Half An Hour Of Weller Remixed And Live At The Apollo

Paul Weller played The Apollo on Friday night, I was there courtesy of a ticket from a friend (who also took the photo in the middle, capturing the curving sweep of the Apollo's balcony rather beautifully). Weller and his band took the stage at eight thirty and played a two hour set, long standing guitarist Steve Craddock present and at the front and two drummers. The first few songs were largely drawn from recent albums, White Sky and Long Time from Saturn's Pattern from 2015, Cosmic Fringes from last year's Fat Pop, sounding tough and very Seventies, lots of guitar and rhythms. From The Floorboards Up, with its Wilco Johnson inspired riff, kept the tempo up. From there Weller dipped in and out of his back catalogue: a slightly ragged Headstart For Happiness; a lovely, low key Have You Ever Had It Blue?; the 90s single Hung Up; recent songs like Fat Pop and Village set against older solo ones like Stanley Road; a dip into the later period Style Council with It's A Very Deep Sea, a song which has aged unexpectedly well. The crowd, many of whom seem to have been out all day in the warmth of some Good Friday sunshine seem a little subdued at times- maybe some are just waiting for the hits or maybe too many beers have sapped the energy (not the two blokes near us who were ejected by the bouncers following a couple of scuffles with people around them).  

The run in towards the end of the set- a trippy version of Above The Clouds, the circling psychedelia of Into Tomorrow, a raspy Shout To The Top, the quickfire blast of Start! followed by full on guitar heroics of Peacock Suit and Brushed- demonstrate the riches in his cupboards, songs from different decades and different parts of his life all sounding like the work of one person, a lineage despite the stylistic differences each one had when first released. When they band return to the stage for the first encore Paul sits at the piano, the fluid, rolling Broken Stones followed by You Do Something To Me (not a favourite of mine I should add), a crowd pleasing That's Entertainment (a definite favourite of mine I should add) and then the slowed down, folk tinged shuffle of Wild Wood. The second encore is the two song punch of The Changing Man and A Town Called Malice, the Apollo's crowd now dancing and singing along in full voice. Weller's reputation as a prickly character and as a traditionalist (the Dadrock tag of the 90s sticks to him) is undeserved- his albums over the last ten years have been full of detours into krautrock, psychedelia, drones and noise and whatever The Style Council were, the weren't unadventurous. His band tonight are young (mainly) and give the songs a thumping (two drummers should do that) but they're delicate when required too. Paul Weller himself doesn't seem to have any less desire in his sixties than he had in his twenties, a man who just wants to get the songs out, get them written, recorded and played. 

For today's thirty minute mix I've pulled together some of the remixes of Weller's songs, drawn from the range of his solo career and taking in trip hop of Portishead, the crashing noise and thumping beats of Richard Hawley's take on Andromeda, some lovely widescreen Balearica courtesy of Leo Zero and Drop Out Orchestra (on Weller's own mid 2010's Balearic groove Starlite), some psychedelic adventures with Amorphous Androgynous and Brendan Lynch's still stunning psyched out/ dubbed out version of Kosmos from 1993 (a record Weatherall used to play as a set closer to fried minds at Sabresonic). 

Thirty Minute Paul Weller Remix Mix

• Wildwood (Portishead Remix)
• Andromeda (Richard Hawley Remix)
• No Tears To Cry (Leo Zero Remix)
• Aim High (The Higher Aim) (Amorphous Androgynous Remix)
• Starlite (Drop Out Orchestra Remix)
• Kosmos (Lynch Mob Bonus Beats)

This blistering Two Lone Swordsmen remix from 2000 didn't seem to fit in the mix, Weller sent to some place where Killing Joke and krauty- techno co- exist, but I though I should share it again anyway. It's never had an official digital release and when it came out in 2000 it was a white label 12" limited to just 75 copies worldwide. One of which sits is downstairs from where I type this. 

