| ~ first The Other Press ie 3 Nov. 27, 1986. Page 11 Yet another British Reword Rewdew BILLY BRAGG “Talking Poetry With Taxman” (Go Discs) the Upon hearing his first album, most people asked “Where’s the rest of the band?” A proletarian poet and wandering minstrel, his album spurned __ orchestra- tion, relying simply on his guitar, voice and lyrics to carry the emo- tion and message. His second al- bum saw the addition of the trumpet on one song and an or- gan on another. Two years later his third album duely arrives - guitar and lyric are still stressed but the instrumentation has been greatly increased. To the previ- ously simple sound there have been added horns, tamborines, synthesizers, violins, pianos and (oh no) a drum machine, all of which are used sparingly but with great effect. Musically it’s a fairly diverse album, his _in- fluences becoming far more noticable than before, ranging from the ‘countryish’ feel of “Wishing the days away” to the bluesy honky-tonk piano of “Honey, I’m a Big Boy Now” Also more predominant is the humour his live show is reknowned for. As a mainstay of the Red Wedge (Socialist artists against Thatcher supported by the young youth wing of the Labour party), Artists Against Apartheid (the real one, not the peculiar one night fling of D.O.A. and Randy Bachman) and CND (the english Campaign for Nuclear Disarma- ment), Billy is well known to the general public as well as_ the police (He was recently arrested for cutting the fence of an Ameri- can airbase). After taking this all into account, it is hardly supris- ing to find some pure socialist rhetoric on this album, the most obvious examples are “There is Power in Union” and the ballad, “Ideology”. If you like pointed political polemics, these are classics of the genre. Another of his strengths is constructing poignant tales of love and the loss of it. “There’s always room for one more soul, down in the human zoo. But I don’t want you to come here, though, I want to come home to Reading by Fred Wah Fred Wahs’ father looms large in his 1985 Governor General’s Li- brary Award winner, “Waiting for Saskatchewan”. Bom a Chinese-Canadian in Swift Cur- rent, Saskatchewan, the elder Wah was sent to China to be edu- cated in Cantonese when only four. He returned to Canada when nineteen, struggled to re- learn English, and_ eventually married Fred’s Swedish mother. Reading selections from this collection of prose/poetry before a cozy Douglas College audience, Fred included reminiscences of growing up caucasian with a Chinese father in various small towns in Western Canada. How about a team of caucasians called the Indians, who played a team of North Dakota Indians called Sid and This is not a passive observer movie, you can’t just sit back and let this story be told to you. This story involves you in a_ very primal way, blending humour and stark horror to present the story of two people whose abso- lute love for each other defined their lives and ended them. This is a multi-faceted movie: it’s about a turbulant time in the British music scene, it’s about a band, it’s a love story, it’s a hor- ror story. In one scene Sid, played by Gary Oldma, is doing a_hilari- ously dreamlike rendition of “I The Ten Swedes? A large part of Fred’s book deals with his recent journey to Japan and China, where few people would believe him about his chinese heritage. Fred. was acutely aware of it obviously, and this manifested itself in the eerie phenomenon of believing to see his father in various faces and images all through his China od- yssey. “Waiting For Saskatchewan”, by Fred Wah, might take some hunting to find, but Duthies Books may have a copy or two in the near future. The Chinese Community Association is also suspected to have copies. joys of publishing in Canada. By Rob Hancock |; Nancy Did It My Way”. The scene is a perfectly defined presentation of how Sid is selling out artistically after quitting the Sex Pistols. The scene rapidly becomes horrific as Sid pulls out a gun and begins to blow away the audience, includ- ing Nancy, played by Chloe Webb. This is not a movie designed to entertain, neither is it the sensa- tionalism the mother of Nancy Spungen claims it is. What it is, however, is worth seeing, espe- cially since it includes music by the Pogues and Pray For Rain. Those of us who have heard the ‘|The ultimate survivalist. are the things that Stephen King The | you.” His best songs combine: so- cial comment and love. “Greetings to the New Brunette” presents a perfect picture of a young man’s. tremulous first steps into the worlds of sex, politics and love. “Your. sexual politics have leftme all of a muddle. Are we joined in an ide- ological cuddle?” This song also attacks accepted standards in a wry, often amusing fashion. From the sarcasm of “How can you lie there and think of Eng- land, when you don’t even know who’se in the team?” to a discus- sion on the problems of express- ing true feelings in antything but the most cliched terms. “I’m cel- ebrating my love for you, with a pint of beer and a new tattoo.” The most powerful song on the album is the last, “The Home Front’. It equates the decline of England with the deterioration of the value of family life. The song reflects the pretensions, hypocri- sy and the acceptance of the ‘facts of life’ which combine to create the face of modern England. In- sulted but not yet angry. vision, It is bleak, sorrowful made more melancholy by the dole horns. Lyrically it’s ona par with The The’s classic, ‘Heartland’ The musical ambience and_ the issues that it address’s is like a creeping spiritual rheumatism. The bitterness is seen in the lines: “The constant promise of jam tomorrow/Is the New Breeds’ lit- any and verse.” Whilst the ac- companying sadness is captured in the lament: “When it rains here, it rains so hard/But never - hard enough to wash away the sorrow/I’ll trade my love today y for a greater love tommorow.’ For those -people unfamiliar with his work, this album is an excellent introduction, that is if your musical tastes are not hide- bound to AM _ rock or only reaches in to the realms charted by Iron Butterfly and Led Zepplin. If you can not find anything enjoyable in his album then you must be one of three things: 1. Shellshocked. . 2. A hockey player. 3. Already dead. — wling fog that brings a its knees. A ‘toy with a “grudge. _ These uses to prey on your sanity with his collection of short stories |bound into the book, “Skeleton Crew”. i always | find Stephen King amusing because I wonder what kind of a guy would write stuff like this. He is only putting into words what people are looking for when they stand around at ithe scene of an accident - a chance to see some gore. He’s: got a unique method of n yining a slight pit of comedy 1 something has you inding your teeth. ‘He’s better thought of not = a horror writer, but instead, se writer with a pinch oF gore dashed in. In total this book has 22 short stories SS Pouge’s Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash” LP will be counting their participation as a major reason to ‘the saying “Do you love?” so _ ten, then tell me. “group of oe in a “market fightieg for their lives against creatures only the mind coul create but not destroy. “The Monkey” is about a ‘toy that kills and a man’s fight to stay alive and away from that dreaded] symbol of death. oS “The Survivor Type” is really a disgusting story but when you read it you seem to understand it is about being stranded, being) hurt and being very hungry. Overall I found this Ebook 0 rate quite well. Read it yourself, and find out. Stephen King has long list of books, but if you short stories, also read “Differs Seasons” or “Night Shift”. Do a favour...if you read the book try and figure out why King Reviewed by Gerald Tow s see the film. Sid and Nancy is playing at the Bay Theatre and the Westminster Mall. A popular pastime of the press: grossly distort and wrongly report on the Punk Hardcore music scene.