There was a request in the comments section for the LP version of today’s TSC single.
Ask me, I won’t say no, how could I ?
mp3 : The Style Council – The Lodgers
Enjoy.
Category: Style Council
The success of Our Favourite Shop made the release of a third single somewhat inevitable, but to be fair to the band they tried to offer fans something a wee bit different.
Which is why album favourite The Lodgers was given a fresh recording while the live sound of the band was captured to a fair degree for the b-sides. All told, 23 minutes of music were made available on the 12″ version of the single which in effect was almost like half-an-LP:-
mp3 : The Style Council – The Lodgers (extended version)
mp3 : The Style Council – The Big Boss Groove (live)
mp3 : The Style Council – Move On Up (live)
mp3 : The Style Council – Money Go Round/Soul Deep/Strength Of Your Nature medley (live)
mp3 : The Style Council – You’re The Best Thing (live)
I was quite excited at the prospect of the release, partly as the band had been an exciting force on the couple of occasions I’d caught them live. Sadly, it all turned out to be a bit flat. The re-worked version of the single wasn’t a patch on the album version while the live tracks, recorded in Liverpool and Manchester, just didn’t seem to capture the energy and force that I’d witnessed in Glasgow.
None of which stopped the single reaching a very respectable #13 in the UK singles charts in September 1985.
The second album from The Style Council had been released to a fair amount of critical acclaim in May 1985. Our Favourite Shop also proved popular with the record buying public and in fact reached the #1 spot, albeit for one week only. It was an incredibly diverse LP in terms of sound with elements of pop, soul, funk, rap, jazz and the spoken word all to the fore at various times. The credits for the record show that in addition the regular four Councillors, there were three other guest vocalists (including the comedian Lenny Henry) with eighteen other musicians receiving one or more performance credits.
It was an ambitious and sprawling work with not all that many really obvious candidates for radio-friendly singles, and therefore it was always going to be interesting to see what was going to be the follow-up to the catchy and splendid Walls Come Tumbling Down.
Very few of us would have put money on it being Come To Milton Keynes.
For starters, it’s a strange old tune with a number of changes in pace and tempo. There’s no killer chorus and there’s all sorts of different instrumentation on the record including what appears to be a harp over an incomprehensible spoken word section towards the end. The lyric is a bit garbled and there’s a few bad puns included, none of which would have made much sense to folks outwith the UK. Oh and there’s also the fact that a number of radio stations shied away from it as there was a bit of a media controversy over the title and the subject matter of the lyric.
mp3 : The Style Council – Come To Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes is synonymous with the sort of developments that Paul Weller had attacked during his days with The Jam via The Planner’s Dream Goes Wrong which appeared on The Gift. It was one of the few places that was economically booming in the early-mid 80s thanks to it being able to offer all sorts of economic incentives to businesses and industries, and almost as if it to rub other’s noses in it, the town fathers embarked on a marketing campaign that extolled many virtues under the slogan of ‘Come To Milton Keynes’.
The songwriter thought it was all based on a false premise and penned a lyric which basically said the town, far from being an idyllic spot, had more than its fair share of social problems which couldn’t be masked by lovely new houses and amenities. Indeed, the perceived intention of the strange tune was ‘to create a musical pastiche which matched the supposed artificiality of Milton Keynes itself.’
As is always the case when any sort of artist has an attack on a particular community, the local politicians and residents are whipped up into a frenzy by the media and the band was warned to stay away. In an effort to defuse things, Paul Weller used a BBC interview, when offered the opportunity to explain the song’s meaning, to say it was about much more than this particular corner of England:-
“It was more about the new towns, the fact we used Milton Keynes is neither here not there. They’re up in arms about it apparently, but big deal, you know. It’s more about the way Britain’s values are changing and us as a race are changing as well, I think, and the kind of materialistic values we seem to have adopted, quite American I think.”
All of which saw the song stall at #23, the first by the band (if you exclude The Council Collective effort) to not reach at least #11 in the singles charts.