Heliocentric (Swordsmen 4UR Mix)

When You Led Me To The Water I Drank It

I'd be happy to see the back of the monarchy, it's an anachronism and has no place in a modern democracy- not that this particular country looks much like a democracy at the moment what with the sitting Prime Minister having been found guilty of breaking the law but refusing to resign and his party refusing to remove him. By doing this Johnson and his colleagues further trash standards in public life, erode trust in politics and politicians, and embody the entitled attitude that they, the ruling class, can do as they please and can ignore laws and lie about them with no consequence. Those who support him, who enable and excuse him are just as bad. The Constitution and the Ministerial code mean nothing if a Prime Minister with an 80 seat majority and a self serving Tory Party can ignore them and do as they please- the phrase I believe is elected dictatorship. All of this entitlement, inequality and subservience is endemic throughout the UK's political system, from the top down, and that includes the monarchy and the unelected House of Lords. But, if we must live in a kingdom, then a Kingdom of T- shirts is one I can get behind. 

Following on from the soul and funk of Dr. Rob's post on Wednesday I went back to The Chi- Lites, a group I discovered in the early 90s via this song...

Stoned Out Of My Mind

Stoned Out Of Mind was a 1973 single for The Chi- Lites, a Chicago soul group. It's one of those songs that exists completely in its own space, a lighter- than- air, horn led swooping song with a soaring falsetto vocal and some glorious backing vocal harmonies. A song of heartbreak you can dance to. 

John Holt covered it in the same year on his 1000 Volts Of Holt album, an uptown reggae take on the song, Holt's voice an octave or two lower than the original and the horns replaced by the skank. 1000 Volts Of Holt is apparently the best selling album on the Trojan label ever.

Stoned Out Of My Mind (Jamaican Mix)

In 1982 The Jam released their final single, Weller's triumphant goodbye to the group, Beat Surrender. On the 7" double pack Weller dropped some hints about the direction he intended to travel in next, a cover of Stoned Out Of My Mind sitting alongside Jam versions of Curtis Mayfield's Movin' On Up and Edwin Starr's War. On Stoned Out Of My Mind Weller pushes the horns upfront and sings in a softer voice while Rick and Bruce gamely find the groove.

Stoned Out Of My Mind

I'm going to see Paul Weller at the Apollo tonight, courtesy of a ticket from a friend to whom I am very grateful (after seeing John Cooper Clarke last night). Full gig reviews will follow.

It's A Dream I'll Always Hang Onto

The Jam were such a formative band for many people growing up in the late 70s and 80s, whether you were twelve or eighteen their songs, look, attitude and influences had a long lasting impact (Weller was especially adept at dropping clues for fans to follow from the poetry of Shelly to the music of The Who and the books of George Orwell). There's been some discussion at various internet places recently about their best album. For some it's Setting Sons, for others Sound Affects. I imagine there's a significant cohort of fans who'd go for All Mod Cons. There's a strong argument too that albums weren't necessarily the trio's strongest suit and that their singles show them at their best, from In The City in 1977 to Beat Surrender in 1982 and all points in between. Is there a poor Jam single? I don't think so. 

Looking at their singles it's pretty striking too that their B-sides were rarely anything below very good and some of them equal their A- sides. A compilation of Jam B-sides would trump many of their contemporaries singles and/ or albums. Some of the B-sides are covers, a showcase for Weller's influences and for paying homage to his inspirations- Disguises was the B-side to Funeral Pyre and So Sad About Us was on the flipside of Down In The Tube Station, both covers of songs by The Who. The Beat Surrender 7" double pack had covers of Stoned Out Of My Mind (The Chi- Lites) and Move On Up (Curtis Mayfield), both signposts for where he'd go next. Shopping, the lead B-side from Beat Surrender is a must for a Jam B-side compilation, swinging modern jazz done Jam style. Then there's The Butterfly Collector (Strange Town), the Syd Barrett whimsey of Liza Radley (Start!), The Great Depression (Just Who Is The 5 'o' Clock Hero?) Pity Poor Alfie/ Fever (The Bitterest Pill) and Smithers Jones (When You're Young). Not to mention the funk workout of Precious (officially a double A- side with A Town Called Malice). 

