Billy Bragg

by Andrew Collins

  On his return, Billy did an English festival crawl: The Longest Day, Glastonbury and WOMAD. The Longest Day on 22 June took place at Milton Keynes Bowl and starred U2, R.E.M., The Ramones, Spear Of Destiny and The Faith Brothers (Billy came between SOD and The Ramones). Thanks to torrential rain, and the impatient, blinkered loyalty of U2 fans, it was a grim day, closer in ambience to the film The Longest Day about the 1944 D-Day landings.

  As it poured down, and the Bowl literally filled up with rain and mud, the U2 fans ensured that the impressive bill of support acts felt anything but welcome. ‘The logic behind the audience’s actions was, The sooner we get these bastards off, the sooner U2 will come on, and we can get home and get dry,’ says Billy, who, like the others, was pelted with plastic bottles, some filled with urine (what a delightful old English tradition that is, and how we miss it). One struck Billy right on the front of his guitar, prompting the riposte, ‘I’d like to thank the man who invented the plastic bottle because I think he just saved my life.’

  Later, a bottle knocked over a row of Ramones guitars like skittles. Even R.E.M. got it, at a reduced intensity. ‘It wasn’t nice,’ Billy remembers. ‘But I was getting paid a lot of money to do this gig, and I thought I should stand my ground for 25 minutes and play. So I did.’

  Bruce Springsteen was rumoured to be flying in for the final encore. Squeeze and The Alarm were apparently surprise guests. None of them turned up, and they were better off out of it.

  Glastonbury the next day was a mud-bath. The Style Council were on, and Paul Weller made the memorable error of wearing white jeans. No one threw anything at Billy (it was supposed to be a peace festival, after all), except right at the end of ‘A13’, his last number, when a soggy, mud-caked rag hit his guitar right where the neck joins the body. It killed the strings dead. Seizing the moment, Billy said, ‘Thank you very much!’ and walked off.

  The festival fest continued in Denmark at the end of June, namely at British band favourite Roskilde in Copenhagen. Billy took the weather with him: it lashed down there too. The Pogues were playing after him, so he loitered at the side of the stage and watched them do their pickled Irish folk-punk thing. Unfortunately, he was standing right next to the band’s rider, ‘so every time a Pogue came over and cracked a beer, they cracked one for me.’ The band encored with ‘Honky Tonk Women’, and invited Billy to join them. ‘It’s just G all the way through,’ he thought, and mucked in. ‘I was well out of it.’ At the end of the drunken thrash, Billy fell off the front of the drum riser, and was, to his enormous retrospective pride, carried off by The Pogues!

  ‘Suffice to say, that was one of the few times I’ve been out there drunk.’

  On 1 July, Billy showed his Labour Party solidarity by doing a short-notice gig for the Brecon by-election in Wales, among an all-star MP line-up of Clare Short, Michael Foot and Dennis Healey. Billy remembers Healey sitting at a piano in the dressing room, shouting to the former leader, ‘Come on, Michael, give us a tune on the spoons!’ These moments stick in the mind. ‘Heaven knows what kind of leader of the party Healey would’ve made, but he’s a very funny guy.’

  Back in Greater London, at Battersea Park, Billy played the GLC’s glorious Jobs For A Change Festival, and the sun shone for socialism. An estimated 100,000 punters enjoyed what was, says Billy, ‘the ultimate great free day out on the GLC. It was like a free Glastonbury. The vibe was great, there was a reggae band on before me, and everybody sang “Between The Wars”. I thought to myself, This must be what socialism is: free gig, everyone singing, sun shining, this is it.’

  The Daily Mirror called it ‘the first rock’n’roll party political broadcast’. It was shown on BBC1 at 8.50 p.m. and ITV at 10 p.m., 17 July, and the Labour Party’s message was delivered not by men in ties behind oak desks, but by musicians. Billy Bragg sang new tune ‘Days Like These’ and spoke about youth issues between performances by Aswad, Jimmy Somerville and Julie Roberts from jazz-soul outfit Working Week. It set the tone for what was about to happen.

