Billy Bragg

by Andrew Collins

  It was worth it. Riff Raff – named by Jackie, because they were just that – became Bearshanks’s first live-in customers. The studio cost £25 a day, or £150 a week, and for that you got use of a mobile mixing desk, and the rehearsal room.

  Ruan O’Lochlainn was a 34-year-old Dubliner and former advertising executive with a rock heritage that made Billy and Wiggy’s jaws drop. Although they knew nothing of Ruan’s CV when they phoned up, he would soon leapfrog the Ronnie Lane roadie from whom they’d bought the Ampeg as a genuine hook into rock’n’roll legitimacy. In Wiggy’s words, ‘an incredible musician, a wonderful saxophonist, and a great keyboard player’, he’d formed Bees Make Honey and ridden the London/Essex pub-rock boom, and before that he’d been in no less than Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance.

  There he was, on the left in the group photograph inside the Slim Chance album sleeve from 1975; he’d played piano, organ, soprano, alto and tenor saxophone, and had co-written two of the songs, ‘Street Gang’ and ‘Ain’t No Lady’. A renaissance sort of chap, he’d also photographed the back sleeve of pub overlords Brinsley Schwarz’s Don’t Ever Change Your Mind album. He’d played with Link Wray and Kevin Coyne, and the sax solo on Bryan Ferry’s ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’.

  ‘This was another incredible moment of us touching greatness,’ Billy states. ‘It was our first brush with anyone from the music industry.’

  ‘He gave us a stamp of authority,’ says Wiggy. ‘Musically, he was sort of much better than us, but a bit too busy in some ways. I really liked the guy. There were points where we didn’t get on later, but when he was on it, he was so good.’

  The O’Lochlainns had two kids, Oscar, aged nine, and Fionn, eight, and they became the first of two families in Oundle to effectively adopt Barking’s urban runaways. ‘We went up for a week and never really came back,’ says Billy.

  That first week was a blast. The band stayed up every night, playing and recording under the experienced eye of Ruan, and Jackie took cool, NME-style photographs of them in peculiar rural settings (Billy looks conspicuous in these shots for his lone refusal to wear eye make-up). Better than that, the O’Lochlainns gave Riff Raff encouragement. ‘They were the first people ever to say, “You can do this, can’t you? You really are quite good,”’ Billy recalls. ‘Our parents didn’t take us seriously, nobody took us seriously, we hardly did.’

  In that highly-charged first week at Bearshanks, Riff Raff spontaneously wrote eight new songs, including ‘Apathy’ (‘I don’t give a fuck about apathy’), ‘Fantocide’ (on which Ruan played saxophone), ‘Talk’s Cheap’, ‘Comprehensive’, ‘I Wanna Be A Cosmonaut’, ‘Serengeti Boogie’ (‘that was just us banging things’), and the definitive ‘Romford Girls’ (‘Riff Raff’s finest moment’), for which Robert, not Billy, wrote the lyrics. Wiggy remembers not the momentous night they wrote it, but the morning after, and the overwhelming sense of empowerment: at last, they could proudly announce ‘and this is one of ours’. Riff Raff, in effect, were born. ‘Now we were armed with the capability to put all that gusto which we put into those covers into our own material,’ Wiggy says. They even tried a bit of reggae.

  The white heat of creativity generated by the combination of Bearshanks, Ruan and the Traffic effect was immense. Billy says that this is where his songwriting started to sound like his own (‘Not every song. I was still capable of writing utterly derivative songs. I still am’). Meanwhile, they did all the rock’n’roll things they’d read about, plus, at the end of the week, their first gig as Riff Raff at the Bull, a pub in nearby Irthlingborough. Supporting Ruan’s band Wild Thing, they debuted ‘Romford Girls’ with Ricey stripped to the waist, to an audience of Hell’s Angels – and lived.

  Riff Raff had arrived in Oundle without a name and feeling like cultural evacuees. They left with the best tape they’d ever made, ‘Romford Girls’ on the set-list and the determination to go back up to Oundle the very next weekend.

  The King’s England series of books, published just after the war, makes Northamptonshire sound like Shangri La: ‘This thousand square miles in the middle of England is as completely representative of our green and pleasant land as Shakespeare’s Warwickshire; but it is all too little known.’

