FEATURE:
To Be Someone (Didn’t We Have a Nice Time)
The Jam's All Mod Cons at Forty-Five
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ALTHOUGH fans of The Jam…
IN THIS PHOTO: The Jam (from left to right: Bruce Foxton, Rick Buckler, Paul Weller)/PHOTO CREDIT: Ebet Roberts/Redferns
would argue which of their studio albums is the best, few can deny that All Mod Cons was a big step forward. Released on 3rd November, 1978, I wanted to look ahead to the forty-fifth anniversary. One of the best British albums ever, it was produced by Vic Coppersmith-Heaven. 1977’s This Is the Modern World got some good reviews - though it was largely seen as a disappointment by many critics. The third album from The Jam saw everything click into place. All Mod Cons was when Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler released into the world their first major work. You can buy All Mod Cons on vinyl. Mature, confident and assured, The Jam had definitely moved up and were in stunning form. Classics like Down at a Tube Station At Midnight, English Rose, David Watts, All Mod Cons and ‘A' Bomb in Wardour Street rank alongside the finest songs that The Jam ever recorded. I want to get to a couple of features about All Mod Cons. Last November, Udiscovermusic. highlighted an album that announced The Jam as one of the most essential and influential bands of their generation:
“Unlike contemporaries such as Sex Pistols and The Clash, The Jam initially spent several years honing their craft on the small club circuit, so when they burst onto the scene early in 1977, they blazed with passion and purpose. In just five short years, with albums the likes of In The City, All Mod Cons and Sound Affects, the group spearheaded a mod revival that still reverberates today.
Seemingly at odds with punk’s “Year Zero” mentality, the Rickenbacker-wielding, Surrey-based trio didn’t immediately slot in with their peers. Though acceptably loud and aggressive, the band’s music openly betrayed their collective love of mod-inclined forbears The Who and The Kinks, while their sharp black stage suits were anathema to young punks sporting safety pins, ripped T-shirts, and bondage trousers.
Nonetheless, the kids dug The Jam from the word go. After the band signed to Polydor Records, their debut LP, In The City, rose briskly to No.20 in the UK charts in May 1977; its swift follow-up, November ’77’s This Is The Modern World, climbed to No.22 and went silver. Yet while This Is The Modern World was superficially a success, it was largely savaged by the press and, during the first half of 1978, The Jam were plunged into crisis. Frontman and primary songsmith Paul Weller was struck down with writer’s block, while Polydor rejected the band’s next set of demos. After Weller eventually finished a fresh batch of songs, The Jam were forced to complete their third LP, All Mod Cons, with engineer Vic Coppersmith-Heaven, after producer Chris Parry was sacked during the fraught initial sessions.
Triumph ultimately sprang from adversity, however, and fans bagged an exciting preview of the imminent All Mod Cons when the LP’s superb lead single, “Down In The Tube Station At Midnight,” was released in October 1978. Buoyed by an intricate Bruce Foxton bassline and Weller’s vivid, narrative-style lyric bemoaning the rise in right-wing violence, the song was effectively The Jam’s first truly great 45 and it rapidly re-introduced the band to the British Top 40, where it peaked at No.15.
Issued just weeks later, on 3 November 1978, the pivotal All Mod Cons more than fulfilled “… Tube Station”’s promise. Tracks such as “‘A’ Bomb In Wardour Street” and the caustic, stardom-related “To Be Someone (Didn’t We Have A Nice Time)” were laced with the band’s hallmark nostril-flaring aggression, but this was tempered by a rapidly flourishing maturity in Weller’s songwriting abilities, which ensured that The Jam could now deliver material as brave and diverse as the Revolver-style psychedelia of “In The Crowd,” the bittersweet “It’s Too Bad” and the wistful, Nick Drake-esque “English Rose.”
Championed by fans and critics alike, the album hit Gold status, shot to No.6 in the UK Top 40, and scooped the New Musical Express’ prestigious Album Of The Year award. Its success was integral to The Jam outstripping punk and embarking on a lengthy tussle with the mainstream which, a mere 18 months later, yielded their first British No.1, courtesy of “Going Underground”.