The two greatest Jam B-sides for me though are these two- Dreams Of Children and Tales From The Riverbank. Dreams Of Children, officially a double A-side but a mix up at the pressing plant did for that notion, is Weller in 1980 coming out of Setting Sons and hitting the button marked 'psychedelic'. The song came out of Weller asking for Setting Sons to be played backwards and recorded onto cassette. Listening to it he found an appealing, trippy section of Thick As Thieves (backwards) and this inspired the guitar riff for Dreams. The horns and Summer of '67 acid guitars poke through the dense production with Weller's lyrics lamenting the loss of childhood ambitions and innocence as a generation brought up on the 60s ideal of full employment were shunted into the late 1970s, three million unemployed and the cold reality of the policies of the Thatcher government. ' I sat alone with the dreams of children/ weeping willows and tall dark building... but woke up sweating in this modern nightmare/ I was alone, no one was there...'

Dreams Of Children

Tales From The Riverbank was the b-side to 1981's Absolute Beginners (there's another clue to follow, the novels of Colin McInnes). Tales From The Riverbank again mines the sound of English psychedelia, but this is slower and sleepier, the bassline drawing us in, Weller singing again of the loss of freedom we enjoy as children, the days he spent in the fields and meadows near Woking- 'true is the dream/ mixed with nostalgia/ but this is the dream that I'll always hang onto/ that I'll always run to/ won't you join me by the riverbank'- while his guitar is beamed in via George Harrison circa Revolver.

Tales From The Riverbank

The Place I Love

Forty years old this year, this song dropped back into my life recently, a young Paul Weller's rumination on place, identity, home and belonging. Tucked away in the middle of side two of All Mod Cons it can easily be overshadowed by its surroundings- A Bomb In Wardour Street and Down In The Tube Station At Midnight follow it- but its one of those songs which seems quintessentially Weller. Ray Davies is there in the lyrics and Motown in the music but no one else could have written these words at that point. It's also one of the few songs on All Mod Cons that is written in the first person (most of the songs on All Mod Cons are third person and observational). Home and place are topics he's come back to throughout his career but in some ways he said it all here and best in 1978, in two minutes fifty-four.

The Place I Love

Days Of Speed And Slow Time Mondays

That's Entertainment always strikes me as a bank holiday song, easily singable in a beer garden on a rare early May Day of sunshine, pub jukebox cutting through the TV sport and noise. Paul Weller admits to writing it drunk, home from the pub, in half an hour and it's easy to picture- once a couple of lines of the lyric came to him and the rhythm was there in his head, it must have just poured out. He even manages to make the 'two lovers missing the tranquillity of solitude' line work in among the urban and suburban poetry. Each line could describe a British bank holiday too from the screaming siren of the police car to feeding the ducks while wishing you were far away, from a kick in the balls to cuddling a warm girl and smelling stale perfume. Weller and The Jam at their best, although the demo version off Snap! always sounds better than the re-recorded one on Sound Affects.

That's Entertainment (Demo Version)

Things Can Only Get...

Election day, 7th May 2015. I've been thinking a lot about how to vote. In almost all of the elections I've voted in since turning eighteen in 1988 I've voted Labour. Like many people the Labour party haven't endeared themselves to me quite as much in recent times. I'm pretty envious of our Scottish friends who have an actual, meaningful alternative to voting Labour in the shape of the SNP, and the same is true in Wales. I would like to vote for a left wing political party- a party who put social justice above narrow personal self interest, who aren't contributing to paranoid, stoked up fears about immigration, who will fund the NHS and who will support those less well off. You could suggest at this point that this option does exist for me and that I should vote Green. Which has crossed my mind. However I think when I go to the polling booth tonight I shall mark my cross against the name of the Labour party candidate. The bottom line, to my mind, has to be to get rid of the Tories, to vote this shower of shits out of office and I think that voting Labour is the most effective way to do that.

