On Bragg, and other matters.

Monday night, of course, was Billy Bragg night. I toddled into town in time to catch the end of the support band - the Waifs, apparently, being a pretty damn countryish combo fronted by two young women of a decidely lean persuasion. Presumably these are the waifs in question. I'm sure you know the kind of thing. Harmony vocals, plaintive melodies, wistfullness, acoustic guitars . . . if you like that sort of thing then you'd have been very happy, and as it happens I was in about the right mood for it, so it all went down very well.

Some time later, after paying a quid and a half for a coke (largely to get something wet without enduring the bar queue) it was time for Bragg. He's got a five-piece band these days, which if you ask me clutters stuff up a bit, although they're all very good and make a nice racket at times. All a bit civilised, though, if you ask me (oh, you didn't . . . I'll shut up, then). The new stuff's a bit calm, but does still have a bit of poke at times, and the patter's still as sharp as ever. There was a wonderful rant about eighties discos which moved seamlessly into an almost certainly untrue story about Neubauten supporting the Redskins, and repeated jabs at David "Wobblyhead" Gray, and they finished with Sexuality (which of course made me think of ciphergoth, because I know he hates it). To be fair, a lot of the humour depends on you sharing a background with Billy - there's only so many jokes about Trotskyists selling newspapers that you're going to laugh at otherwise - but he's still a wonderful storyteller and performer. There wasn't much early stuff in the set, which was a shame from my point of view. A lot of it was from the new album (which is fair enough), a couple were his resurrected Woody Guthrie songs, and most of the rest was from about 1990 onwards. Still, there were a fair number that it was lovely to hear again, and at least one unrecorded one (which, he explained in what became a running theme throught the evening, was to keep him ahead of the many Billy Bragg tribute acts that are touring the country). Unfortunately, the "Sun . . . Sea . . . Socialism" shirts they're selling at the moment don't come with the drawing on the back of Lenin holding his board, with "Surf's Up!" above him in Cyrillic. I used to have one that did, and I've no idea what happened to it. The last time I remember wearing it was in New Orleans, where it got me some very strange looks.

Yesterday was fairly uneventful apart from Da Boss asking if I'd mind giving her a run through the state of all my projects today. When this happened, she claimed to be fairly pleased with it all, which is nice. It didn't take very long - maybe twenty minutes all told - and was remarkably painless. As usual, I was a lot more critical of my work than she was. Apart from which, I did some proper finishing (stitching bits of assemblies together using scraps found in the gutter) and got another project right up to the brink of ready. I've got about four there, all waiting for other people to get back to me with stuff. There are few finer things, in my view, than righteously and justifiably foisting your own work on other people to do on your behalf. I probably only think this because I don't get to do as much of it as other people do, but it feels good regardless.

Right. I think I'll dig out my copy of Accident Waiting To Happen, or maybe even Talking to the Taxman About Poetry if I feel energetic. Fun Fun.

I don't think I can have played this record on this turntable, actually. It's very stiff going over the spindle. Sounds lovely, though. Looking at the recording credits, though, I have a sudden attack of the 2001s . . . Peter Buck, Michael Stipe, Kirsty MacColl, Johnny Marr . . . "Oh my God! It's full of stars!"

Almost like listening to a Warren Zevon album, in fact.