It was released on 7” and 12”. The common b-side was a rather exquisite love song with a catchy and lovely tune that was tailor-made for daytime radio and would have made a fine single. And yet, it hadn’t even made the cut for the album
mp3 : The Style Council – (When You) Call Me
It’s the 7” version of the single I have in the cupboard and so that’s all I can offer today.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that White Riot had been written as a call-to-arms for disaffected youth in the UK. Eight years on, and the disaffection was still there – indeed it was increasing all the while thanks to a government whose policies were not of the caring, sharing variety. Paul Weller‘s increasing frustration with young people not willing to engage in the political process on the basis that ‘they’re all the same aren’t they?’ or ‘it’s only one vote for me and that ain’t gonna bring about change is it?’ led to him penning the lyrics to Walls Come Tumbling Down with such lines as
“Are you gonna realise the class war’s real and not mythologised?’
mp3 : The Style Council – Walls Come Tumbling Down
It was released as a single in May 1985 and its jaunty radio-friendly tune, combined with a high-profile promotional campaign with appearances on all sorts of TV shows, helped it crash into the charts at #13 after which a TOTP appearance helped climb to its highest position of #6. The fact that it dropped down the charts afterwards rather quickly was perhaps an indication that mixing pop and politics wasn’t helping the band find any new audiences. But that didn’t stop the main man continuing to get on his soap box and promise that many of the songs that had been penned for inclusion on the second LP would further attack the unfairness of life under the Thatcher government.
As it turned out, the song’s lyrics became a bit of prophesy for what would happen over the next few years in Eastern Europe with the collapse of one totalitarian dictatorship after another and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. Indeed, Annie Nightingale, in her final show of the decade which celebrated some of the best and most popular songs of the 80s dedicated it to everyone in Germany whose lives had clearly changed forever more.
There were three quite different songs on the b-side of the 12″
mp3 : The Style Council – Spin’ Drifting
mp3 : The Style Council – The Whole Point II
mp3 : The Style Council – Blood Sports
The first is by far the weakest of the tracks with a bland tune set to sixth-form lovelorn poetry while the last is an acoustic and angry attack on those who supported hunting in the UK countryside and provided further evidence of Weller’s willingness to pen political material of a very personal nature.
The Whole Point II however, is something really powerful and disturbing. The tune was first used on the Cafe Blue LP with a lyric that attacked the political classes in the UK. This updated and very sad version is from the perspective of someone who is contemplating suicide by jumping into the sea…….
The lyrics have undoubtedly aged Walls Come Tumbling Down, but it is a cracking tune that demands to be danced to.
Enjoy.
(And so to the second posting of the day, held over from last week)
Is it or isn’t it?
Technically, it’s a single by The Council Collective, but the a-side is a Weller/Talbot composition and it is in effect The Style Council supplemented by guest vocalists (Jimmy Ruffin, Junior Giscombe and Vaughan Toulouse) as well as guest musicians (Dizzi Heights and Leonardo Chignoli). Oh and Martin Ware was involved in the production and mixing.
As the rear of the sleeve explains:-
The aim of this record was to raise money for the Striking Miners and their families before Xmas but obviously in the light of the tragic and disgusting event in South Wales resulting in the murder of a Cab driver, some of the monies will also go now, to the widow of the man.
We do support the miners strike but we do not support violence. It helps no one and only creates further division amongst people.
This record is about Solidarity or more to the point – getting it back! If the miners lose the strike, the consequence will be felt by all the working classes. That is why it is so important to support it. But violence will only lead to defeat – as all violence ultimately does.
The single was released at the end of 1984 but proved to be the band’s poorest selling record thus far, stalling at #24 in the UK charts. This was likely down to a combination of it not getting as many radio plays as previous singles (the stations being disinclined to mix pop and politics….well for the time being!!), that some of the natural fan base weren’t as politically inclined as Paul Weller had thought and sadly, just the fact that it wasn’t all that good a song. But in 1984, reaching #24 in the singles chart would have meant tens of thousands of sales and so decent enough amounts of monies will have been raised:-
mp3 : The Council Collective – Soul Deep (12″ version)
Here’s the b-side:-
mp3 : The Council Collective – A Miner’s Point
It is a fascinating piece of social history. It is a near 17-minute long spoken piece in which Paulo Hewitt interviews two striking miners. I say fascinating, but it is also very sad. These two quietly spoken men are determined to see things through and firmly believe that they are going to win. They articulate very well their reasons for taking such action and while critical of those who are still working, they hold out olive branches to all concerned. That it didn’t work out as they hoped or anticipated makes it in fact that rare artefact – history as recounted by the eventual losers.
The b-side is also listed as a Weller/Talbot composition – I’m assuming this is as much to do with the payment and collection of royalties (and subsequent donations to the causes) as anything else.
Oh this seems to be a good way of lifting the black cloud that’s been hanging above this blog for a few days.