  Oundle gets an honourable mention in the Northants volume, but less as a town, and more as a school. Oundle School is the town. In many ways, Riff Raff made a name for themselves in Oundle because of the big old public school that dominates the surrounding area physically, historically, financially and spiritually, and gave our strangers in paradise something to react against. ‘Its name is renowned throughout the world,’ says The King’s England. ‘It has pointed the way to the solution of many of our educational problems, and has set an example for other schools to follow.’

  The school owns the land, which is one of the reasons why Oundle hasn’t expanded over the years, but the locals like it that way. Represented since May 1997 by its first Labour MP since 1945 (that’s progress), Oundle sits on the River Nene, has a population density of one person per two acres, boasts 30 churches in six miles, and full employment. It is well treed, unspoilt and these days even quieter than it was in 1977, as it’s no longer a through route for lorries.

  Dr Andrew Spurrell, Oundle’s local vet (and an unlikely supporting player in the Riff Raff story) has lived here all his life and eulogises his hometown thus: ‘It is almost in the centre of England. It is very picturesque. Some of the surrounding villages are as picturesque as the Cotswolds, but somehow, by some quirk of nature or geography – the Romans missing us as they went up North – we’ve never been discovered. It’s quiet, it’s pretty and we have access to every road going everywhere.’

  As for the public school: ‘That has changed, and they’re just as big a bunch of hooligans as everyone else now.’

  Not in 1977 when Riff Raff hit town, and became the local bêtes noires. Imagine dropping five (later four) rock’n’roll ruffians from London into the middle of a sleepy rural idyll populated by everyday country folk and public schoolchildren. Sparks flew, heads rolled, and the police arrived.

  The surrounding Northamptonshire countryside, which became Riff Raff’s adopted manor, is very flat and embossed with some spanking new roads, resurfaced and strengthened in the early 80s in order to get Cruise missiles in and out of the US Air Force base Molesworth; an unwanted focal point during the last decade of the Cold War and site of a peace camp when Cruise arrived in 1983. (Billy once asked Dr Spurrell what he’d do if it ‘went off’ between the Russians and the Americans and East Northamptonshire became a nuclear target, and he said, ‘I’d pour myself a large gin and tonic, sit and wait.’)

  Closer to Riff Raff’s second home, directly behind Bearshanks in the woods, is a seventeenth-century monument known as the New Build. Built by Thomas Tresham, a Catholic at a time when being one was illegal, it’s a weird, two-storey cross-shaped folly with no roof and no floor. Less concerned with local history in 1977 than Billy is today, Riff Raff found it a brilliantly spooky place to walk on a moonlit night. They might have shattered the peace of Oundle, but at least it provided some in the first place. It was the sort of town you could become notorious in without doing all that much.

  Paradoxically, just as the band had made their countryside alliance, spending every available weekend up at Bearshanks for the rest of 1977 and into 1978, the O’Lochlainns unlocked the elusive London live circuit for them.

  Ruan and Jackie had connections in London – including at the now legendary pub/new-wave label, Chiswick records (boss Roger Armstrong had lived at their house, and owed them a favour). Because for their sins they believed in Riff Raff, they wangled them a string of support gigs at such hallowed venues as the Nashville in Cromwell Road where they’d seen The Jam, the Rock Garden, the Pegasus, the Red Cow and Stoke Newington’s Rochester Castle, every one a dues-paying punk stepping stone.

  They’d warm up for such Chiswick-signed bands as The Radiators From Space (‘nice enough lads, but they thought they were the
Irish Clash’) and the Radio Stars (‘a bunch of hippies with short hair’). Although Wiggy and Johnny Waugh never cut their hair (Wiggy’s visual debt to Keith Richards never really got paid), the rest of Riff Raff rose to the occasion and became ever more punkish, with cut-off Clash shirts, harsh crops, and slim ties.

  In the historic week of 8–13 September 1977, Riff Raff made their ‘advertising debut’, that is, their name appeared in two live adverts in the back of the NME (it isn’t hard to understand the significance of that). In that week’s run of gigs at Hammersmith’s Red Cow, between XTC, The Jolt and The Lurkers, was Riff Raff on Saturday, 10 September (‘free’). Directly underneath, in the box ad for the Nashville, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Little Acre, The Jam, John Otway and Shakin’ Stevens were listed; modestly enough, Riff Raff were opening for Little Acre on the Friday, but it was the night before The Jam (they would tread the same boards), and it did cost the full 75p to get in.