  Before that, Billy played his first folk festival at Trowbridge. Any trepidation he might’ve had about being a square peg in a round hole was washed away when he walked into the tent and witnessed Blowzabella, trad hurdy-gurdy folksters, playing ‘Between The Wars’. Back in March, Billy had placed a toe in the waters of hard-core folk acceptance by being interviewed for the specialist Southern Rag magazine, and confessing to Colin Irwin his folk affinities, from The Watersons through June Tabor to The Men They Couldn’t Hang. Irwin wrote an impassioned sign-off to the mag’s readers: ‘Don’t fret yourself now about the man’s right to be in these pages (if you’re worried about that, then you’ve got big problems).’

  Next day, while the other Trowbridge performers reeled back to the folk circuit, Billy did a gig at Feltham Young Offenders, a borstal in Middlesex. It was a tough one: the body language of the inmates was exactly that of those who’d bullied Billy in school, which cut him to the quick. Through subsequent experience, Billy says he’s learnt how to ‘do the institution circuit. They are not there to see you, they are there to be with each other. Even if they talk among themselves, they may still be into it.’ He later did Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow, accompanied by the evidently unflappable keyboardist Cara Tivey, which he describes as ‘a bit heavy’, but not for them – Billy was embarrassed at the contemptuous way the screws talked to the inmates. He’s also played Broadmoor, where they have their own folk club. And to think, some bands won’t play a venue that hasn’t got a wind machine …

  On 23 July, just prior to Billy’s first Japanese tour, he found himself in a committee room at Labour Party HQ in Walworth Road with a motley collection of musicians, managers and media types. The job in hand was to formalise the creative community’s anti-government sympathies into some kind of organisation cum pressure group. It didn’t have a name.

  Among those present at this momentous first meeting were Paul Weller, Neil Spencer, Pete Jenner and Annajoy David from Youth CND. A general notion was agreed upon: this creative collective should actively encourage young people to vote by bombarding them with information about Labour’s policies and showing them a good time in the process. It was radical, in that no one had ever attempted it before in this country, but it was also disarmingly simple. The new group would not be a pop wing of the Labour Party, indeed it would lobby them on pertinent issues – but if Labour needed help to unseat the Tories, then they could act as a consultant body in matters of youth and the arts.

  Looking back, Paul Bower, the group’s first coordinator, summed up, ‘We were saying that the Labour Party was not talking to young people in their language and that it had to use the mass media effectively.’ Annajoy David banged the metaphorical table, ‘We need to inject people with a new enthusiasm for socialism.’

  Billy Bragg came up with the name Red Wedge (from a poster by Russian constructivist artist El Lissitzky, Beat The Whites With The Red Wedge) and debate raged – not just on into the next meeting in August, but throughout the Wedge’s life. The problem was the word ‘Red’, which, for some, was too tied in with communism and the Red Army and the Red Brigade and other such difficult associations. Already, the organisation seemed to have a hard left and a soft left (things were going well). PR Lynne Franks said ‘We don’t want anything with red in it.’ The Labour Party themselves were even dubious, worried that Fleet Street would turn it against them. Even Neil Spencer was doubtful: ‘I always thought it was the wrong name. I never liked the idea of Red or being Reds. It’s a bit fucking clichéd isn’t it?’

  Cliché or not, Red Wedge they became, leading to many a journalistic swipe about haircuts (thankfully, by then Weller had moved on from his wedge to a fetching feather-cut). Some of the alternatives were Red Steady Go, More To The Point and Moving Hearts And Minds. Quite.

  Nonetheless, some artists used their aversion to the R-word as an excuse not to join up, including Elvis Costello – a crushing disappointment to Billy. He remembers one Sunday afternoon, sitt
ing on the stairs of his flat on the phone to Costello trying to persuade him to relent. He failed. Even though Costello had played for the miners, he thought Red Wedge ‘a terrible name, particularly if you’re going around saying you’re just trying to make people politically aware.’ (Reassuring for Billy, Costello did turn out once for the Wedge, although indirectly: a Newcastle day event at the Riverside had been stymied by Militant, who’d falsely advertised Weller, and there was a ‘near-riot’, so Elvis, who was in town for The Tube, went over and played to calm the audience down. He may not have supported Red Wedge, but he was not above helping out in a crisis – Billy doffs his cap: ‘It was good going, he deserves a lot of respect for that.’)

