I Wanted To Be A Teenage Cosmonaut

The Chiswick Confessions of Billy Bragg


 
This short piece by Billy Bragg appears in the December issue of Record Collector (iss. 196, p85) as part of a six page feature on the Chiswick label (pp82-87):


 

I Wanted To Be A Teenage Cosmonaut:
The Chiswick Confessions of Billy Bragg

Billy Bragg made his recording debut with Barking punk group, Riff Raff, whose eponymous EP (SW 43) was issued on Chiswick in April 1978.

Would I pay a fiver for the Riff Raff EP? Yeah, I'd buy as many as I could, 'cos people are always asking me for them. Or telling me off about the lyrics to 'Romford Girls', which is the only one on that record I didn't write the words for. 'I Wanna Be A Cosmonaut' sounded full of energy because we'd just burst out of my mum's back room. We hadn't been doing the rounds for years like the Radio Stars. We thought, Christ, we're in a recording studio and it was just this huge burst of energy. Our connection with punk was through the Jam and the Clash. We weren't into the Sex Pistols and all that art school end of it. In Barking they meant nothing. You were more likely to see the Red Army Choir. If the band didn't play at the Bridge House in Canning Town, you didn't see them.

     Buying the first Clash album changed a lot. We though they were great. I remembemer having a go at Mick and Joe at the Roundhouse when we were there to see some other band. I remember shouting at them, trying to explain that they were like the Rolling Stones, who we were really into before punk. They didn't agree, obviously.

     How did we get on Chiswick? Roger Armstrong lived in a house in Chiswick, which belonged to Ruan O'Lochlainn. Ruan had been in Bees Make Honey, and together with his wife Jackie, he ran a farm studio in the East Midlands. They were the first people to say we were really good, rather than saying, shut up and go to bed! As a favour to Ruan, Armstrong put us on with Radiators From Space and Radio Stars. In fact any band which started with 'Rad'! Anyway, we thought it was great, playing at places like the Marquee. I cut my hair, bought a leather jacket and became a punk. This was 1978.

     A lot of the people involved in Stiff had been around a long time, and it seemed like it was just their next career move. Which I respect. It was your Nick Lowe and Ian Dury, that pub rock stuff. Chiswick was much more diverse. I recorgnised even then that they were on a different path. I was saying to Ted at the party that they should be proud of themselves, because they haven't been sucked into a corporate monster. Of the two of them and they're always going to be compared, Chiswick have stayed true to their spirit.
 

The Chiswick feature consists of a five-page interview by Pat Gilbert with Chiswick co-founder Roger Armstrong, the Billy Bragg piece above, a discography of the first forty Chiswick releases, a dozen sleeve & label photos and pictures of Joe Strummer, Whirlwind, Billy Bragg and The Damned.
The actual interview is preceded by an introduction, which starts like this:


 
     "I was really chuffed when our single came out on Chiswick. To be on that label meant a lot. It was like a jumble sale. Rockabilly, punk, pub rock—you never knew what would turn up next. They never lost that spirit of ... well, going into Rock On and asking Ted Carroll what the bloody hell was happening with your record."
     So says Billy Bragg about the first truly independent label of the punk era. It's now been a long time since Chiswick rock'n'rolled, the label having been absorbed by its own offshoot, Ace Records, in the early 80s. Even so, its memory was honoured last month when Ace threw a party in Shepherd's Bush to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first Chiswick release. Among the stars who turned up to reminisce about their time on the label were Shane MacGowan (the Nips), Billy Bragg (Riff Raff), and Dave Vanian from the Damned. Other former Chiswickians include no lesser rock names than Joe Strummer (101ers), Jim Kerr (Johnny & the Self Abusers), Phil Chevron (Radiators), Kirsty MacColl (Drug Adix) and Lemmy (Motörhead).
[...]
 
Not only did Ace throw that Chiswick party, it also celebrated itself with a supplement in British record trade weekly Music Week.
The brochure includes a history of Chiswick & Ace, but referring to Billy Bragg only in this paragraph:


 
[...]
A roster of acts was evolving with The (Count) Bishops, The Radiators (From Space) and Radio Stars under contract. In between were the sometimes peculiar one-offs, which among other things started the careers of Jim Kerr (Johnny & The Self Abusers), Billy Bragg (Riff Raff) and Kirsty MacColl (as the wonderfully named Mandy Doubt in Drug Addix — and she seems such a nice girl!).
[...]
Billy Bragg — Favourite Ace CD: Sam Cooke & The Soul Stirrers: 'Last Mile Of The Way'
[...]

 

Sources:

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