  Anyone who’s ever read a music paper will know that it’s irresistible to fill in the end-of-year readers’ poll form, but nominating your Best Band and Best Album and Most Wonderful Human Being is one thing, and actually cutting it out and sending it in is another (this is why the poll results are really only a reflection of the most committed end of the paper’s readership). At the start of 1978, Billy filled out the Sounds readers’ poll form – this we know, because he never sent it in either. He has cheekily nominated Riff Raff in almost every category (although for moderation’s sake, Best Drummer is Ringo, and Best Keyboard Player, Mantovani). Even though he didn’t vote, you can bet, like the rest of us, he complained about the results.

  Though Riff Raff hadn’t reached readers’ poll stage yet, they had made the press: a small write-up in International Musician in October saying, ‘The band have been together for some months now and expect to start recording soon.’ They misspelt Ruan as ‘Rowan’ and Johnny as ‘Johnny Waw’, but it was a start, and the recording bit was true.

  In December, Riff Raff recorded their first tracks for the EP that Chiswick would put out six months later, not at Bearshanks, but at Riverside Studios in West London, which later became Sonnet and is now JD’s, coincidentally just down the road from where Wiggy lives today. The band walked out of Chiswick Park tube station, more au fait with Northamptonshire than West London, and got lost on Acton Lane, which is ironic only when you realise just how central this area would become to the Billy Bragg story after Riff Raff.

  In March 1978, the Barking & Dagenham Advertiser finally discovered that it had some local heroes in its midst, and devoted the centre spread of its 10 March edition to Riff Raff, headlined ‘School Chums Who Found A Way To Stardom’. ‘They have already played in London’s top pubs and a record deal is in the offing,’ it ran, carrying two live line-up shots, a disproportionately large portrait of a goateed Robert (‘showing the latest fashion in tearaway shirt sleeves’) and a strip of school photos. Ricey had decided he was now called S.D.R. Gol’fish, and Wiggy declined to give his full name, true to form.

  It was a generous splash, written by a local journalist called Martin Burr, who later notoriously wrote for soft-porn magazine Mayfair, where he would knavishly insert ‘Billy Bragg’ in the nude models’ list of likes. (All publicity is good publicity.) The rival Barking & Dagenham Post followed in April, a smaller piece by Dave Morley inexplicably entitled ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’, by which time Johnny Waugh had left (replaced by Ruan O’Lochlainn on bass) – and S.D.R. Gol’fish was also but a memory.

  Ricey/S.D.R.’s departure was the bigger wrench, and it occurred when Riff Raff had finally decided it was time to give up their day jobs. The Co-Op’s loss was rock’n’roll’s gain (likewise Manufacturers Hanover and Wiggy’s insurance office), but, alas, Henry Ford would not be losing a mechanic. When it came to the crunch decision, Ricey opted out.

  In the spirit of melodrama, he vowed that he would jump in Barking Park lake if the others agreed to move up to Oundle full time. They did, and he kept his word. After the fateful band meeting, Ricey drove home soaking wet (back to his career and his life).

  By April 1978, Riff Raff were residents of Bearshanks and citizens of Oundle. And in May they were on telly, thanks to farmer Mr Knight, who owned the land around Bearshanks. No fan of the O’Lochlainns and the devil’s music they’d brought to Oundle, he continued to dump silage opposite their house in the same way he had done when it was just a pile of unoccupied bricks. Ruan and Jackie got in touch with BBC1’s That’s Life, who were evidently tickled by their plight.

  A film crew arrived, and shot Riff Raff playing a specially written song on top of the offending shitheap. It was broadcast on the same night as the band were playing a pub in Northampton; they duly stopped the show mid-set in order to watch themselves on a little portable. The customary gag went: ‘Did you see Riff Raff on telly? I’ve never seen a bigger pile of shit in my life.’

  Sounds mentioned it in their gossip column on 27 May: ‘They were filmed playing on top of a pile of manure and their wives haven’t spoken to them since.’

  Billy Bragg had well and truly swapped town for country, grey for green. Journalist Neil Spencer, with whom Billy had yet to cross paths, believes that his rural sabbatical had far-reaching effects: ‘He comes from a very drab, urban environment, and I think that living out there in a pretty posh bit of a shire changed him. I sense that that was where he discovered a delight in the countryside, nature and history. I think it changed his way of looking at reality.’

  The reality of the Riff Raff situation was that, by now, they were a tight, if largely unmarried, working unit, with Ruan taking a player-manager role and Wiggy doubling as in-house roadie/soundman. (Says Billy, ‘He knew how to put the PA together. We knew how to carry it. It was an awful amount of responsibility he didn’t want.’)