That brings up the dangerous question of voting Lib Dem tactically (and we can all see where that got us last time- the Lib Dems propping up a nasty right wing clique of bankers and ex-public school boys). Fortunately not a problem round here, the Lib Dems trail well off in third but some people may have to make that choice.

In 1997 after nearly twenty years of Conservative government the Labour party had the wind behind them and optimism in front of them. They appropriated D Ream's pop-house anthem Things Can Only Get Better. I quite liked it until that point. Right now, I'm not sure if things can only get better but if we get five more years of what we've just had then things will get a lot worse.



David Cameron (part time punk, Eton mod and class warrior) has stated before that The Eton Rifles is one of his favourite songs. Eton Rifles is a bile-fuelled invective against public school boys (from Cameron's old school) spitting and jeering at unemployed miners marching from Jarrow to London set to a piledriving post punk tune. As Paul Weller said 'which part of it didn't he get?'

Live on Something Else in 1979 (the same episode Joy Division were on).

Le Tour (En Derbyshire)

I cycled up to a few miles east of Glossop yesterday to watch the Tour de France as it dipped out of Yorkshire and into Derbyshire. The Tour passing within twenty-five miles of my front door was too good an opportunity to resist and it was a lovely day for a ride. In fact I sunburnt my wrists. An hour before the cyclists shoot along a cavalcade of sponsors' vehicles pass along the route throwing out freebies (caps, Haribos, lighters etc). These four Miffys made me smile.

I took this photo moments before the leaders hurtled past- I was on a hillside right by a hairpin bend. You can see everyone in the picture turning their heads to the left as the leaders and then the peloton appeared out of nowhere. Six helicopters buzzed above us. At this point I wondered if I had enough time to both take a photo and watch the riders. Three seconds or so later they had gone, Kittel in yellow tucked in the back of the peloton. A couple of stragglers came past, then the team cars, and that was it. Gone in a flash. Whooosh. Still, brilliant to have seen it, however briefly.

Italian rider Vincenzo Nibali took the stage and le maillot jaune. I didn't take this picture- I pinched it off the internet. Originally I had been planning to go to Sheffield to see the end of the race but plans changed and I cycled home just in time to see the climax on the tv.

I'm feeling a little uninspired with music to post at this exact moment. Here's The Jam with today's song.

Monday

Puts Up The Closed Sign Does The Man In The Corner Shop

Man In The Corner Shop was on side two of The Jam's 1980 album Sound Affects although I should think I heard it first on Snap! The lyrics had a deep impact on me, possibly the first time I kind of understood that pop songs could be about something important. Paul Weller's 'Marxism for beginners in three minutes' still affect me today, even though I know them off by heart.

Puts up the closed sign does the man in the corner shop 
Serves his last and says goodbye to him 
He knows it is a hard life 
But it's nice to be your own boss really 
Walks off home does the last customer 
He is jealous of the man in the corner shop 
He is sick of working at the factory 
Says it must be nice to be your own boss (really) 
Sells cigars to the boss from the factory 
He is jealous is the man in the corner shop 
He is sick of struggling so hard 
He says "It must be nice to own a factory" 
Go to church do the people from the area 
All shapes and classes sit and pray together 
For here they are all one 
For God created all men equal

Man In The Corner Shop

It's a song that stands out musically on Sound Affects, with a chiming intro, 60s chords and middle eight, and powerful finish. I listened to the full album the other day. I'm not sure it's a 'great album', more a collection of songs recorded at the same time. Many of them are good but too similar in tone,Weller moving on from All Mod Cons and trying to absorb Gang Of Four's clipped guitars, while the rhythm section stretch out a bit. That's Entertainment and Start! are both career defining. There's some experimental pop-art. But Man In The Corner Shop (and That's Entertainment as well) seem to be the moral and human heart of the record.