The next single from TSC to feature in this series was another well-deserved hit, reaching #6 in the charts in October 1984:-
mp3 : The Style Council – Shout To The Top
It was released in 7″ and 12″ (the respective sleeves are pictured above). It had all the hallmarks of an upbeat jaunty TSC single but this time with added strings.
The reverse of the sleeves indicated a few causes that the band thought were worth drawing attention to:-
– No! To the abolition of the GLC & local councils
– Yes! To the thrill of the romp
– Yes! To the Bengali Workers Association
– Yes! To a nuclear-free world
– Yes! To all involved ion animal rights
– Yes! To fanzines
– Yes! To Belief
The single came out in the midst of an ongoing and increasingly embittered national strike by the National Union of Miners with the UK becoming an increasingly polarised country in terms of politics and Paul Weller was firmly nailing his colours to the mast of those on the left of centre. The video for Shout To The Top featured paintings representing the strike and again left no viewer in doubt which side the band were on…
There’s no difference in the versions available on 7″ and 12″ and this was the common b-side:-
mp3 : The Style Council – The Ghosts of Dachau
A haunting ballad about the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp, it was as far removed from the jauntiness of the a-side as can be imagined.
There were two other tracks on the 12″
mp3 : The Style Council – Shout To The Top (instrumental)
mp3 : The Style Council – The Piccadilly Trail
The latter is a slow-paced number that was about as dull a b-side as the band had released up to this point in their career.
Enjoy.
Back in 1974, Gladys Knight & The Pips enjoyed what at the time was their biggest chart success in the UK with a soulful version of a country and western song called You’re The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me. Their cover was never off the radio for months on end and even now, more than 40 years on, despite me never owning a copy physically or digitally I can still very clearly recall the way that Gladys majestically soars across the sentimental message at the heart of the song while her backing vocalists do a killer job in driving it along at a perfect pace.
The thing is, if I can remember it that well from the perspective of an 11-year-old than I’m sure someone with a great interest in music such as the then 16-year old Paul Weller will have taken even more notice and in due course, as he himself falls head over heels, harnesses his talents into delivering something just as special. As indeed he would do with subsequent TSC singles….be patient and all will be revealed!!
And so it proved ten years on when once again radio stations up and down the country never got tired of playing this wonderful ballad:-
mp3 : The Style Council – You’re The Best Thing
It was certainly one of my songs of the summer of 1984. It was also one of the songs of the summer of my then girlfriend as we travelled across Europe on cheap student railcards visiting cities that previously had only been figments of our imagination including Paris, Nice, Monte Carlo, Milan, Florence and Venice where eventually the money ran out and we had to quickly re-adjust our plans and head home leaving the likes of Munich and Amsterdam for other times. Our relationship was a happy one for a decent enough time but sadly it turned sour before 1985 was over by which time we had been to see The Style Council in concert and enjoyed the experience of ‘our’ song beimg played live. I’ve always felt that particular ballad was all about that particular relationship and so even when I’ve been wooing subsequent girlfriends with compilation cassettes that showed off my musical tastes I never once included ‘Best Thing’ on any of them.
The single, which was released just before my 21st birthday, was in fact a double-A side but thinking back I don’t recall ever hearing the upbeat other half of the 45 ever aired on daytime radio:-
mp3 : The Style Council – The Big Boss Groove
It reached #5. Little did we know that TSC wouldn’t ever get that high in the singles charts ever again……..(although they came close!)
Here’s the other track on the 12″ single:-
mp3 : The Style Council – You’re The Dub Thing
Enjoy
The fifth single, released in February 1984, was the first to feature the drumming talents of Steve White who at the time was just 18 years of age and whose more gentle, jazz influenced style was quite different from that of Zeke Manyika who had played on each of the previous singles.
The Style Council were now seemingly following a clear plan of a new single every three months and once again this sold well, reaching #5 in the charts. Indeed by the time it had drifted out of the charts at the beginning of April, the band (and more importantly I guess Polydor Records) had enjoyed having a single in the Top 75 for 42 out of 56 weeks which equates to a huge amount of radio airplay and exposure.