  With the ball rolling and the flag flying, Billy sent apologies to the next Red Wedge meeting at Walworth Road on 7 August: he was somewhere between Nagasaki and Kyoto. In his absence, the well-attended meeting agreed upon Red Wedge as a name, set about drafting a credo ‘outlining the general beliefs and aims of this group’ (not a manifesto), and looked into a date and site for the launch: the Tory Party conference in Blackpool? The SDP conference? (The SDP were planning their own artist-led youth campaign, and they mustn’t steal Wedge thunder.) Or at the Billy Bragg gig on 1 October at the Labour conference in Bournemouth? A logo was also looked into. The minutes read: ‘Pete Jenner and Billy Bragg have a Russian illustration in mind and will bring it to the next meeting.’

  Japan is the country where Billy Bragg is famous for knowing Paul Weller. His first tour there – eight shows in August – was low key but no less enjoyable. Billy sums up: ‘No one came to the gigs but I loved it.’

  Pete Jenner’s wife Sumi, though born in Canada, came from a Japanese family and had never been to Japan. As she speaks some Japanese, it was logically agreed that Sumi should tour-manage. The promoter, Masahiro Hadaka (a ‘lovely fella’ according to Billy, who still works with him), really went beyond the call of duty: he tracked down Sumi’s relatives, organised a reunion and helped translate.

  Japan has a habit of blowing Westerners’ minds, with its bright lights, dried squid and frightening population density (imagine the population of the USA living in an area the size of Wyoming). In fact, the Japanese trip has become something of a cliché in the music press: any two-bit British band can tour there, and journalists are invariably invited along ‘for the story’. Billy was asked by Zig Zag magazine to write his own account which turned out to be erudite, informative and yet no less gobsmacked. Less an indulgent rock star tour diary, ‘Nagasaki Nightmare’ as they called it, was an intelligent look at the ‘small and fragmented’ Japanese peace protest movement (while he was there, he took part in an anti-nuclear demo in Tokyo attended by 200 people). In short, the old O Level was paying dividends.

  At Kyoto, which is near where Sumi’s people lived, Billy eschewed the Western-style hotels and opted to stay in a traditional Japanese inn, with straw mats, futons and paper walls. You had to inform reception when you wanted to have a bath, which Billy found odd, until he realised that baths were a communal affair. The form was shower down first and then go and sit in this huge bath where everyone perches round the edge with their underpants folded up on their head. It’s boiling hot and it opens up your pores. Billy remembers that there were three Japanese men already in there, ‘about as communicative as London tube travellers’. He shattered the contemplative calm somewhat as he noisily eased himself into the scalding tub, his pale skin getting redder and redder. There’s nothing like immersing yourself in someone else’s culture.

  Every morning without fail, Billy cracked his head on the low door frame of his room, and the paper walls would shake. He describes the whole experience as ‘incredible’, not least the day spent wandering round the Sho’gun palaces.

  Gigs took place at 6 p.m. sharp (that’s stopwatch-sharp) and were over by 8 p.m., which meant pleasant evenings spent in restaurants. In Nagoya, at a venue called The Faithful Yukka, Billy was impressed by a Japanese guy in a robe and turban who sounded exactly like Mississippi bluesman Howling Wolf. During the soundcheck, Billy asked him what tuning he was using on his guitar and discovered that he didn’t speak a word of English – he’d learnt these Western songs phonetically. During Billy’s set, a fan leapt up, snatched the mic off him and ran around the stage singing, ‘I don’t want to change the world, I just wanna go to England.’ Security slapped him across the chops and took him away. Afterwards, this fan came into the dressing room and prostrated himself before Billy to apologise – on the way to the gig he’d been involved in a train crash and was consequently a little emotional. He gave Billy his sunglasses (in Japan, exchanging gifts is like shaking hands). Billy gave him the sweaty white T-shirt off his back, at which the fan fell to the ground and started sobbing. It was all too much for him.

  In Fukuoka (cue: hilarity from Western visitors), Billy espied Steve White in the street, drummer from The Style Council, who were also on tour (another key apology at the 7 August Red Wedge meeting, then). Unlike Billy, the rest of The Style Council were holed up in their nice hotel demanding English beer and eggs and bacon (Weller had toured the country more than once with The Jam and The Council had hit big the last time they were here, so the novelty of the place, for him, had evaporated). There was a subsequent visit to a transvestite club wearing shorts, and the Englishmen abroad parted company (‘We left them complaining about the sushi,’ says Billy).

