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Me
and my cousin would take the bus into Bradford City Centre
every Saturday afternoon to go record shopping with our
meager pocket money. Bradford was a great place for record
shops back then. The best of the bunch was Pearson’s
in John Street Market.
The manager was obviously smart and had cottoned onto
Punk. He’d done the basement out in lurid colors,
graffiti and UV lights. It was like a club and a bit scary
to venture into for a couple of 12 year olds. All the
older, ‘proper’ Punks used to hang out in
there and we used to shit ourselves to be honest. It was
one of those Rites of Passage type things. Going down
those steps was like going down into Dante’s Inferno.
We’d both been raised on Northern Soul (our aunties
and uncles were all Northern Soul disciples) but around
77 we had gotten really into Bowie, so most of our cash
went on catching up with his singles back catalogue. These
were usually those ex-jukebox 7’s without the middles,
purely because they were dirt cheap.
We both heard ‘In The City’ when it was played
in the store. We didn’t have the balls to ask the
Salesman what it was but ear-wigged a lad buying it. Woods
in Kirkgate was one of those really old fashioned shops
with listening booths, a bit of an hangover from the sixties,
so we legged it down there to get a better listen. We
just thought it was another one of those Punk songs and
didn’t really ‘get it’. Neither of us
bought it. |
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My
Cousin and me were both religious John Peel listeners
and I can’t really recall him playing a lot of The
Jam. I waited until ‘All Around The World’
came out before I bought into them, then obviously went
and bought ‘In The City’. I suppose it wasn’t
really until ‘Modern World’ that I became
a big fan though, and that’s because they covered
‘Sweet Soul Music’, which I already knew off
by heart. I remember being fascinated by the fact that
a ‘Punk’ band were covering it.
I think my fascination with The Jam was fuelled by the
fact that they were labeled Punk, dressed like Mods and
covered Soul standards. It was through the Jam that I
started to discover the sixties bands like The Small Faces,
Kinks and The Who, the fact that they were Soul fans made
me like them even more. It was that feeling that they
were doing something special that always came across,
and also that they didn’t really fit into any bracket.
Like Dexys Midnight Runners, they had that indefinable
attitude that basically said: ‘We’re The Jam,
take it or leave it.’
‘News of The World’ is probably my least favorite
of their early singles. The cover was crap as well and
I recall swapping it for ‘New Rose’ by The
Damned.
‘David Watts/A Bomb’ blew me away, without
doubt my favorite ever Jam song. I remember not knowing
where this mythical Wardour Street was, but I knew it
was somewhere I wanted to go. Nowadays I do most of my
boozing in Soho, and every time I turn onto Wardour Street
the song instantly starts playing in my head. That’s
the true mark of a classic I think. |
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Listening
to the singles nowadays I still marvel at how much anger
and passion went into them. I was brought up in
a big family of trade union activists so I instantly got
the politics. I thought Weller was a lyrical genius. ‘Tube
Station’ and ‘That’s Entertainment’
prove that he’s up there with Bowie, Lennon and
McCartney, Ray Davis and Morrissey when it comes to writing
from a very English perspective. You could never imagine
Jam song’s being sung in an American accent, which,
again, I think makes them very special.
I was really into The Style Council and believe ‘Our
Favorite Shop’ is one the most underrated albums
of all time. Listening to it now just brings bitter memories
of the Miners Strike flooding back. I’ve not followed
Weller’s solo career at all. ‘Wildwood’s’
the only solo album I’ve got of his. I prefer to
remember him as the angry young man from suburbia with
a huge chip on his shoulder and a Tootal scarf wrapped
round his neck singing ‘Eton Rifles’ on ‘
Top of The Tops.
Dean Cavanagh, Screenwriter |
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Blocky
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