It's official. Nothing's happening this week. If you want to know more, go elsewhere.

Okay, there are a few gigs. Look on Eventfinda. I'm taking the week off local content to write about one of my favourite English singer-songwriters, because when I slapped a CD on the other day I realised no one in the room had heard of him.

Photo: Frank Turner.

Which is odd. It constantly surprises me how if you take two English artists one will be widely popular here and the other completely unknown.

The guy I'm talking about is Frank Turner and I suspect if he'd popped over to li'l ol' New Zealand last time he played Byron Bay we wouldn't be having this conversation. As it is he's never been here so possibly the only time you'll have seen him is singing at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.

Let me describe him a little. Frank is a 35-year-old from Hampshire. Almost every time I play his music someone says: 'That sounds like Billy Bragg”. And he does sound like Billy Bragg, the same working class accent, songs that delve intelligently into politics, a bit of a punk aesthetic…

But that's an illusion. Frank is a somewhat controversial figure in the United Kingdom, where society is still crushed by class-consciousness. Because unlike working class Billy, the Bard of Barking – the place, not the sound – Frank went to Eton on a scholarship. Along with Prince William. And unlike the solidly left wing Bragg, Frank's politics are complicated.

After his profile rise at the Olympics, ‘The Guardian' published some of his political thoughts, critical of both Labour and the Tories, and he received death threats in their hundreds.

Turner is something of a libertarian. He started in anarchist band Million Dead and part of what makes him so special is he retained their punk intensity when he started writing songs that were more informed by English folk music.

His first album, 2007's ‘Sleep is For the Week' is a very literate folk album, filled with ambitious songs but still uncertain. Its follow-up ‘Love Ire & Song' is wonderful: sharp, angry, positive and joyful, it only suffers for its obvious Billy Braggness.

Following that Turner really hit his stride. He found an individual voice and his crack four-piece band settled in. The brilliant ‘Poetry of the Deed' laid out both personal and political philosophy and album ‘England Keep My Bones' is a peerless exploration of what it means to be English. It was a song from that album called ‘I Still Believe' that landed him at the Olympics. And what a song! With brave naivety, he has the gall to write a song about 'believing in rock ‘n' roll”, usually a graveyard zone of clichéd nonsense.

But he makes it work. And when it gets to the soul-stirring coda – 'And I still believe in the sound that has the power to raise a temple and tear it down/And I still believe in the need for guitars and drums and desperate poetry/And I still believe that everyone can find a song for every time they've lost and every time they've won/So just remember folks we not just saving lives, we're saving souls, and we're having fun” – I defy anyone not to punch their fists in the air.

That's the best place to start with Frank Turner, even if he looks absolutely ridiculous singing it at the Olympics surrounded by dancing milkmaids and English villagers. Google it! But, go check him out – there is a wealth of wonderful music to be discovered.

watusi@thesun.co.nz

Facts about Frank

Frank Turner – A Beginner's Guide

Sleep is For the Week (2007) ***

Love Ire & Song (2008) ****

The First Three Years (2008) ****

Poetry of the Deed (2009) *****

England Keep My Bones (2011) *****

The Second Three Years (2011) ****

Tape Deck Heart (2013) ***

The Third Three Years (2014) ****