VELVET THUNDER

Few would have imagined in the late 1970’s, watching three skinny guys in black suits and pencil ties, leaping about in the studio on Top of the Pops, The Jam would still be revered and have pride of place in the memories of so many fans who were just coming of age in the late seventies. But, such has been their enduring appeal, more than forty years after they split, that this book, written from the heart, captures the memories of many hundreds of fans who were there during the band’s rise to prominence and have stayed the course.

In their brief time together, The Jam scored four Number 1 hits, alongside 18 consecutive top 40 hits, and they released six studio albums which all sold well. Upon their splitting up, EMI re-released the band’s first fifteen singles and all entered the top 100 again. The band’s commercial success is matched only by the affection with which they are still held by fans. No other band from this era came close to equalling the phenomenon which became The Jam, except possibly The Police or The Stranglers. The Jam came up through punk but, with the quality of their songs, they would have made it irrespective of the times. In this sense, they were similar to The Police, another three-piece band who, by coincidence, were also led by a forceful, charismatic individual who was the main songwriter and who decided to break up his band a year after Weller broke up The Jam (and citing largely the same reasons: ‘we’ve reached our peak, let’s stop now before it all gets too embarrassing.’) The Jam and The Police are probably the last two bands who achieved major success as mainly singles bands, with releases spread over several years.

So, what was it about this band, one of many who came up during the Punk era, which has captured the imaginations of so many fans? The music was, of course, one of the main reasons. Their music embraced punk, and they played with high energy levels, channelling the mania of punk into songs which have stood the test of time… That’s Entertainment, This Is The Modern World, Eton Rifles, Going Underground, etc… but they could also play, and they had Paul Weller, who wrote songs which drew on his soul, Tamla and R&B influences. Plus, their melodic music was peculiarly English, and this resonated with fans, enabling them to earn a cult following at a time when English nationalism in its more extreme form was also being fermented by racist organisations like the National Front. Despite the political overtones in several of their lyrics, these were usually more subtle and less controversial than the lyrics of Jimmy Pursey, Sham 69, or Joe Strummer, The Clash. But they were also about style and clothes, in their mod suits, and this earned Weller the sobriquet ‘The Modfather,’ a title he’s still known by today.

What The Jam meant to many of their fans as succinctly espoused by Gary Crowley, one of the several hundred fans whose memories of seeing The Jam in Battersea, 1977, is contained here. He states ‘their songs captured the angst, not only of being a teenager at that time, they held up a mirror to the world we were living in.’ But the book isn’t just about fans’ memories, it starts from the band’s very origins in Woking, with Weller initially playing with other musicians until Buckler and Foxton joined. Right from the start, fans appreciated the approachability of the three musicians, with them happy to sign autographs (today, it’d be posing with fans for selfies!) – and all put together by an author who sadly never got to see The Jam onstage, the band splitting on his fifteenth birthday.

Old Etonian ex-Prime Minister David Cameron once said he really liked the song Eton Rifles, prompting Paul Weller to come back with, ‘what exactly was it about the song he didn’t understand?’

This is a book which can be read and enjoyed even by fans who might not necessarily be big Jam fans because, if there’s a particular band you’re really into, you follow them all over the place, buy the albums, the merch, follow them online, etc … you may well recognise yourself in amongst the few hundred whose memories are contained here, with stories about missed trains, queuing for tickets (less likely today when Ticketmaster has a stranglehold on buying concert tickets) eulogising about gigs, eating bad food and meeting kindred spirits along the way. And all bound together by the love of a particular band.