"Echoes down my track . . . "

 

16/50

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 19

A song that makes you think about life.

I'm nothing if not obvious:

This so easily could have been my choice of song for Day 11. Easily in my top five of songs of all time, but it has to be the demo version because that was the version that I first heard on the Snap compilation.

On this day in 1980 . . .

. . . saw the release of Sound Affects:

Maybe next year, I'll actually write a post about it.

A Crafty Cigarette – Tales of a Teenage Mod by Matteo Sedazzari (Zani Media 2015)

Luckily for my father Theo did not press charges for criminal damage. Later my mother explained to him about my father’s problem with Charlie Cairoli. Theo, being the wise man that he is, totally understood and told my mother that he was once in The Kinks for a brief time, as 2nd guitar and backing vocals. They did a gig in Acton, this was before they made it big, by the way. Theo broke his strings during a song and Ray Davies never called him again, or so he told my mother. Now Theo can’t listen to any records by The Kinks and has to leave the room the moment their music comes on. 

Shit, both Vinnie’s father and my father could have been huge stars, that’s quite depressing.

Ruth and Martin's Album Club by Martin Fitzgerald (Unbound 2017)

So, over to you Peter. Why haven’t you listened to it? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?????

What’s wrong with me is a puritanical desire to be serious, and an actual inability to take popular music seriously. I pretty much gave up listening to pop music round about the time Radio London (Big L, 266 on the medium wave band, not the BBC one) went off the air in 1967, and absolutely gave up soon after I crashed my motorbike in the late summer of 1969, an event that strengthened my wish to be serious.

I’d been listening to Tin Pan Alley, I can now work out, since about 1963 (Pick of the Pops on Sunday afternoons was eventually permitted by my boarding school headmaster who until then had insisted nobody could listen to the radio unless he could make his own set, which a couple of my schoolfellows did, so subverting the ban). So I was in on the beginning of it, and it was all catchy, memorable singles which quickly came and quickly went, and the waters closed over them. I don’t think anyone ever expected to hear them again once they’d dropped off the charts, and it was amazing how quickly singles vanished from the shops once they had stopped selling.

As a result, they’re great memory-joggers, instantly taking me back to certain long-ago moments. But most of them are pretty artless. I never thought it was anything more than an ephemeral pleasure, and I still don’t, though one or two singles, e.g. ‘We’ve Gotta Get Out of This Place’ and ‘Meet on the Ledge’, appealed to my gloomy instincts more than the rest.

The Jam - Snap! (1983)

Imposs-020

in the morning news

They just played the opening riff of The Jam's 'In The City' on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe'. The day won't get any weirder.

This song:

Punk Rock: An Oral History by John Robb (PM Press 2006)

Billy Bragg

We read about the Jam. We could relate to where Weller was coming from, so we went to see them and that transformed us. Whereas the Damned and the Sex Pistols seemed like they were like a parody, taking what the Eddie and the Hot Rods were doing and taking the piss - a bit like the Darkness now. The Jam, when we saw them at the Nashville Rooms, seemed to really mean it. Weller had the words ‘Fire and Skill’ on his amp. They had skinny ties and suits; they looked good. We thought they were part of that Wilko Johnson/Barry Masters white working-class suburban music scene, compared to the Pistols being art school tossers really. The Pistols’ fans also wore swastikas - that really pissed me off as well. I didn’t like that idea at all.

The Modfather: My Life With Paul Weller by David Lines (William Heinemann 2006)

Getting inside the Pavilion was like stepping into a furnace. The floor swam in warm beer and the air was thick with smoke. The noise from the chanting, baying crowd drowned out the support act - a skinhead poet who went by the name of Seething Wells. I could hardly believe it, I mean, putting on a poet to entertain The Jam Army? Then I got it. I got it right there and then what Paul was trying to do. He could have stuck anyone on as support and they wouldn't have survived the audience who were so desperate to see The Jam they would have even booed The Beatles off stage. Paul was also trying to make his audience see that by having someone as support come on and recite poetry, he was distancing himself from the 'Jam Army'. Seething Wells, however, was on fire. I don't mean he was on top form, I mean the man had been set alight. The record company were handing out album sleeves on the way in, and someone had set fire to one and sent it, flaming, spinning through the air, skimming the heads of the crowd like a fiery frisbee onto the stage where it caught the sleeve of his green bomber jacket and in precisely three seconds flat the thing went up like a bonfire. Seething was seriously seething and frantically tried to get his jacket off but it had started melting into him, a roadie ran on with a bucket of water and chucked it all over the poor fat poet and then Seething ran off - it was like a trip to the fucking circus - and then, from nowhere, John, Paul's dad, was on stage and a mighty, mighty cheer went up . . . 'For those of you sitting down at the back, please be upstanding for . . . The Jam! The place exploded.

