Billy Bragg | Stereo Jealousy

Gig of the Week: Twisted Christmas – Barbican

As Christmas hurriedly approaches, the larger venues around London have been largely booked up by comedians and tribute shows. Fortunately the smaller venues keep the variety levels high, and this week is no exception. Pick of the bunch is the second in the Barbican’s series Only Connect, the first of which was the Drifting and Tilting concerts featuring the music of Scott Walker. The theme this time round is the underbelly of our traditional festive practices, with the artists performing their own versions of classic and modern Christmas tunes. With artists like Jarvis Cocker, Patrick Wolf and Kathryn Williams involved the event surely has to be interesting to say the least…

Tickets are still available from the Barbican’s website, from £13 to £22.

Jarvis Cocker – Baby’s Coming Back To Me

Patrick Wolf – Stars

Kathryn Williams – Flicker

Don’t forget to vote in our Best of 2008 section

Photos: Patrick Wolf: sugicy; Jarvis Cocker: Lizzka

Read on for the rest of Stereo Jealousy’s recommended London gigs this week…

Today England celebrates it’s national holiday, the traditional feast day of its patron saint George. You wouldn’t know it, for most this is simply a non-event. There’s no parade like Chinese New Year, no mass revelling like St Patricks, no national fervour like 4th July. The simple fact is, that most folk see being English as nothing to be proud of. Here at WoW, that fact is something we flatly don’t agree with.

To celebrate, I’m going to share some of the songs that evoke memories of England for me. Musically, England has a vast and rich heritage. Through from the Beatles and the Stones, Sex Pistols and Roxy Music, New Order and Aphex Twin: England’s audible past is fascinating, groundbreaking and successful.

So below are the songs that summon up the greatest my nation has to offer: romantic sunsets in London, to shabby council housing in Sheffield. Politics of the state, affairs of the heart and everything in between. These are the songs that, to me, are England.

Kinks – Waterloo Sunset
Pulp – Disco 2000
Billy Bragg – A New England
Blur – This Is A Low
Human League - Don’t You Want Me?

Photo: Tricky