In The City & Show # 415

On April 29th, 1977 The Jam released their debut single In The City in the UK. The song quickly shot up the UK music charts reaching the top 40. It helped launch their career and Paul Weller’s success as a musician. The song musically shares The Jam’s unique blend of Mod Revivalism and 70s Punk enthusiasm, it became an anthem for the Mod Punk revival of the late 70s. The song’s title was borrowed from the B-side of The Who’s I’m A Boy single, while lyrically the song is a social commentary addressing the scene at the time, being influenced by the burgeoning UK Punk scene and Joe Strummer of The Clash, one of Weller’s contemporaries at the time. The song celebrates as Weller states in the lyrics the “youth ideas” in the big city. In an interview with Q Magazine in April of 2010, Weller had this to say of the song and its origins:

"It was the sound of young Woking, if not London, a song about trying to break out of suburbia. As far as we were concerned, the city was where it was all happening; the clubs, the gigs, the music, the music. I was probably 18, so it was a young man's song, a suburbanite dreaming of the delights of London and the excitement of the city. It was an exciting time to be alive. London was coming out of its post-hippy days and there was a new generation taking over. The song captured that wide-eyed innocence of coming out of a very small community and entering a wider world, seeing all the bands, meeting people, going to the clubs, and the freedom that it held."

The B-side was the quick paced “Takin’ My Love” a song that along with “In The City” would appear on the bands first full length album In The City. Another interesting fact about this B-side is that it has appeared in the UK top 40 on three separate occasions during the Jam’s single releases. The single In The City was re-issued in 1980 following the success of “Going Underground” along with eight of the bands other singles, it charted in the top 40 and in 2002, Polydor re-issued the In The City single, the song went to number 36 on the UK singles charts. Six months following the release of this single, Sex Pistols released their Holidays In The Sun single, a song that featured a similar chord progression to “In The City”. The songs were both being worked on around the same time, The Jam demoing the song around the same time the Pistols were working on “Holidays In The Sun”, Paul Weller had this to say of the two songs in 2007 in Uncut, and of an argument and scuffle that Weller and Sid Vicious got into:

“He started it and I finished it. I don't know if anyone can claim any victory. He just came up to me and he was going on about 'Holidays In The Sun' where they'd nicked the riff from 'In The City.' I didn't mind them nicking it - you've got to get your ideas from somewhere, haven't you? Anyway, he just came up and nutted me. So I returned it."

Regardless of the supposed Sex Pistols, Jam rivalry surrounding this song both songs are good and different in their own right, the discussion of the two isn’t really relevant at this point. “In The City” was a defiant influential debut that introduced us to the three piece of Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler otherwise known as The Jam, it is also a song reflecting not only the times, but also a song that youth can identify with, even today.

The Play List:

1. Ty Segall – It #1
2. Dirty Projectors – maybe that was it
3. Deadly Lo-Fi – Walk Into The Sun
4. Micronite Filters – Hit The Hammer On The Nail
5. Mudhoney – What Moves The Heart
6. Lime Spiders – Nine Miles High
7. Cardboard Brains – Babies Run My World
8. Pelicans – New Wave
9. Johnny Jaws and The Sharks – Wizard
10. The Plain Steel – Away
11. Alex Chilton – Girl After Girl
12. Neil Young & Crazy Horse- Gallows Pole
13. The Beach Boys – The Shift
14. Young Rival – Another Nobody
15. Cold Warps - Slimer
16. The Future Primitives – Sea of Words
18. The Black Angels – Haunting at 1300 McKinley
19. The Police – On Any Other Day
20. Talking Heads – No Compassion
21. Devo – Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin’)
22. The Jam – In The City
23. The Jam – Takin' My Love
24. Sex Pistols – Satellite
25. Radio Birdman – Aloha Steve and Danno

To download this weeks program, visit CJAM's schedule page for Revolution Rock and download the file for July 31. Or subscribe to Revolution Rock as a Podcast.

All Mods Cons...Show # 161

The Jam were band that came out around the time of punk, but did not really sound like the punk bands of the time. Forming in their earlier incarnation in the 70s, The Jam started out as a four piece with Paul Weller (guitar/vocals), Steve Brookes (guitar), Bruce Foxton (bass), and Rick Buckler on drums; Steve Brookes eventually left the band and they became a three piece with Paul Weller covering all of the guitar and vocals. The band originally started out playing classic American rock such as Chuck Berry, but that changed when Paul Weller heard The Who. After hearing "My Generation" in particular, Weller and the band then switched directions taking on a more mod look, becoming obsessed with mod bands such as The Who, The Small Faces, and dressing in tailored suits. The band would gain a small following in London around 1976-77, after Sex Pistols started playing in the UK influencing tons of people to start their own groups.

In 1977, The Jam got a record deal with Polydor Records and in April they released their first single "In the City". It was a song that was about police brutality. The song sounds influenced by Sex Pistols song "Holidays in the Sun". In May of 1977, the band released their first full length album titled, In the City. The album was a mix of covers of R&B and Motown bands as well as some Paul Weller originals. The album was fast with the energy of punk despite the fact that a lot of the bands influences were elsewhere differing from the other bands coming out of Britain at this time. "All Around the World" would make it into the UK top ten, after doing a British tour, the band went to work on their next album.

