Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Bush War Blues
I got an e-mail yesterday from the Billy Bragg web site informing me that the Barking boy has posted a mp3 recorded on his sold out north American tour at Ann Arbor, Michigan. It is a topical adaptation of the often copied Leadbelly original 'bourgeois Blues' that Billy has rewritten as 'Bush War Blues' using it as tool to criticize GW and TB for Iraq situation. According to Billy it features his 'new croaky Johnny Cash persona', I don't quite see this myself, Still it's well worth the download and a listen.
Not much else to say today, so how about a little bonus mp3 the very first recorded effort by Bill Bragg when he was part of the punk combo Riff Raff, the A side of their one and only single 'Cosmonaut' which was released just before Billy signed up for the UK army. At under 90 seconds it is an average slice of left leaning punk pop from 1978, released on Ted Carrol's Chiswick Records. If you do feel like investigating Riff Raff any further there is a compilation for sale on Billy's site. The above photo is of a Riff Raff gig and the guitar hero behind Billy is indeed Wiggy, who I believe is still working with Billy to this day. As for the venue it is noneother than London's Red Cow pub, a fixture of the pub Rock circuit that could be found a short walk from the grander Hamersmith Odeon. You could probably squeeze in no more than 100 people, so you can imagine many a sweaty night was had there, still the beer was good, Fullers if my memory serves me well.
# posted by abramson @ 5:02 PM 