True Is The Dream

'... mixed with nostalgia, but it's a dream that I'll always hang on to, that I'll always run to, won't you join me by the riverbank?'

This semi-psychedelic love letter to his childhood in the fields of Surrey is a song I never get tired of and shows Mr Weller, even as the sharp mod and angry young man of the early 80s, could hit the nostalgia button as well as the next man. Especially when childhood is compared to the travails of adult life- 'now life is so critical, life is too cynical, we lose our innocence, we lose our very soul'



Wonderful stuff. And not a million miles in tone and tune from his solo comeback (as the shortlived Paul Weller Movement) in 1992, Into Tomorrow. At one point I saw the 12" of this in Vinyl Exchange for £40. I was one of the few who bought it when it came out.

When You're Young

When You're Young is one of The Jam's finest moments, with Paul Weller dispensing hard-won wisdom (from the grand old age of 22 or something, youth becoming relative the older you get) -'the world is your oyster but your future's a clam, it's got you in it's grip from before you're born, you think you're a king but you're really a pawn'. There's something about the music that's very democratic too- guitar, bass and drums all equal in the mix and the dynamics. Then the hair raising breakdown followed by 'you used to fall in love with everyone..... any guitar and any bass drum'. 



The other thing about it is the video- the kids, passers-by and members of the public, all look pretty much exactly how I remember 1979-80 looking. Except without The Jam miming on a bandstand. Never saw that happen.

I saw a striped blazer just like the one Weller's wearing in this video recently, reduced but still pricey. Was tempted I have to say.

You Can't Switch Off The Sun

One of my favourite Jam tracks to open August- So Sad About Us was the B-side to 1978's Down In The Tube Station At Midnight, a cover of a Who song and tribute to the Who's Keith Moon who was pictured on the back of the sleeve and who had recently died.

So Sad About Us

The Jam 'A Solid Bond in Your Heart'

This song first appeared officially when Extras was released in the early 90s, a mish-mash of B-sides, unreleased songs, demos, alternate versions and the previously unavailable. A Solid Bond In Your Heart was The Style Council's fourth single, and was apparently in the running for The Jam's last single, but instead Weller held it back for his new band and he went for Beat Surrender. This version is interesting enough, lacking The Style Council's slicker production and featuring Rick and Bruce's more rocky, less soulful skills. I really like this version, but I like The Style Council's too. Can we hear Weller's frustrations with the straight ahead rock sound of The Jam, and the rhythm sections lack of swing? Maybe I'm imagining it.

A Solid Bond in Your Heart.mp3

The Jam 'Ghosts'

This may be pushing it after having two posts removed yesterday, and this song being on a major label, and Mr. Weller having a reputation for being a bit narky about stuff like this, but anyway...

It's funny how the internet works- I wasn't planning to post this song. I was at The Vinyl Villain where a day or two ago he posted Absolute Beginners by The Jam (a Canadian e.p. release trivia fans), and the video for When You're Young (one of my favourite Jam songs). So I watch the video and fall into a Youtube time-hole, resurfacing 40 minutes later having watched some Jam videos, some Style Council videos, and some good footage of The Jam playing a Danish pop show to promote their final album The Gift, including this song Ghosts. The Gift gets overlooked out of all The Jam's albums, and it's maybe got a couple of clunkers but any record with this song, Carnation, Happy Together, Running On The Spot, and A Town Called Malice on it can't be too shabby. I think this is one of Weller's best- definitely stretching their sound out with horns and fewer guitars. He walked away from The Jam shortly after, the biggest band in the country, not yet aged 25. Extraordinary. Sharp dressed man too.

And I havn't once used the phrase Modfather... duh



24 Ghosts.wma