I will come to some reviews of the mighty All Mod Cons. Whist many might name 1979’s Setting Sons as the best album The Jam ever released, All Mod Cons usually comes in the top three. The improved songwriting and the range of sounds and emotions that one hears on All Mod Cons means that it held in high esteem. It is clear that The Jam were close to splitting after This Is the Modern World. Paul Weller was apathetic and the band were being written off as a one-hit wonder. A Punk band without stamina, this criticism and pressure almost spurred The Jam onto proving themselves. All Mod Cons instantly made an impression. Maybe inspired by Ray Davies and his observational, character-driven songwriting, this source of influence means All Mods Cons is the rich and relevant album that is as important today as it was in 1978. I am going to move on to CLASH. It is amazing that The Jam managed to produce something as incredible as All Mod Cons following the disappointing reaction to This Is the Modern World. Weller departing London and going back to his hometown. The promises and perceived glamour of London was not all it cracked up to me. Maybe the quiet and lack of opportunities outside of London were frustrating:
“In 1978, to a backdrop of tribal youth cultures and economic crisis, The Jam answered years of snobbish disregard from the London-based punk elite when their aggressive and melodic sound, previously sneered at by the capital’s hip art school set, came of age with the release of their third album, ‘All Mod Cons’.
By 1978 The Jam had released two albums of R&B-infused teenage punk to transient acclaim. Their debut ‘In The City’ had hit a real nerve with the new wave of mod kids, however their weak second album, ‘This Is The Modern World’ was met with a frosty reception by the music press. This scathing reaction shook main man Paul Weller and sent the band into a period of severe creative drought. Hoping the location would provide inspiration, Polydor hired an isolated country house to record the third album. Unfortunately the fresh air left little impression on the cappuccino-loving Weller and the new material drew a blank with the label.
Taking the opinion of Polydor to heart and realising that the glamorous mythology of London perhaps wasn’t all that great, Weller, the band’s principal songwriter and spokesman, left the buzz of London for his hometown of Woking to ponder their next step. The unchanged landscape recalled the life he had left behind; crumbling brick walls and empty chip shops, romantic teenage lovers under streetlights, the pouring of rain and the missing of buses. In the face of the transparency of the London scene these places and memories, although only half-formed, seemed real and true. This hazy nostalgia added a touch of whimsy to Weller’s songwriting, which referenced directly the innocence of English psychedelia.
Reunited with engineer Vic Coppersmith-Heaven the band progressed from their early Who arrangements, delving deeper into their beloved Sixties and finding massive resonance with the innovative recording techniques pioneered by George Martin and The Beatles. Coppersmith-Heaven introduced the band to double-tracking and phasing, adding to the psychedelic feel of the lyrics on the tender ode to love ‘It’s Too Bad’. This dreamy sentimentality is continued on ‘English Rose’. With its opening sounds of a tugboat and the tide splashing against the sand, it is a stripped-down acoustic track using finger-picking to accompany a personal and tender lyric that demonstrates the depth of feeling and maturity to Weller’s thoughts at the time. This level of reflection enabled him to look inward, adding depth, pathos and luxury to his songwriting.
As a consequence the lyrics became more like narratives, telling fly on the wall stories laced with emotion about the unnoticed subtleties of life. Influenced by The Kinks’ Ray Davies, Weller developed a third person commentary, honing a talent for narrative and storytelling. ‘All Mod Cons’ advances this notion in its creation of nameless characters moulded in the current issues of the day. In ‘Mr. Clean’ Weller mockingly parodies the rat race and capitalism backed by a tight rhythm section flirting with psychedelic phasing. Equally as studied, ‘Billy Hunt’ is a small-town reactionary pissed off with low-wages, shit pubs, and the limitations of a working class boy in Thatcher’s Britain.
From its Sixties-influenced inner sleeve to the beauty of effects-drenched compositions like ‘The In Crowd’ and the lyrical perfection of ‘The Place I Love’, ‘All Mod Cons’ was the starting point in a journey that would see The Jam become one of the most revered bands of all time. The albums that were released in its wake saw Weller take the band on a diverse route to the very top of the music industry that he so despised. Petrified of complacency and always applying the mod ethos of never looking back and always progressing, Weller presented a new sound or idea for each further album before breaking up the band at the very peak of their powers, amid mass media hysteria and fans dependant on their mythology tearfully grieving their loss.
Although their ideas strengthened in its wake, never again were they as tight, incisive and fresh as on ‘All Mod Cons’, the album for which they will always be remembered and whose influence is plastered all over the sound of this decade”.
I am going to finish off now. Uncut spoke with Paul Weller in 1998. Twenty years after All Mod Cons was released, Weller was reflecting on his career and time with The Jam. It is clear that Weller, when writing All Mod Cons, had unlocked something inside of him:
“All Mod Cons was enthusiastically received. Could you feel your songwriting improving?
