.

At the Iron Horse, Mike Doucet greeted us warmly, and we chatted for twenty minutes about things two old dudes in their fifties do - kids, physical ailments, friends.

And then we danced. I've forgotten how much fun it is to dance to Beausoleil. They are skilled hands at finding the rhythm and soul in an ancient music. I've been knowing Doucet for a long time, and his playing and singing just get better and better. Coincidentally when I got to work this morning I looked at a picture of my sons Brendan and Colin together, taken 20 years ago at a Beausoleil concert on Foss Hill at Wesleyan. It made me think of the connectedness of life (Beausoleil, Louisiana, Middletown, family). And it made me miss talking to Brendan.

Billy Bragg was as good as the first time I saw him in an Iron Horse production at some saloon I think in Sunderland in 1985. That night, I had just gotten my membership at WWUH, and I interviewed Billy backstage. He is as funny, smart and talented then, as he is now. While he never had a lack of confidence, or any hint of stage fright, he has warmed with age, readily poking fun at his years (singing, "all my friends got fat" in Waiting for the Great Leap Forward) and his own weight ("These heavy matters don't worry me, because I'm a heavier dude than I used to be" from the new and great Johnny Clash - An Old Clash Fan Fight Song). Of course there were the few lengthy philosophical excursions, but his bit on whether music can change the world, I still disagree. Billy contends that it wasn't the Clash who politicized him, but being with the audience at an anti-racism Clash show. I'd argue that without the music, that audience would never have been there. And as ridiculous as it may seem, I would say that my thoughts have been shaped by musicians as diverse as Barry McGuire, Bob Dylan, Ian Anderson, Randy Newman, Elvis Costello, the Clash, and yes, Billy, you. In the old days, I often came away from a Bragg show thinking, "Damn, this guy knows more about my country's history and politics than I do." I'd like to think that I don't have that regret today.

I also met several WWUH listeners at the show, and each one thanked me for introducing them to Billy Bragg, and for speaking out and playing the music I do each Wednesday morning. It's nice to know someone is listening.

A final thought. Last night reminded me of what musical performance ought to be. Yeah, I had fun at the Bruce Springsteen show, but dancing three feet from the band, or hearing a concert in a beautiful old theater, are everything a concrete and steel coliseum or sports stadium are not. And all without the hassle of scalpers! Listen you Hannah Montana fans, forget about the ticket brokers, giant venues, Disney-packaged music and you're dorky friends and find a punk club where you can really discover who you are.

So, there are night out, and there are nights, out. And last night was one to remember.