The first new bit of TSC music in 1984 was ridiculously catchy, jaunty and quite splendid:-
mp3 : The Style Council – My Ever Changing Moods (12″ version)
Two songs were on the b-side, one of which was a throwaway but pleasant enough acoustic ballad while the other was an instrumental that brought home how talented the other two main musicians were but also gave a reminder that talent doesn’t always translate to enjoyable and memorable music:-
mp3 : The Style Council – Spring, Summer, Autumn
mp3 : The Style Council – Mick’s Company
One thing worth mentioning is that the sleeve of My Ever Changing Moods gave notice of the first TSC album with news that it was to be called Cafe Bleu and that it wouldn’t include any of the five previously released 45s when it hit the shops in April 1984. So there was the inevitable head-scratching when the LP’s track listing turned out to include ‘Moods’ but lo and behold, it was a completely different and wholly unexpected version:-
mp3 : The Style Council – My Ever Changing Moods (album version)
Enjoy
PS
Over the festive period I finally caught up with viewing something that I had recorded back in September which has since been made available on DVD and Blu-Ray.
About The Young Idea is a full-length documentary about the life and times of The Jam and it turned out to be surprisingly good. I say surprisingly as these things tend to be a bit on the self-indulgent side and are often from one person’s perspective, but in this instance all three members of the band make invaluable contributions and insights, albeit they were interviewed separately (which is no surprise given there is still obvious pain in the faces of Bruce and Rick about the timing and finality of the break-up). There are articulate and heart-felt contributions from a wide range of fans that are also worth listening to – at first they appear to have been selected at random but it eventually becomes clear that they have been included for particular reasons. The film certainly brought back loads of happy memories for me – as I’ve said, they were the band that more than any other ignited my love for music and the film makes it quite clear that I was only one of a great many from all over the world affected in that way.
It’s well worth shelling out for and you’ll find it quite easily on t’internet.
The huge success of the first three singles by The Style Council, particularly the Top 3 chart position of Long Hot Summer, was clear evidence that Paul Weller wasn’t ever going to need to reform The Jam.
While some fans were really struggling to move on and accept the new band, I was one of those who thought TSC were producing some great stuff, albeit I was more than baffled by the overly pretentious sleeve notes that really made little or no sense at all.
Long Hot Summer and all the other tracks on that EP had been on very heavy rotation, and I was thrilled to read that the follow-up single was going to be called A Solid Bond In Your Heart, simply as I remembered that The Jam had, a couple of years earlier, given that very name to one of their UK tours. So I was expecting something really special….a song that would somehow blend the chic sound of Long Hot Summer and the funk/pop of the later singles by The Jam.
Instead, I found myself listening to a single that had the most appalling saxophone sound all over it. I remember playing it something like three or four times in a row looking for something to like about it….I mean Zeke Manyika was drumming on it so there had to be something my ears could pick up on…..but no, that bloody awful saxophone dominated everything. I was bitterly let down by it. It sounded as if was a record written by George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley…
But clearly I was in a minority, for it was a record that sold very well, climbing to #11 in the pop charts.
mp3 : The Style Council – A Solid Bond In Your Heart
To be fair, I really liked the b-side which to this day is one of my favourite TSC compositions:-
mp3 : The Style Council – It Just Came To Pieces In My Hand
And I suppose I really should finish things off by shoving up the third track that came on the 7″gatefold sleeve version of the single….but I’ll warn you, that saxophone features prominently:-
mp3 : The Style Council – A Solid Bond In Your Heart (instrumental)
The Jam’s earlier version eventually appeared as a track on the Extras CD released in 1992 and then a slightly extended version was included in the Direction Reaction Creation boxset in 1997.
mp3 : The Jam – A Solid Bond In Your Heart (extended)
Seemingly a contender for the final ever 45 by the band, it was a late call instead to go with Beat Surrender.
Part 5 of this series will return in the new year with a tune that was, IMHO, a return to form.
As promised, here’s the second scheduled posting today but it’s nothing to get excited about, particularly on the back of the recent superbly-written guest contributions.
It was just five weeks ago that I wrote extensively about the third single by The Style Council as part of the re-run of the 45 45s at 45 series from 2008. Click here if you missed it.
Here’s the 7″ version (its sleeve is pictured above) together with a remix as well as the album version of one of the songs which appeared on the b-side of the 12″:-
mp3 : The Style Council – Long Hot Summer (7″)
mp3 : The Style Council – Long Hot Summer (Club Mix)
mp3 : The Style Council – The Paris Match
The club mix was made available on an import-only LP Introducing The Style Council which rounded up material released on the first three singles.
Enjoy
PS
Quick reminder that I’m looking for readers to e-mail me lists of their Top 10 LPs for 2015 so that I can submit a collective entry for the BAMS 2015. Click on this post for more background.