  In June, they hopped up another rung on the legitimacy ladder, when Chiswick put out their first single. In fact, they put out three separate singles on the same day as a conceptual set called Suburban Rock’n’Roll: Riff Raff’s Cosmonaut EP (containing ‘I Wanna Be A Cosmonaut’, ‘Romford Girls’, ‘What’s The Latest’ and ‘Sweet As Pie’), The Jook EP by The Jook (they were fancifully tipped as the new Slade) and the Make A Record EP by The Drug Addix (notable for being Kirsty MacColl’s first release, and for the provocative title of its lead track ‘Gay Boys In Bondage’). Each single was a 4,000-copy limited edition.

  As an indicator of Billy Bragg’s later genius, the EP is largely inessential, but as a snapshot of what punk sounded like in 1978, it’s fine. ‘I Wanna Be A Cosmonaut’ certainly reveals Riff Raff to be tight, and Robert’s drumming is adventurous, but it’s little more than a shoutalong (‘I wanna be a star in the USSR’). ‘Romford Girls’ is more considered, but if the lyrics seem to have the scent of Bragg about them – ‘Romford girls make love with their hair in curlers … Underneath their clothes from C&A’s/Romford girls have bodies that amaze’ – it’s wishful thinking, since Robert wrote them anyway. ‘What’s The Latest’ is very like early Members, with what can only be described as a by-numbers yob vocal from Billy, but the 50s-style rock’n’roll guitar is grown-up and the shout of ‘Sticky fingers!’ is a nice nod to their beloved Stones. Last track ‘Sweet As Pie’ is pure Jilted John. As the song says, ‘Shoulda known bettah!’

  Billy recalls the EP’s release with great pleasure: ‘I can’t tell you what we felt like when we first got our hands on this record. It’s like seeing your first article in print. You actually exist.’

  The reviews trickled in. In Record Mirror on 24 June, Kelly Pike said of ‘I Wanna Be A Cosmonaut’, ‘I wish he was – he may take his record with him.’ David Brown in Sounds on 17 June described the songs as ‘fairly average ’77 new wave bashes winning few prizes for originality or surprises’. NME’s Roy Carr dismissed Riff Raff along with Eater and The Cybermen as purveyors of ‘predictable faster-than-the-speed-of-sound bouts of Neanderthal rock’n’rant’.

  Any new band will tell you it’s better
to be slagged off than ignored, and for Riff Raff, being judged ‘fairly average’ in Sounds was a great leap forward. The gigs, local and London, continued. In July, a friend of Ruan’s, soulboy Pete Watkins, joined on bass, and Ruan moved across to guitar for a while before leaving the line-up completely.

  In September, The Stranglers played Peterborough’s 1,100-capacity Wirrina ice rink, supported by The Skids and Riff Raff. (This would turn out to be Riff Raff’s biggest audience, but they didn’t know it.) The Peterborough Advertiser gave the show a big review, noting that the ‘Oundle-based Riff Raff gave an energetic performance which soon got the live entertainment-starved audience aroused and ready for more.’ With some relief, it was reported as a ‘trouble-free’ gig (this, perhaps because of the fact that only non-alcoholic drinks were on sale).

  In November, when Riff Raff supported Coil at The Paddock in Harpole just outside Northampton, one local newspaper ad billed them as ‘London’s top pub band’, the other specified ‘From London and the John Peel show’ (Peel had played ‘Cosmonaut’ when it came out).

  By dint of being the only punks Oundle had ever seen (never mind the only Londoners), Riff Raff had genuinely become locally famous – infamous, at any rate. Regardless of Billy’s assurance that they ‘didn’t mix with the posh kids’, the pupils at Oundle School obviously found Riff Raff titillating, as evidenced by a breathless page article in the Xeroxed school magazine, The Spire, in December, which announced the arrival of a new bass player, Kevin Beech, otherwise known as ‘Little Kevin’; he was a contemporary of Robert at Barking Abbey Grammar School, but he couldn’t even play the bass. ‘He would play all the wrong songs,’ remembers Billy. ‘But he would still play all the way through.’

  Kevin – severe crop, slightly effete, rapier wit – arrived in Northants just in time for the end of one adventure and the beginning of a new one. At the end of 1978, The Stranglers moved in to Bearshanks, and Riff Raff were homeless.