Billy Bragg - Life's A Riot With Spy Vs Spy

Billy Bragg, once-described as a "one-man Clash," has spent the last two decades writing and performing passionate, witty, socially conscious music. On September 6, Yep Roc Records will re-issue "Life's a Riot with Spy Vs. Spy," 1983's mini-LP that first introduced the world to Billy's style - roughly strummed electric guitar and stark vocals belying a keen sense of melody and committed, deeply humane lyrics on topics ranging from life and love to social upheaval and the plight of the working class. Recorded live to 2-track tape for free over the course of three afternoons in Chappell Music's tiny demo studio in the modest hope of selling the occasional copy at early gigs, "Life's a Riot..." had initial sales topping 50,000 (ultimately over 120,000) without the aid of advertising. It spent 12 weeks at #1 on the UK indie chart and reached #32 in the national LP chart and featured his first underground anthem - "A New England." Six-Panel Mini-Jacket. Yep Records. 2006.

1) The Milk Man of Human Kindness
2) To Have and to Have Not
3) Richard
4) A New England
5) The Man in the Iron Mask
6) The Busy Girl Buys Beauty
7) Lovers Town Revisited
8) Strange Things Happen (Alternative Version)
9) The Cloth
10) Love Lives Here
11) Speedway Hero
12) Loving You Too Long
13) This Guitar Says Sorry (Alternative Version)
14) Love Gets Dangerous (Alternative Version)
15) The Cloth
16) The Man in the Iron Mask (Alternative Version)
17) A13 Trunk Road to the Sea
18) Fear Is a Man's Best Friend