My introduction to the eagerly anticipated second single by The Style Council came via a performance on Switch, a short-lived music show on Channel 4 which was seen as the summer replacement for The Tube. This was broadcast in May 1983:-
So the rumours were true…. D.C. Lee had been recruited into the band. This was mind-blowing stuff as up to this point she had simply been a backing singer for chart pop band Wham! whom no serious muso took seriously. But as the clip demonstrated, she was going to be integral to how TSC were going to develop…and my gawd….check out the clobber being worn by Weller and Talbot.
I recorded this clip onto VHS tape and played it constantly for ages as I thought it was one of the most brilliantly conceived telly performances I’d ever seen. There was no holding me back and I rushed out and bought the 12″ version of the single on its day of release and helped it reach #11 in the charts:-
mp3 : The Style Council – Money Go Round
mp3 : The Style Council – Headstart For Happiness
mp3 : The Style Council – Mick’s Up
The 7″ single cut the main song into two parts and in doing so lost something in the process for, as the notes on the sleeve indicate, this was written as a six verse epic in which all sorts of questions are posed about society in the early 80s with Weller firmly nailing his colours to socialist principles. Oh and Zeke Manyika is again pounding the drums while the bass is courtesy of Jo Dwornial, something of a legend on that instrument in the UK jazz/soul scene of the early 80s.
The b-sides are well worth a listen.
The first track is an acoustic guitar/organ-driven jazzy love song which would later be revisited and given a full band treatment on the debut LP a year later but this original version is awfully nice.
The second track is a foot-tappin’, hand-clappin’ Mick Talbot composition that moves along at a decent enough pace. However, as time went on and more and more of these sorts of compositions began to appear on b-sides and as album tracks – but particularly when they were played live when they felt like the TSC equivalent of a five-minute drum solo – the novelty wore off. But this being the first of them made it interesting enough.
Enjoy.
I did think long and hard about how best to follow-up The Jam singles series and indeed had a couple of conversations with Jacques the Kipper and Aldo in which I floated a few potential ideas at them. I won’t say anything more as it is likely I will return to those ideas sometime in the medium or long-term.
But in the end it seemed right to go straight into the singular adventures of The Style Council especially, as I mentioned in a previous post, there were just 105 days separating the release of Beat Surrender and the debut single from the new group formed by Paul Weller.
As I have previpusly confessed, I quickly got over the break up of The Jam. My mindset was to accept that TSC were not in way, shape or form a re-incarnation of the old band and to give the music a chance. The debut still remains a wonderfully, joyous and memorable piece of pop music:-
mp3 : The Style Council – Speak Like A Child
This was a commonly held view and it went to #4 in the UK charts upon its release in March 1983, fully vindicating the Modfather’s decision to move on. Interesting to note that the drummer on the debut single was none other than Zeke Manyika who was of course at the time part of Orange Juice…another reason to enjoy the new song.
The b-side wasn’t as instantly likeable as the a-side but what it did show was that this new combo was as much about featuring the keyboard skills of Mick Talbot as it was a vehicle for Weller’s developing skills as a songwriter as he moved away altogether from angry anthems of disaffected youth.
mp3 : The Style Council – Party Chambers
Worth mentioning also that the single was only released on 7″ vinyl.
Enjoy
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON TUESDAY 1 APRIL 2008
After the glory and majesty of XTC at #40, it’s another little bit of pop magic from a fantastic songwriter that comes in at #39.
I won’t insult your intelligence by going into great details of the story of Paul Weller and how he spilt up The Jam to form The Style Council in 1983.
He may have taken a lot of flak for the move, but surely no-one can now argue that it wasn’t the right thing to do.
He was no longer an angry young man who wanted to write guitar-laden anthems for a three-piece. He wanted to write dreamy love songs with lush arrangements that relied on jazz-style drumming and keyboards and the occasional burst from a horn section. He was very successful at doing so, and before long he started incorporating some politically motivated stuff into his work with his new band. Hell, he even found love with his stunning backing singer who soon became Mrs Weller…
What more could anyone really ask for???
Looking back, TSC were very much a product of the times. Record companies no longer wanted sweat and toil – image was everything. Weller played the game magnificently, going all the way to wearing pastel shades of sweaters tied around his neck.
Hell, I was even caught up in the mood for a while and stopped dressing purely in black over that long, gloriously warm summer of 1984 as I enjoyed what I knew would be the last extended holiday period in my life as I faced up to my final honours year at University. I was now living away from home for the first time, I had a couple of great flatmates and was, or so I believed, seriously in love. But that’s another more private story….