'77 Sulphate Strip by Barry Cain (Ovolo Books 2007)

The Jam

Royal College of Art, London

It's a godawful small affair . . .

Stage as long as Platform six at Victoria station. Baggageless porters The Jam 40 feet apart and monitorless. Full house. Lights! The Tyla Gang before and the Cimarrons after.

An artless audience at the Royal College of Art show their appreciation of the white-soul boys up there on the stage with the huge Union Jack backdrop depicting the three moods The Jam take you through at a gig - red hot expanding into white heat, contracting into teenage blue.

In case you’ve forgotten, guitarist Paul Weller, bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler are The Jam. They are not, I repeat not a recycled Who. They write concise, contemporary songs like ‘ln The City’, ‘Bricks & Mortar' and 'I’ve Changed My Address’ enhancing the overall effect with a shrewd selection of old material 'Batman’, ‘So Sad About Us’ and ‘Midnight Hour'. The result? A well-equipped show; incisive, dynamic, piebald. Black suits, white lights, black ties, white shirts, black thoughts, white rock. They won't blow it now.

The Jam always come across as much younger than other bands, like Brian Kidd in a team of Bobby Charltons. They have the pace and the sneer - Paul Weller could hardly be described as ‘this smiling man’. He drinks but refuses to take drugs on the grounds that they are immoral, debilitating and, well, uncool. Drug-induced confidence is unnecessary for the cool dude that's Paul Weller. But he gets more hangovers that way.

Paul is cool because he's a man with a genuine talent who hasn't quite realised it yet. And that's when the good stuff comes.

Eton Trifles

Not a particularly good idea but a rather nice T shirt from the Philosophy Football crowd.

Update Afterthought

Wait up; if I post an image of the T shirt on the blog, does that mean I can also blag a free T-shirt?

Duly done. I'll have a large one, Bob.

PS - That's the General Election officially mentioned on the blog, btw.

Not a YouTube clip . . . but it is

The original mod, Marc Bolan, presenting and 'Jam' performing' All Around The World'

You still here?

"Who Played Left Back For The Clash?"

The 5P music blog gives the lowdown on the best album of 1980, and I get to make amends for forgetting to hat-tip them yesterday for the Costello/Party Party information.

PS - Why didn't I think of calling this blog, Marx and Irn Bru?

Out of Step, Out Of Time and Out of Breath

Paul over at Never Trust A Hippy Blog is taking a tube trip down memory lane with his recollections of seeing The Jam play live. Spawny get. I'm jealous as hell, and matters aren't helped when Will Rubbish gets in on the 'spawny get' payroll by mentioning that he's also got to see The Jam play live. I'm sure he told me one time that he didn't even like Paul Weller.

As much as I love The Jam now, I have to admit that I was never into them when they were still a going concern. Too young I guess, too pop inclined when they were at their peak, and I didn't have that older brother or older sister pushing their records my way, telling me why it was important that I listened to them (as I've mentioned before on the blog, my older sister was force feeding me Steve Wonder and The Bee Gees at this point. We've since reconciled.)

If anything I was a bit sniffy about them. Bands seem to be like football teams in those days, and for some reason I couldn't bring myself to like both The Jam and Culture Club at the same time (hangs head in shame). My loss, as I seem to remember feigning indifference to their last live performance on the first episode of The Tube, as if it wasn't a big deal. (takes that head that's hanging in shame and whacks it with a two by four).

Timing's everything in life, and four or five months after 'Beat Surrender' was the final Jam number one in the British charts, I was ranting and raving about 'Speak Like A Child', and poring over the album sleeve of 'Introducing The Style Council' as if it was the Communist Manifesto. It's that scene from 'Stardust Memories' all over again and I had to work my way backwards through Paul Weller's discography via the Snap compilation and then all the original albums around about the same time I thought Style Council's 'Our Favourite Shop' was the best thing since 'Cafe Bleu'.

