BB: I think it should be both of those things. The problem is time has changed. When I was 19 years old and I was angry about the world I had only one possible medium to use to express my anger, it was to pick a guitar, to write songs and do gigs. If I were 19 years old now, and I felt angry about the world, I had many options. I can blog, I can make a little film and put it into YouTube, I can start a Facebook page, tweet about it.

I think people in some ways forgot the power of music to carry a message. It carries a message in ways that the internet has not quite managed to do. For example People in Norway, in Oslo gathered together to sing a song some time ago. It was a song that the terrorist [Anders Behring Breivik, Ed.] hated, and so thousands of people gathered together in a square and sang that song, to express their commitment to the society that he said he hated. Only a song can do that, a website can’t do that. If it’d just been a website it wouldn’t have been in the news in the UK or elsewhere in the world. So music does still have a power. Only, young people don’t think of it as the first way to express themselves, they have other ways to express themselves.

I’ll tell you what’s great about it. No blogger ever got to play in a football stadium to a lot of people. That’s why it’s hard to make a living from blogging, in some ways it’s still possible to make a living. The feeling of expression that you get from a performance in return for the applause, it’s much greater than you get for getting likes in Facebook posts, so I think music is still a very powerful, very emotive way to express yourself.

I totally respect those people that use Facebook, blogs, and so on, I recognize that the most important thing is to engage, so I respect the way they’re doing it. I think in the Occupy Movement there are genius people who are getting the message out. But let’s not forget music. Music is still a very powerful medium. Music itself can also go beyond words, and that’s something you can’t do in a blog.

TP: How do you deal with fans who do not accept the political view you express?

BB: You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your fans. I accept that, I accept those who like the music, who like the love songs. Facebook is a good form for those people to play with me these things. People come on the site and say “I’ve always loved your music Billy, but I don’t agree with this…” That’s good, let’s talk about it. I learn stuff this way, and hopefully they learn stuff too.

TP: You have always been able to explore and translate your original punk attitude also into other ways of playing music, such as folk, without ever sounding out of place. How do you do that? Many of the artists that try to explore different approaches to music often lose themselves, you didn’t. How have you managed this?

BB: The thing about folk music is that it is very forgiving. In pop music if you grow old you can become unfashionable, whereas in folk music you’re encouraged to grow old. If you have grey hair and a beard, that’s a good thing. I feel very fortunate that people think of me as part of folk music, I think that’s a very positive thing, and of course the Woody Guthrie thing has really helped in that. It has helped to connect me to the people and I am very pleased of that.

If you think about writing political songs Woody Guthrie is a good place to start because there is no cynicism in his songwriting, in his lyrics, and I fell like cynicism is one of the great enemies of those of us who want to make  the world a better place. We have to fight against cynicism all the time, our own cynicism sometimes. That’s why Woody is a good example.

TP: So you think it’s important for people to stop and think about examples?

BB: I think it’s important that people know that other people have struggled before. How they dealt with the struggle, how they came through it. These things are important. Woody Guthrie gives you an example of that struggle; he gives us a slogan “All you fascists bound to lose”, that’s an encouraging slogan to young people for the first time encountering racist politics to have someone like Woody saying that, it makes you realize you’re not the first person who has ever faced this problem. It makes you realize that you’re joining a great tradition of anti-fascism. Those things are important when you’re just learning about politics, when you think that you’re the only person in the world who cares about this, and everybody else around is a racist, so Woody’s message is important in that way.

TP: You can be found on the streets of London playing your guitar, or at a school playing for the students. How, despite your big success, have you managed to stay so grounded?

It’s not difficult, if someone invites you to come and perform and you think you can make a contribution, then go along and perform. It’s really not that difficult, I think it’s only their own sense of pride that stops other people doing it, I don’t know why they don’t do it, you know, it’s my job. I work for a guy who never played a proper gig in his life; he only ever played in schools, street corners, bars, that’s what Woodie Guthrie did. If I am gonna be true to his tradition then I have to do it a bit myself and I am always happy when people ask. I am always happy when I find myself in that position because I think “that’s what Woody did.”

TP: What do you see in your future as a musician? What are your plans?

BB: There will be a new Billy Bragg record next year, I’m just thinking about what it would be like.

TP: Will it be folk music?

BB: I don’t know, I think I need to remind people that I also write love songs. I might feel it’s maybe a Billy Bragg that I overlooked. So maybe I need to make a record that will have more love songs than political songs. It will have political songs, but more love songs.

Image Courtesy :  Death Waltz Recording Co

The article About Music and Inspiration: a Talk with Billy Bragg (2/2) appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg has always covered a central role in the politically active music scene, taking clear stands towards society. Nevertheless, he is also one of the most capable love song writers of our time, and an artist travelling the path of folk music through its original sentiment.

Billy Bragg undertook a world tour this year that satisfied a large number of fans scattered around the globe, and he will come back in 2013 with a new album and more live performances.

Toonari Post had the chance to interview this great artist about his recent work ‘Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions,’ his vision of music and society, and his approach to the music craft.

Toonari Post (TP): ‘Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions’ was released this year. In those albums, you worked with Wilco to give life to some of the lyrics that Woody Guthrie left behind. How was it for you to work with somebody else’s material? You have had many collaborations, but in this case, the artist was not present, and could not give directions to the complete work. What was you approach and your feelings in this regard?”

Billy Bragg (BB): Woody Guthrie actually left sometimes messages on the bottom of the lyrics that I could read, so it was almost like I was collaborating with him via fax…that he would send me lyrics and I would have to work out a tune. It was a great thing to do.

TP: Was there some sort of anxiety, not being sure about the right way to approach them?