This 12″ EP had come out 12 months earlier, but, along with the LP Café Bleu, it was rotating heavily on the turntable in 1984 :-
mp3 : The Style Council – Long Hot Summer
mp3 : The Style Council – Party Chambers
mp3 : The Style Council – The Paris Match
mp3 : The Style Council – Le Depart
Happy days indeed. Was it really more than half a lifetime ago???
Incidentally, I now own this particular recording on 7″, 12″ and CD…..and you dare to call me obsessive???
This is loosely adapted and then expanded from a post over at the old place back in February 2010.
One of the minor reasons I ever started a blog was to bring attention to otherwise unavailable or difficult to find very fine records that had only ever been placed on the b-sides of long-deleted singles and while there is a growing tendency for album re-issues to bring together such tracks and label them ‘bonus’, nothing beat finding bits of vinyl with the crackly old originals.
One of the songs I really loved from my old vinyl days but had missed for many a year was Goodbye Joe, originally recorded as a b-side to a 1979 single :-
mp3 : The Monochrome Set – Goodbye Joe
It begins as if it is a live track, and one that is of poor sound quality at that. You can hear some crowd sing-a-long at the outset in what is clearly a small venue, then some cheering as a guitar as struck. After just under 50 seconds, lead singer Bid utters the words ‘Let’s Have Some Decorum’ and suddenly we switch to a quite gorgeous and moving studio track.
It’s about watching a film performance of this bloke here in case you were wondering.
Oh and for the record, the song was later recorded by Tracey Thorn, and again was consigned to obscurity on a 1982 b-side :-
mp3 : Tracey Thorn – Goodbye Joe
The original posting also featured the A-sides of the singles which, in Tracey’s case was also a beautiful piece of music:-
mp3 : Tracey Thorn – Plain Sailing
In the Feb 2010 posting I mentioned in passing how both of Tracey’s songs had featured heavily on compilation tapes in the era of 82/83/84 as a way to demonstrate to would-be girlfriends that I really did have a sensitive side but it never ever worked all that well. Seems I wasn’t alone in that failing as my good mate Dirk from Sexy Loser left behind the comment:-
“Yeah, mate: those tapes, ey?! I only wish I still would own a few of the dozens of them I made up back then with all my passion, heart and soul … instead I gave them away to girls who didn’t give a fuck. Literally.”
I remember that as being a genuine ‘splutter the tea all over the monitor’ moment when I read it. Still makes me smile………
And while I’m here, I just can’t resist:-
mp3 : The Style Council – The Paris Match (LP version)
Days of skinny-ribbed hooped t-shirts, a headful of perfectly coiffured hair and a devil-may-care attitude to life that I thought would last forever. How the fuck has Johnny Marr changed so little since those days???????
mp3 : The Smiths – Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
Sigh.
I initially didn’t like Beat Surrender. I couldn’t really bring myself to accept that The Jam were breaking up and the one band that I’d ever slept overnight outside the box office would never be becoming back again to the Glasgow Apollo. It was a real sore one to take.
I also didn’t like Beat Surrender as it was absolutely nothing like all my favourite Jam singles like Tube Station, Strange Town, When You’re Young etc. OK, it was a tad like Precious as it had trumpets on it and that was a song I’d grown more fond of the more I got used to it, but I just so had wanted the last single to be a throwback to the angry young man who wanted to tear down the oppressive systems.
That was November 1982….fast forward 15 weeks and the release the debut single by The Style Council, the new group formed by Paul Weller. He has been telling everyone via the music papers (which in those days was the only way you could get news and information out to fans) that the new band was not really like The Jam although you would spot a link from the later material from his former new wave/post-punk/mod combo if you listened close enough.
By this time, I had gotten over the break up of The Jam. There was enough happening out there in the early 80s to make any 19 year old think it was the most exciting time imaginable, both in terms of getting out to gigs and increasingly getting to hear things in a number of what were being described as ‘alternative’ discos (dance clubs had still to be invented!!) or on the sticky floors of various student unions.
So when I finally heard Speak Like A Child, I did so with a different mindset and an acceptance that whatever they were, TSC were not The Jam. It made it very easy to realise I was hearing a great pit of pop music….and to realise that I should go back and re-assess Beat Surrender as a pop record and not as a new wave release.