  Billy was nearly sucked into oblivion by the famous bullet train. While Sumi was off looking for the promoter, he sat at the far end of the elevated train platform with his gear. A terse announcement in Japanese followed, then a bell and flashing lights, to the significance of which he remained oblivious. Out of nowhere, the bullet train came round the bend and passed through the station at 180 mph. Billy describes his near-death experience: ‘First, the air pressure hits you, then, in the slipstream, the air is literally sucked out of your mouth. It was the fact that I was anchored there by sitting on the equipment that saved my life.’

  Having been wooed by the land of the rising sun, it was back to the land of rising unemployment.

  Red Wedge was launched on 21 November 1985. ‘Robin Cook MP requests the pleasure of your company,’ ran the plain invitation, ‘at the marquee on the terrace, House of Commons, London SW1, from 11.30 a.m. Sorry, no parking facilities.’

  By now, a simple, red-and-white logo had been designed by Neville Brody, groundbreaking designer at The Face magazine: a red cheese of socialism driven between two black blocks of capitalism. The marquee on the terrace was, disappointingly, blue and white, but it was soon packed with pop stars drinking hot punch: Billy Bragg, Weller, Jerry Dammers of The Specials, Tom Robinson, The Communards (Jimmy Somerville’s new group), Hank Wangford, Heaven 17, Roland Gift of Fine Young Cannibals, Rat Scabies of The Damned, Kirsty MacColl and actor Robbie Coltrane. Big-trousered Latin poseurs Blue Rondo A La Turk even turned up, perhaps the antithesis of Billy’s rock’n’roll ideal, but this was not to be an exclusive club. And when Gary Kemp later pledged his support, Billy was forced to soften his view on Spandau Ballet, the very band who’d inspired his crusade back in 1981.

  Kinnock made a speech, and a joke: ‘Can I first disabuse anyone of the idea that Red Wedge refers to my haircut.’

  This was the public’s first glimpse of style-conscious pop stars chumming it with self-conscious MPs. It was a slightly uneasy mix. Billy told the NME news desk, ‘At the moment we’re doing the party a mega fucking favour.’ Peter Jenner said, ‘We’re not saying “Vote Labour”, we’re saying you should become politically involved.’ And then vote Labour.

  Neil Spencer, looking back on Red Wedge, says, ‘It was a great idea, but a confused idea, that was the problem. No one could quite decide what it was about. I saw it in much clearer terms than most people because I was politically less naive.’ (His father was a Labour councillor in Northampton, and he’d grown up surrounded by Labour Party politics, which gave him ‘a perspective. My father was disillusioned, and seeing
his disillusionment made me realise you shouldn’t have any illusions. Lots of people involved in Red Wedge did become disillusioned, but I never had any illusions to lose. I know what politicians are like, and I knew how much we could and couldn’t do.’)

  Red Wedge campaigned on an assortment of issues – housing, education, employment, the environment – but homed in on the arts, calling for a government Ministry of Arts & Media (there was no Minister for Culture in those days), the reform of arts administration, zero VAT on live performance, opposition to museum charges, reform of the Press Council and so on. It produced attractive-looking literature full of information about the government’s poor record on training, allowances and gay rights.

  While Billy and Weller provided the public face of Red Wedge, countless others beavered away behind the scenes, from within and without the party. Neil Spencer reserves honourable mention for Geoff Mulgan (he drove the minibus on the subsequent Red Wedge tour, went on to found think-tank Demos, advise at 10 Downing Street, and now runs the Young Foundation. Ken Walpole (‘Mulgan’s sidekick – both very influential thinkers’); Pete Jenner (‘he brought to Red Wedge some very sussed politics that had been hammered out during the 60s’); Annajoy David (‘She brought a lot of energy to it’); Ken Livingstone (during the GLC’s arts boom, he’d recognised its great job-creation power, because people will work in the arts for less – a key point in the ongoing Labour carnival); and Peter Mandelson (then a director of communications whose office was next door to the first Wedge HQ in Room 104 at Walworth Road). ‘There was a lot of serious thinking going on,’ says Spencer. ‘We tried very hard to change the party’s agenda. Personally, I believed that there was a New Left already there, a rainbow coalition. I believed in the GLC, nuclear-free zones, cheap public transport, free gigs – that showed a bold way forward into the future.’