THE JAMM @ Cardiff Barfly, - Fri 18 Jun 04

Paul Weller & The Jam .....

One of the most surprising and memorable gigs of my career was while working

in Cardiff's then top live music venue, Gassy Jacks back in 1995. Gassy's had been a Cardiff family business and had previously received much press for persuading Tom Jones to do an impromtu 90 minute show there after his own show in the St David's Hall. Following it's acquistion by a National Brewery Chain a new manager & promoter were appointed and there the expertise disappeared. We were all really looking forward to a Jam tribute band one Saturday night and I was excited myself in eager anticipation of playing the accompanying punk classics - Clash, Buzzcocks, Pistols etc. Little did I realize how unscrupulous some greedy manager / club owners could be .. until the penny began to drop when at 8.45pm with 550 Jam fans in the venue getting rather impatient and no sign of the band, the manager came up to tell me they'd broken down on the M4. I thought at the time they would have been able to make that call at least a couple of hours earlier.

Luckily I'd brought all my old Jam vinyl just in case ... and I made the announcement apologising to the gathered audience but promising them The REAL Jam on vinyl instead - so I mapped out two 40 minute sets of all the Jam hits and best album tracks and low and behold we had a storming three hour punk and new wave singalong!

Amazed? You will be. I later discovered the band had not even been booked and it became apparent when other acts failed to arrive that this particular manager thought pretending he'd booked acts was his idea of a good ruse to get customers in the venue!

The experience of this night really underlined to me the importance of this music and how rare it is to find a nightclub or radio station who will play the punk and new wave records of the late 70's and early 80's and show them off in their best glory!

Paul Weller and The Jam (and the Style Council), created some of the most influential records ever made, yet when was the last time you heard anything but the obvious Going Underground on the radio. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I heard Going Underground on the radio. How can this be? Too many Australians and Americans running our radio stations - they weren't here when The Jam was King... Holy Boy Wonder Batman, 'Beat Surrender' would have been Christmas No.1 were it not for 'Renee & Renata's Save Your Love!'

Eton Rifles saw Paul's songwriting consciousness come of age, a biting incisive lyric, followed on the next single by the iconic Jam song, Going Underground. From 1980 to 1982, Weller was the antidote to that manufactured, bubblegum, contrived side of apparent cool, the post punk make-up of Adam & The Ants, which spawned the New Romantics. When the New Romantics Boy George & Wham took over if you wanted real life with your pop you'd head for Weller's reinvention, The Style Council. Money Go Round, what a song 8 minutes of blistering anti-establishment, anti capitalist venom! (Somehow it doesn't tally with a story I've heard about one of Paul's helpers taking a swig from his cola without permission and Paul charging him for it... but then again - life is full of conradictions!)

And d'you remember those bizarre Single Sleeve notes Paul started writing for his various singles and albums? For Example, here's the notes on the reverse of The Jam's final single "Beat Surrender". Anyways, here's a list of some of our faves 1 Funeral Pyre 2 Money Go Round 3 Untitled accoustic track from Cafe Bleu 4 Carnation 5 News Of The World 6 Absolute Beginners 7 Precious 8 You Do Something To Me 9 The Bitterest Pill 10 My Ever Changing Moods

Paul Weller's Official Site

The Official Jam Site

The Style Council Official