It’s coming up to the 32nd anniversary of the news that The Jam were breaking up (time flies) and both singles remain, all these years later, very very listenable and very very danceable:-
mp3 : The Jam – Beat Surrender
mp3 : The Style Council – Speak Like A Child
Enjoy
I’ve got to be honest…..when the old blog was unceremoniously dragged off the internet I wasn’t sure if I had the appetite to keep whatever I got back up going to the same extent. So I’ve surprised myself that today marks the 200th musical posting on The (new) Vinyl Villain.
There’s a huge thanks needed to those of you who have contributed guest postings to hit that number and to those readers of old who were patient enough not to complain about so many of the posts on T(n)VV were repeats from the old place. If I’m being honest, there are days when I wonder if I can be really bothered with it all as I’m not sure I really have all that much more to say, but then someone will drop me an e-mail or leave a comment or in the case of Luca a few months ago, write something really special that makes the effort all worthwhile.
I was really keen to do something special to mark the 200th post….so I got in touch with a dear old friend to ask if he would be willing to help out by letting me re-post something that made a lot of people smile when they read it on the old blog back in 2010.
I know that those of you who read it first time round will not be upset that after much digging around I’ve been able to find this particular;ar contribution from the weekly series called ‘The Sunday Correspondents’ in which a number of different contributors were given free rein to say what they liked, provided it was on a Sunday.
The most talented and naturally gifted and funny of those contributors went by the name of Dick Van Dyke. He is a Leeds United supporter. He adored The Jam/Paul Weller/The Style Council. Back in 1984, he thought he could combine a match in London with a gig in Amsterdam. What follows is a true story:-
INITIATIVE TEST
mp3 : The Style Council – Headstart For Happiness
I went to Amsterdam to see The Style Council one Sunday in Nov 1984. We’d travelled over by coach on the Saturday night after a Charlton v Leeds match in London. After a green-gilled ferry to Ostend, we travelled up to the city of canals, bicycles and scantily-clad women in shop windows. All day Sunday was spent drinking. (The difference between Dutch Heineken and the fizzy Session beer of blighty soon kicked in). We were all shit-faced.
After the gig, (and my climb down the front of the Circle to Stalls having fallen in love with DC Lee), I came out of the theatre and – because I’d dawdled for a much-needed piss – I’d become detached from the rest of the merry coach load. Clueless as to where the coach had parked earlier that day, I was soon lost.
My jacket was on the bus and it contained my passport, ID and money. Little known to me, after a 15 minute wait, they’d set off without me in order to meet the ferry.
It was freezing and nearly midnight as I stood shivering in a ‘Tube Station’ T-shirt and jeans in downtown Amsterdam – where all the streets look the same. I was totally stranded, due back at work the next morning and my girlfriend in the UK was expecting me.
What would YOU do next?
Initially, I went to the Dutch Police Station. I know; I should’ve known better. It was just as you would envisage. 2 blokes, feet up on desk, TV on, smoke-filled room, bottle of Bells in filing cabinet. “Go and follow the coach to the Port” was the ‘shexy futball‘ Van Der Valk-meets-Ashes To Ashes response from the moustachioed porn star lookalike.
“Er righto .. I’ll do that then”.
I did go back to the Theatre thinking that the band, recognising my dire plight, would welcome me aboard the warm tour bus. I’d be tucked up in a bunk bed alongside Mick Talbot whilst Paul strummed English Rose and DC Lee fed me hot toddies, donuts and skunkweed.
“We’re going to Berlin now” grunted the big hairy fucker who always used to look after Weller.
(This was 1984, so Berlin presented it’s own problems – unlike today’s open all hours EU borders). I’d naturally assumed that they were returning to Kent and White Cliffs and warmed teapots … but no.
‘Think again’ I thought, as the bitter November wind gnarled into my mind and my body. It was now 12.30am.
And so it came to pass…
I was back outside the Theatre; the band couldn’t help me. I decided to (somehow) follow the coach to the Port – where surely my passport will have been handed in by my mate to a nice Customs fellow and all this mess would be tidied up. I know… I’ll hitch-hike.
Looking around me in central Amsterdam, I asked a couple of drunks by a tram stop where the motorway south was. (A bit like standing in Leicester Square asking for the M1). It took 3 or 4 more requests before I got an answer which made reasonable sense. I needed the E35 – wherever that was. They pointed; and then shook their heads as I turned; but not before telling me that it was illegal to hitch-hike in Holland!
So I began running to the motorway junction. Running, not jogging. I was becoming more and more desperate, but without any money, what else could I do? Besides, the running temporarily took my uncontrollable shivering away.
