As anybody who may need scrolled by way of the tracklisting on The Roaring Forty, the latest mammoth boxset celebrating his profession, Billy Bragg has crossed paths with an expansive array of artists over four-decades and extra as a cherished UK singer-songwriter and activist. One of many extra eye-raising entries within the story is the time that Bragg and R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe have been roommates in Czechoslovakia in 1990. Permit Bragg to choose up the thread, as relayed to this author just lately:
“We have been! That was an attention-grabbing expertise for each of us. I’d been behind the Iron Curtain however I’d by no means been to Czechoslovakia and we have been there whereas the Velvet Revolution was coming to its zenith so the place was simply completely alive and each of us have been actually excited.”
Bragg and Stipe have been there alongside singer-songwriter Natalie Service provider, invited to play a collection of reveals within the Japanese Bloc as 4 a long time of Communist rule got here to an finish. “After one gig, we went to a restaurant someplace,” defined Bragg, “and me and Stipey stepped exterior and walked about 200 yards to this sq. the place there was a plinth that beforehand had, I assume, some dignitary on it and was now tied with about 100 balloons gently swaying within the breeze. We stood there it considering, ‘That is historical past within the making right here, you don’t ever get to see that’. “
Bragg mentioned it was in all probability much more mind-blowing for Stipe, who at that time had obtained so well-known with R.E.M. {that a} easy stroll down the road simply didn’t occur anymore. “I imply, think about what it’s like for Michael, the place they go out and in of the soccer stadium in a convoy with the police, for him to get to have the ability to have that,” Bragg reminisced. “He mentioned to me one time as we walked down the Unter den Linden in East Berlin, ‘That is nice’. I mentioned, ‘Yeah, you don’t typically get to see this,’ and he mentioned ‘No, to go this far and no-one come as much as me to say hiya or acknowledge me, it’s actually superb.’ I believed, ‘Yeah, I suppose that’s an incredible expertise for him,’ so the entire thing was simply sensible.”
Stipe and his R.E.M. bandmates characteristic on three tracks on The Roaring Forty, songs Bragg recorded with members from the Shedding My Faith stars within the early 90s however had been beforehand shelved. “We have been knocking round at Peter Buck’s home and he had 1 / 4 inch tape there and we’d carried out a number of tracks with one another and I’ve all the time thought they need to actually be heard,” Bragg mentioned.
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