Steven Wells RIP
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 Posted in Articles | 10 Comments »I don’t even know where Swells came from. He just appeared, like a force of nature, sometime in early 1980s, ranting his splenetic poems on stage with the likes of the Mekons and the Fall. He was part of the ...
Protest and survive
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 Posted in Articles | 9 Comments »In March 1984, my debut EP had been knocked off the top of the indie charts by the Smiths' first album. For the previous 12 months, I'd been travelling Britain trying to reinvent the idea of the political singer-songwriter. Now ...
Fair play in the music industry
Friday, March 13th, 2009 Posted in Articles | 4 Comments »By Billy Bragg and Dave Rowntree Google's decision unilaterally to remove the music videos from their YouTube network in the UK as a fee-negotiating tactic in a dispute with the Performing Rights Society is a stark illustration of the power-shift that ...
How we all lost when Thatcher won
Thursday, March 12th, 2009 Posted in Articles | 5 Comments »There is a bitter irony in the fact that the Bank of England chose the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the miners' strike to fire off its weapon of last resort in an attempt to damp down the conflagration ...
Q Magazine - November 2008
Friday, March 6th, 2009 Posted in Articles | 3 Comments »There is something about standing around with an electric guitar hanging down by your groin that is attractive to boys in their mid-teens. The 14-year-old kid who lived in the terrace house next door taught me to play in the ...
Q Magazine - October 2008
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 Posted in Articles | 4 Comments »I’m having terrible trouble with my piles. It's all that sitting around in buses and airplanes on tour that causes it. Whenever you stop moving, there’s an overwhelming urge to get hold of something to help pass the time: a ...
Welcome back the taxman
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 Posted in Articles | 4 Comments »Watching the debate about the RBS bonuses over the past week, I've been waiting for someone to utter the T word. When the executives pleaded that any claw-back would penalise the vast majority of their high street staff who earned ...
Q Magazine articles
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 Posted in Articles | No Comments »Billy has recently joined Q Magazine, the British music publication, as a regular columnist. We will be publishing his articles here as an archive. Check out the Q Magazine website here
Blair describes Charter 88 as “wankers”. However, by the end of the week, we are downgraded to “tossers”
Monday, January 31st, 2000 Posted in Articles | No Comments »The week begins auspiciously when it is revealed that Charter 88 is one of only two groups that Tony Blair has ever been heard to call "wankers" - the other being Scottish journalists. I immediately call the Charter 88 director ...