Luckily, it was only about 3 miles to the junction. But as I stood on the hard shoulder with my thumb up, I quickly realised how isolated I was and how it must have looked. It was very late on a Sunday night/Monday morning and there was little traffic. After the hustle of the city, it was a quiet and eerie place.
After what seemed like forever, a car finally stopped. It was a black BMW with 3 large black men inside. As I had never been as cold in my life, I didn’t care about anything but getting warm, and the thick furry seat covers and blast of warm air from the car heaters are the only things I really remember. That, and the Barry White lookalike driver saying in a voice of treacle and tarmacadam,
“What you doin‘ man? You’re gonna die out there”.
I tried to explain my plight, as a fat bassline from speakers the size of windmills almost burst my heart through my chest. ‘Fuck’. They were only going 2 junctions in my direction and, in what seemed like only 5 minutes, I was back standing on the hard shoulder. This time, I was well away from the Amsterdam suburbs, without any road lighting and only the steam from my breath for company.
I was now shaking like a shitting whippet; the cold and the fear and the stark reality hit me. After what seemed an age, a small Citroen van – the sort you would only see in some arty French film from 1968 – pulled over and stopped.
“Where you going?” asked the driver. “Er … south. Belgium. Please”. The truth was that by now I didn’t really know where I was going. I had no concept of the geography of north-west Europe.
He told me his name was Dan and he was going to Utrecht … wherever that was. In the van were lupins. Lupins and tulips and other big bloody flowers I didn’t recognize. He was a Dutch florist. A florist with a goatee beard and a spliff on the go. (He could have been a goat with a spliff and a gladioli up his arse, I didn’t care).
I explained my predicament to him as the sound of ‘See My Friends’ by The Kinks ….. came through his tinny car radio. He took me the 50 or so km to his home town. He was my Samaritan. Dan Van Samaritan if you like.
In his little apartment, he gave me coffee, toast and a spare bed. He explained he had to leave for work around 7am. When I woke around 8am, he’d left me a sweater, a rainproof jacket, a map of Holland, a hunk of cheese and 12 Guilders. (About £5).
mp3 : The Kinks – See My Friend
What would I do next? Join me next month (if you are in the slightest bit interested) as I continue the true story of my journey home to Blighty. To be continued … perhaps.*
(Dick Van Dyke, Sunday 28 March 2010)
* Readers were left in suspense until mid-May for the next instalment. You guys can come back the day after tomorrow and find out what happened next …………
This incredible weather we’ve had in the UK this past month took me back to the release of these songs.
mp3 : The Style Council – Long Hot Summer
mp3 : The Style Council – Party Chambers
mp3 : The Style Council – The Paris Match
mp3 : The Style Council – Le Depart
mp3 : The Style Council – Long Hot Summer (extended version)
Paul Weller’s decision to break up The Jam was totally vindicated with the success of this EP. Released in August 1983 in the middle of an extended heatwave, it hitting #3 in the UK charts meant it became the backdrop to what, looking back, was the most ridiculously carefree and easy time as I moved out of the family home and into my first student flat at the age of 20.
There were three of us sharing digs. Two of us had a blast as we had passed all our exams. Long walks around the open spaces of Glasgow with camera in hand, we were the most pretentious folk you could dread bumping into but at the time we were oblivious to it all. Chatting away loudly and super-confidently about our favourite bands, books, TV programmes and who really was the most attractive female on campus meant the days flew in. The third flatmate was miserable as he had to pass two re-sits before he would be allowed to continue with his course – the Long Hot Summer of 1983 really did pass him by.
This was also the time when I underwent a huge musical education as one of the flatmates, being a bit richer than anyone I had known up to this point in my life, had a record collection that would have been the envy of everyone but John Peel. For the next 12 months I would immerse myself in all his old and current records buying not all that much myself but building up the most enormous collection of cassettes…..the problem of course came 12 months later when as flatmates we went our separate ways…..panic buying was the only solution for me!
Thirty one years on and I look back lovingly at my student summers….it’s a huge contrast to nowadays with so many young folk now having to find seasonal work to help pay off the debts being run up and of course worrying about what sort of job they’re going to eventually graduate into. It’s frightening to think that the UK has best educated and over-qualified retail assistants in civilisation.
I digress. Apologies.
Long Hot Summer is a timeless classic. I will have no dissenting voices on that……and isn’t it incredible just how similar in looks the cyclist Bradley Wiggins is to the sunglasses wearing Paul Weller of 1983??
Enjoy!!
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 