This is the Modern World would come out in the summer of 1977. The album had a few good tracks, but is looked at as not their best effort. Many critics said the album was a repetition of the bands first (Weller has even stated later on, that he had a lack of interest while making the album). Bassist Bruce Foxton contributed two songs to the album "London Traffic" and "Don't Tell Them You're Sane", but Weller would still be the bands main song writer. The band then embarked on their first US tour, it was not successful.

In 1978, All Mods Cons was released. This album was more of a success for the band, going to # 6 on the UK charts. The band first single was "News of the World" a song written and sung by the bassist Foxton; It went to # 27 of the UK Singles chart. The album showed the band going in a different direction than their first two albums going in a more pop direction, drawing in influences of The Kinks ("David Watts" is covered for this album). The album also contained the songs "A Bomb in Wardour Street" (about Weller's sour views on punk and the violence that came with it), and "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" (about violence in Britain). "Billy Hunt" was a fast paced track with climbing basslines, and the acoustic "English Rose" was actually rejected by Polydor for release as singles. All Mods Cons contained only nine tracks originally and is seen as the bands best album by many. In 2006 a deluxe edition of the album was released which contained demos, B-sides and a DVD documentary.

In 1979, Setting Sons was released. The album was a politically themed album featuring different more produced production than the bands previous efforts. The album was a smash hit in the UK going to # 3 on the charts, but in the US it went to # 137 on the Billboard 200 charts. "Eton Rifles" , and "Little Boy Soldiers" were politically themed tracks, it also contained "Heat Wave" which is a cover of a Motown song. "Going Underground" was a single released for this album, but not actually on the album, and it went to # 1 on the UK charts. The album is seen as another step up for the band, but the band would jump into the Motown and American R&B sound more heavily on their next release Sound Affects.

In 1980, "Start!" was released as a single for the bands next album Sound Affects. The song sounded a lot like the Beatles song "Taxman", and went to #1. The album was a mix of Revolver-era Beatles and Off the Wall-era Michael Jackson. The album would also bring in influences of post-punk, and funk. The album went to # 2 in the UK and # 27 in the US. "Monday", and "Man in the Corner Shop" were obviously showing off the bands Revolver-era Beatles influence. along with "That's Entertainment!" an acoustic number written about the British working class lifestyle. The band then released two non-album singles "Funeral Pyre" and "Absolute Beginners" in 1981, showing more R&B influence than before.

The Gift came out in 1982. This album was the bands last and it was quite different. It brought in influences of soul, funk, and American R&B. The album went to #1 on the UK charts. "A Town Called Malice" was a huge hit for the band, it sounds like a Motown Supremes song. The bands second single "The Bitterest Pill" went to # 2, and the band had one final single "Beat Surrender" which was another # 1. The band did one final tour in the UK, then broke up. After The Jam Paul Weller formed the band Style Council. The band had a few hit singles then broke up toward the beginning of the 90s. Weller then went solo. In the 90's Weller also played the lead guitar and solo on Oasis's "Champagne Supernova", who cited The Jam as a big influence.

In 1997, Direction Reaction Creation was released, it was a five CD Jam box set. Rumours started to fly in 2006 of a possible Jam reunion when Weller and Foxton met backstage. Foxton and Jam drummer Rick Buckler revealed that in autumn of 2007, The Jam will reform for a tour, but there's a catch Paul Weller doesn't want any part of it. So the remaining members of the band will play some shows without Weller and are rumoured to be working on a new album to come out in 2008, once again without Paul Weller. The Jam were a popular band in the UK, but never made it successfully in America. The band started inspired by mod and punk and went into a Motown, soul, and R&B direction and were influential on many bands in the nineties.

Here's what was played:

1. XTC – are you receiving me
2. The Stranglers – Sweden (all quiet on the eastern front)
3. The Swingers – five o’clock shadow
4. Bored Games - joe 90
5. The Stones – something new
6. Boys Next Door – somebody’s watching
7. Radio Birdman – hanging on
8. Burger Boys – shake
9. Vindicators – you’re too much
10. The Diodes – shapes of things to come
11. Richard Hell & The Voidoids – new pleasure
12. The Drones – movement
13. The Jam - the place I love
14. The Jam – eton rifles
15. Gruesomes – leave my kitten alone
16. The Government – telephobia
17. Crash 80s – thrills
18. Radio 4 – caroline
19. Air Traffic Control - what stays
20. The Numbers – I want to believe
21. Albert Hammond Jr. – in transit
22. Television – ain’t that nothin’ (single version)
23. Only Ones – language problem
24. Klark Kent – away from home
25. Air Traffic Control - realize
26. Talking Heads - I wish you wouldn't say that

Jam Videos:

All Around the World (Marc Bolan Show 1977)
In the City (So It Goes Show)
Art School
In the City/A Bomb on Wardour Street/Billy Hunt (OGWT 1978)
Down At the Tube Staion At Midnight (TOTP)
Going Underground (TOTP)
That's Entertainment!
Eton Rifles (Something Else Show 1979)
Town Called Malice
Funeral Pyre (Live on Swedish TV 1981)
Beat Surrender