"Yeah, I could. I'd found my feet. Modem World was a low point. You make your first album - basically, it's your live set. It took about 10 days to record. All of a sudden, we'd used our 10 songs and you've been out on the road and you've got to sit down and write another album. Which we did, the same year - and it shows. But it didn't happen. It was . . . what's the word I'm looking for? 'Shit ! It was shit. I had to sit back and going to let this slide or fight back against it?' I had to prove my worth, sort of, 'This is it.'"
You had a steady girlfriend - Gill Price -by this point. Was that stability important? "I think it's totally separate."
Had you started to move away from the other two in The Jam?
"Well, I fell in love. All of a sudden, that person becomes your world, you know, so you don't hang out with your mates any more. [Pause]. But I wouldn't say any of that had a bearing on my work."
Did that distance give you the space to create? "Nah. More like, 'Fuck, I'm going to prove myself.'"
To critics, to your audience, or just to yourself?
A bit of all of that. But to myself, mostly. I've often been good at that, when my back's against the wall. It's like self-pride. A belief that I am still fucking good and I can do it."
"English Rose" was the first punk ballad. Quite a brave step?
"It was at the time, because we hadn't done anything like that."
How did it go down at gigs?
"We never played it live. I had enough fuckin' trouble recording it-it had quite a few tricky chords. I can actually remember recording it. No drums or bass, just me and an electric guitar. I was very self-conscious singing those kind of open words. It was very revealing. Like bearing your soul a bit."
Was that the first time you did that?
"Yeah. There were even some seagull noises on it-1 needed something to hide behind."
An early glimpse of the solo Paul Weller?
"I suppose so."
Is it a shock to hear that "version" of yourself 20 years on?
"No, not so much a shock because I feel comfortable with that part of me as well. Some of the lyrics make me cringe because they're so youthful. Naive idealism? Yeah, but I can appreciate it. It was that age, written for that moment. That state of mind." "A-bomb In Wardour Street" was pretty apocalyptic. "It was quite a violent time. There were always fights at gigs. You were guaranteed it was going to kick off at the end of the gig. Even walking around London was a violent thing at the time."
In December, 1977, Weller was alleged to have glassed a bloke's face in the bar of Leeds' Hilton Hotel. He turned out to be the Australian rugby team's manager. Said team proceeded to beat "seven shades of shit" out of Bruce Foxton: Weller spent the night in the cells.
Did you ever get attacked on the street like Johnny Rotten did?
"Not so much, but there were times we come close to it. At gigs, beer mugs would come at you -that's if people liked you People would spit on stage and all that bollocks "
You didn't like that?
"No, I wasn't that keen, really."
Did the public think you were more like them than your Strummers and Rottens?
"Yeah, and they were right, we were. I think also, by the same token, the press - it was easier for them to get into The Clash because there was an intellectual side, like fuckin' Lenin, or. . . know what I mean" And I could only quote Lennon'
"We were the real deal, though, I think. Without hyping it all up, we were three suburban, pretty green, ordinary people."
The People's Band?
"It was a people's band. I know it's dodgy ground when you say those things because it sounds a bit pretentious, but it's fuckin' true And there was always that feeling at gigs, man. That we weren't all that dissimilar to our audience."
You would always talk to your fans, let them come back stage.
"It was great at first, because we was popular - we'd started to take off. Then all of a sudden there were 100 people outside after the gig, and then there were 500. I kind of retracted from that point. Put up a wall a little bit It was a bit freaky for me I thought it was kind of a bit odd. We was trying to say, We're the same as you.' But once something blows up big . . . one of my aunty's friends was saying something about how in Hendrix's day they used to speak to people afterwards, but I was saying to her, 'You forget there were only about 60 people at his gigs in them days What about when it's 6,000?' It gets increasingly difficult”.
I think there is some context and useful insight from Paul Weller. On 3rd November, we celebrate forty-five years of this brilliant album. If some of the press had written The Jam off in 1977, a renaissance and resurrection happened. Few would doubt them again. Such a timely and important album that so many people reacted to, it is no surprise that it has endured and still speaks truth. The Winter of Discontent was the period between November 1978 and February 1979 in the country where we saw widespread strikes by private, and later public, sector trade unions demanding pay rises greater than the limits Prime Minister James Callaghan and his Labour Party government had been imposing. At such a turbulent and tough time for the U.K., The Jam released this album that talked about politics, class struggle, and the far-right. In some ways, All Mod Cons is relevant and timely…
IN whole new ways.