BB: Well, I think once you approach a project like this, you have a choice: you can albeit do it the way you imagine it, or do it the way you imagine that Woody would have done it. Nora Guthrie expressly asked me to change people’s perception of Woody Guthrie; she wanted people to think differently about her father.  She encouraged me to choose songs that people would be amazed to find that Guthrie had written, like a song about a making love to Ingrid Bergman on the slopes of an Italian volcano. When it’s my job to challenge the idea of Woody Guthrie, then I guess I can use the music that I think is right, rather than worrying about the music that Woody might have made.

TP: Well, the result was pretty great.

BB: I think we were trying to bring Woody into the 21st century, to introduce him to a new generation. I think Nora, his daughter, felt that her father had become rather two-dimensional; he had become an icon, he had become known only for his songs about the ‘Dust Bowl’ and for inspiring Bob Dylan, and she felt like in the lyrics he had left there was another Woody Guthrie, a much more three dimensional, human, exciting, challenging WG and she wanted us to bring that Woody Guthrie, so that she could announce him to the world. I think she felt that the academics were taking control of her father. And the voice in the archive was a different voice, to challenge the academics, so she asked us to help her to challenge that idea by choosing something, choosing music that people wouldn’t imagine Woody Guthrie would do.

TP: You said you tried to take Guthrie to this era, nevertheless the mood in the collection is quite nostalgic, it gives the idea of a lost time. It sounds very true, very straightforward. It seems set in the past, in a good way of course.

BB: Right, if you think about some of the songs he’s famous for writing, I mean Woody Guthrie wrote a song called ‘I ain’t got no home in this world anymore;’ the images in that songs, of people losing their houses to the bank, people having to travel away from their family to find a job, not getting proper healthcare…those are things happening today in Europe to people. ‘Ain’t got no home’ is 70 years old but it could have been written this year.

TP: Do you think that that true sentiment expressed by this music represents the current state of our society?

BB: I think that our current society is not as quite as honest as Woody Guthrie is. I think we were trying to put Woody Guthrie into the music that he inspired, you know, he inspired Bob Dylan. Joe Strummer was inspired by Woody Guthrie, I was inspired by him, you know, we were trying to use the music of his children and of his grandchildren to help him to get his message out.

TP: This year you engaged in a world tour, where you promoted the work done in Mermaid Avenue, also as homage to the 100th anniversary of Guthrie’s birth. What were your hopes about the image the audience would capture of him? Is this what you were talking about, his more human side?

BB: Absolutely. I hope they can see that his politics came from a basic fundamental humanity rather than an ideological argument. I think it’s very important for people to understand that you don’t need to be an expert in politics to write songs about the pressure that people feel because of the economic situation. You just need to write honestly about how you feel, and I hope that message comes across from the material.

Image Courtesy : Pieter.morlion

The article About Music and Inspiration: a Talk with Billy Bragg (1/2) appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Billy Bragg is ending the first leg of his 2012 summer tour, but he will hit the road again in less than one month, touching Europe and North America. Toonari Post were there to attend Bragg’s concert in Vienna, Austria, on June 1. The show was presented by PSI2 music, the legendary organizer of some of the most interesting acts in Austria since 1987.

A much differentiated crowd gathered in the Flex club, which boasts the best sound system in Europe. There were no opening act, just a simple stage featuring only Bragg and his guitars: the electric one was the protagonist while an acoustic guitar was used for the song ‘Sexuality.’

Billy Bragg performed a two-hour show, playing his songs and engaging in several conversations with the audience. Among the singer-songwriter’s own well-known tracks, he also played an homage to Woody Guthrie. A few years ago, Bragg composed together with rock band Wilco, the music for some of Guthrie’s lyrics, found by the daughter of the late musician. The songs were recorded and released as the “Mermaid Avenue” collection, which was re-released, including previously unreleased material, in April this year. During the show Bragg performed some of the songs from the collection, such as ‘Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key,’ which also contains the line that gives the title to the current tour: ‘There Ain’t Nobody That Can Sing Like Me.’

In the many on-stage conversations, Billy Bragg joked about soccer and the upcoming European Championship, and he told funny stories about his shopping adventures during the tour, among other things. He even talked about his family and his teenage years. However, it was not just light-hearted. Bragg is well known for his deep involvement in political issues. He has written many political songs along with his infamous love songs, hence the talks about the current state of the world were more than expected. He even adapted the themes in his songs to current issues.

This said, you did not have to share Bragg’s political values in order to enjoy his show. The messages he sent to the audience were mainly of respect, and the importance of general commitment to build a better world. The kind of vision portrayed by the singer is shared by people who can claim different political affiliation, or none at all.

He also focused on one of the biggest problems of our time: cynicism. He defined cynicism as the biggest enemy of society. Moreover, he argued about the internet era, and the duality of its usage. Internet, Bragg explained, allows free expression and information, but is also used as an abusive tool by some. In this context, keeping his usual support for freedom, Bragg stated: “Freedom of speech does not give you the freedom to be abusive.”

Towards the end of the show, he also explained the role of music in the process of world change. He said music cannot change the world itself. Instead, what music does is to gather people who feel the same way about world issues. United, those people can change the world. Music is rather a means of encounter and promotion of a collective action, than a tool of change itself.

Bragg was perfect in reconciling the talks and the music, resulting in an extremely passionate and touching show. It was one of those performances that are not easily forgotten. He created a unified feeling that strung together the singer-songwriter and the audience, whom showed a constant enjoyment of the event.

The show ended with Bragg’s infamous song ‘A New England,’ and a singing crowd accompanying it. After the show Bragg met the fans to sign autographs and talk some more.

Billy Bragg will start his North American tour at the end of June. You can find all the dates here.

Image Courtesy  Malcolm McCurrach / Shutterstock.com

The article The Hypnotic Billy Bragg Tour: Concert Review appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.