Don't Try This At Home

I don’t dislike Billy Bragg, I really enjoy his music, its more of a guilt thing and having to subject you the reader to BB overdose, I mean how many albums do I need, and this morning was indeed another, the M6 between junctions 14 and 27 were soundtracked by Billy Bragg and the album, Don’t Try This At Home.
My wife pretty much banned me from listening to Billy Bragg in around 2002, which was OK as it kind of coincided with the when I was going off him, I like to let her believe that she has had a small victory, I also put the toilet seat down when the mood takes me. The thing is though I listen to albums like this and on the whole I realise why I used to like him so much, yeah he is a leftie and lefties tend not to have a sense of humour, oh they believe they have, but they don’t, and I should know, rewind back to 2001 and you will have seen me outside Telford Town Centre trying to get you to buy Socialist Worker, you didn’t buy it by the way, you looked at your feet and hastily made off, I don’t blame you for this, I do it myself now.
None of this of course tells you about this Bragg album or my thoughts regarding it. Well for the uninitiated this album is the home of the singles, Sexuality, Accident Waiting To Happen and You Woke Up My Neighbourhood, the latter featuring Michael Stipe and Peter Buck, who Bragg appeared with earlier in the year under the guise of Bingo Hand Job, a recording of their version of Tom’s Diner appears somewhere else in my record collection, on an REM bootleg and it is without question up there amongst the worst cover versions ever, think Annie Lennox doing Train In Vain or James Blunt doing Where Is My Mind.
I digresse, this album also feature the contribution of Johnny Marr, and if you have read my views on him contributing to other tracks you might know that I do not rate Johnny Marrs production highly at all, him and the ginger one from Queens of the Stone Age are so caught up in their own egos they have to have their stamp any artist they work with, and it is Marrs contribution to this album that taints it.
It is not a bad album however, in the scheme of things Braggs take on Fred Neils’ The Dolphins is as good as any and much better than the version Beth Orton recorded with Terry Callier.
Also on this album we have Braggs ode to his father in Tank Park Salute, a really touching song and amongst the best of his career. We also have Bragg eulogising former Wolves player, Peter Knowles in Gods Footballer, Knowles was a Wolves player that gave it all up for religion.
Outside of these tracks we also have Cindy of a Thousand Eyes and Everywhere, but also Braggs worst, lyrically, song ever in Body Of Water, Christ it stinks.
As a whole though at 15 tracks long its easy to forget the bad, so 7 out of 10.



Tank Park Salute by Billy Bragg

Things I Can No Longer Listen to As I Am Too Old

I had a friend who went to university somewhere in south London, in about 1988 I guess. Quite often I used to finish work on a Friday night in Wellington, Shropshire, and get straight on the train to London. Ah yes, Hither Green, it's all coming back to me now. His digs were in a nursing home, and I knew the numbers to put into the keypad on the outside door lock, so could just let myself in whether he was there or not. Across the hall from him lived a rockabilly scouser called Elvis who was an Eddie Cochran fan (and postman), and owned a guitar pick thrown into the crowd by Brian Setzer at a Stray Cats gig. Anyway, the Albini project Rapeman album seemed to be on almost all the time, and is the first of my Things I Can No Longer Listen to As I Am Too Old.

I guess the majority of Things I Can No Longer Listen to As I Am Too Old should really be children's music, but actually I can listen to children's music. One of the albums that got a lot of stick from me and my brother was the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, live at Carnegie Hall. The ripped album cover showed them all stood in a line on stage, all with potato faces, in big thick woolly jumpers. As it was recorded in 1963 I don't think the jumpers were any kind of anti fashion post modernist statement, it was probably just a bit nippy. As an adult listening again the standout tracks are The Parting Glass and Patriot Game, but it's the 13 minute Children's Medley that stuck in my head. I hadn't heard it in 25 years until recently, and still knew every word. I guess this should really be in a post called Things I Can Still Listen to Even Though I Am Old.

I guess R.E.M. could feasibly be listed here, as they seem to have got progressively more crap over the years. They are the musical equivalent of George Best or Gazza. Here they are making their national TV debut on Letterman. Peter Buck's 'need the bathroom dance' is engaging, as is their determined earnestness. It's light years away from stadium gigs and doing strange things with cutlery on a British Airways flight.