That's enough rambling from me. To get back to Paul's original post; he makes the outlandish claim that 'Happy Together' is The jam's most underrated track. I beg to differ. Though it was a single, I still think that 'Absolute Beginners' was The Jam's most underrated track and the one that pointed to Weller's future with Style Council.

It also lays claim to having one of the funniest music videos I've ever seen. Funny in an unintentional sense. Look at Weller try to run in the video. Therein lies the mystery of why he had to pick up a guitar at such a young age. Jan Molby could have out sprinted him. Also explains the gulf between him and the other two. Looks like Rick and Bruce were the types that were picked first to play footie in the school playgrounds. Paul looks like he was stuck in goal a la Billy Caspar in Kes. Weller should have joined the SPGB when he was stil political in the 80s. He would have found a natural kinship in the old Islington Btanch.

What's that line from 'Funeral Pyre'?

"I could see the faces of those led pissing theirselves laughing . . ."

That would have been Rick, Bruce and the whole video crew for that day. Weller: Out of step, out of time and out of breath.

Hat tip to Will.

From The West Coast With Love

Looking for a jpeg for The Jam album, Sound Affects*, allowed me to stumble across this excellent early eighties mixtape selection from somebody working or interning or squatting (I don't know) at a Seattle based FM station called KEXP Radio.

Don't know if it's some sort of college radio station. If they're playing stuff like this, I'll have to check it out online sometime.

Of the 21 tracks listed, I have 12 of them and wouldn't mind adding at another 4 of them. One quibble I might have is that the original demo of The Jam's 'That's Entertainment' is better than the version that ended up on Sound Affects. But it's a minor point; it's like saying Charlie Nicholas was better than Lubo Moravcik. They were both brilliant for Celtic,so it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

So much easier snaffling someone else's playlist/mixtape than coming up with your own.

*Arguably one of my favourite album covers of all time. I think it's the contrasting colours.

Sweaty Palms

Best Top 5 ever? # 10 & 11 aren't bad either.

Sod all this Galloway/SWP bollocks. Some things are just much more important.

Solomon Grundy listened to P.I.L on Thursday

Once upon a time I had an idea for a music post, but I left it hanging.

Thankfully, the World Won't Listen Music Blog wasn't the shirker that I was, and came up trumps with an excellent series of downloads to cover everyday of the week.

Sunday and Wednesday are my favourite days of the week, but I would have also plumped for Monday if The Jam track of the same name had been included.

Apologies for being two and half months late in spotting these excellent downloads.

Friday's Playlist #11

For that cheeky bastard, Reidski. A resumption of an ongoing series:

The Jam, 'Absolute Beginners' (Snap)

Human League, 'Seconds' (Dare)

Billy Idol, 'Dancing With Myself'

The Pretenders, 'Message of Love' (Pretenders II)

The Associates, 'Message Oblique Speech' (Fourth Drawer Down)

The Passions, '(I'm in love with a) German Film Star'

Dexys Midnight Runners, 'Plan B' (Too-Rye-Ay)

Siouxsie and the Banshees, 'Love in a Void' (Once Upon A Time)

Japan, 'Visions of China' (Tin Drum)

Soft Cell, 'Entertain Me' (Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret)

Why 1981? Why not.

Update 11/11/ 22

I wish I'd picked a better Associates song. And what's the deal with picking that song by Billy Idol? Did I lose a bet?

Spotify Playlist Link.  

Off To A Good . . .

Many pizza slices ago when I got the Normblog treatment, I took the opportunity to cite Pandagon as one of my three favourite blogs, so it's only in keeping that I give a special mention to their new offshoot.

Panda Songs is that mp3 blog that I've always wanted but never had the bandwidth or the tech know-how to get it beyond the 'wouldn't it be nice' nope, no Beach Boys tracks on the imagined blog, before you ask stage.

It gets an especial mention 'cos unlike the rest of America, Amanda Marcotte succumbed to the charms of The Jam, and she has chosen their 1980 classic, Start - the one with the ripped off bassline from 'Taxman' - as her latest post to the blog.

I know that it isn't a big deal on one side of the Atlantic that 'Start' is readily available as a free download, but I'm not on that side.

Cheers.