I was listening to snap on the train home tonight. Strange Town for me...

Love the bassline on this...

and this is a tune and no mistake. Great drumming from Buckler as usual.

...so I was actually a little too young for them in the 70s. Plus Paul Weller looked like the local 'thug', a guy called Danny who was the hardest kid locally. Ended up inside later and found God and became a preacher. That kind of put me off for a while into the 80s as I went mad on music. Those last couple of years worth of singles were all loved, and then Beat Surrender happened to feature Tracie and that was that for me, I went bonkers. The Style Council came along, and they were my band for a couple of years, they hit me just as I hit the more complicated parts of my teens. Unrequited love and all of those things.

Anyway, All Mod Cons onwards, I love pretty much everything, apart from Planners Dream, which I loathe. Prior to Mod Cons, the singles are all favourites, Away From The Numbers, I Got By In Time, I Need You.

Favourites? In The Crowd, Fly, Tales From The Riverbank, The Great Depression, Beat Surrender, The Gift, Ghosts, and then a top three...

3. Scrape Away - angular, funky and spooky. Sound Affects is probably my favourite of the albums, it has a great sound, and some fantastic songs.

2. Shopping - my favourite of the b-sides, a great lyric, melody and vocal, and the perfect bridge between The Jam and The Style Council. Sounds like the soundtrack to a black and white film

and no1..

Thick As Thieves - love it, the energy of it, the poetry of it and when I was 15 was the theme tune to me and my best mate's adventures around London, and then became bittersweet when we fell out later on. We sorted things out and twenty years later we are still best mates, despite him living in another country. It's almost the perfect example of what The Jam were about, both in sound and lyrics. It comes in, 'thumps' and leaves.

I`m reading the above thread and on comes Weller & Co`s ~ David Watts on the iTunes player!

love this track - hardly their best known effort, but always been a fave:

I got by in time

I was too young to see them, they were a band I discovered long after the fact, but the Direction Reaction Creation boxset is probably one of the best collections of music I own.

I think this was what first got me interested, repeated frequently on VH1 in the early 90s:

..and this tune will always remind me of Izzy Holland, that girl in the fifth year who wouldn't look at you twice because you were just some spotty kid in the third year. Maybe if I'd ditched the studded leather and the Discharge tshirt things might have been different...

They were not the first band i liked, but Going Underground was the first record that changed music from something i quite liked to the soundtrack to my life, effectively music's year zero for me. That track in particular still makes the proverbial hairs stand up every time i hear it.

Analysing the lyrics of Eton Rifles in a needlework class. The buzz of excitement which rattled round the school that Tuesday lunchtime as we sat around transistor radios for the chart countdown and, yes, Going Underground had gone straight in at Number One! Unheard of! We talked of little else in technical drawing first period after the bell. My mate Dave, a HUGE Jam fan, who saw the final gig in Brighton. He still talks about it. And can still only sing in a Paul Weller-ish manner, having spent his youth singing along with Jam songs. I've stood next to him at weddings. "Ann-ah did vose feeTah.. Innanechent TIMES WalkAHpun INGlans greenan plezANT lans.." Complete with slightly jabby head movements.

It probably didn't help much that the artist with which he next became obsessed was Billy Bragg.

I discovered The Jam when I saw Eton Rifles on TOTP and was hooked from then on.

joining this love in.

Similarly to lots of the above posters it seems - just started my teenage years when the Jam broke up, so sadly never got to see them live. It's been a regret of mine that I've had to live with - but I'd hate to see them reform now. Have subsequently seen the Style Council & Paul Weller well over 50 times (really have lost count and can't be arsed to go back now and count ticket stubs).

Much of my formative & adult, come to think of it (obviously given the previous fact) years have been played out to a soundtrack of the Jam. It's funny really but the album I return to most often is In The City. No idea why - perhaps just the rawness of the recording. I remember DH (God, what is the etiquette now for referring to him in a non cliquey way?) recalling seeing the Jam at the Red Cow in Hammersmith with only another 7 people or so watching. I can honestly say; I wish that was me - almost in the same way the girl got up with Paul Simon the other week.

Anyway, favourite moment.. Mmmmm buying Dig the New Breed from Harrods while on a school trip when I was 14, SWITCH Finally getting to see Paul Weller in the 100 club (not the same I accept that).. SWITCH Having pint in the Hope & Anchor in Islington as a sort of pilgrimage ..SWITCH Revising for my O levels for hours & hours whilst listening to Snap (I must have worn that LP out), SWITCH discovering an autographed copy of Tubestation in a 2nd-hand shop for £3 SWITCH. What have I learnt ? BELIEF IS ALL !

My fave - hard to say, maybe Strange Town (already posted - have a listen if it's not familiar - it's a masterpiece - go on it's up there ^^^^), maybe To be Someone (already suggested) - so I'll post this as the one I listen to most so my ipod says...

Art School

ps - sorry for the pretentious crap above !

This is my favourite live performance I own by The Jam though, off the DVD compilation that came out a few years ago. And bloody hell this is ferocious...

The second album gets a slagging, but I Need You, The Modern World, Standards, In The Street Today, London Girls are all great tracks, as good as anything by any of the punk/new wavers at that point. And it has this, which is to my mind proof of what was to come.

I beg to differ. This was a favourite of mine for years, and was followed by "Absolute Beginners" which was essentially the beginning of the end.

This one's already been mentioned, but I think Weller was pretty proud of it - another candidate for "B-side other bands would kill for". He didn't often use a Tele in those days, but it dominates this:

The single before they truly cracked the charts. Life is a drink and you get drunk when you're young...

For a short time they hit absolute paydirt, pressing a particular button at a particular time and pressing it hard.

It was, in retrospect, a privilege to bear witness to.

That was me. And there are still traces - always the way with both Mods and Goths: you can spot 'em a mile off even when they've long grown out of all that.
My music taste has branched out in all sorts of directions since those days but I still love Paul, Bruce & Rick (and it's important to stress that Bruce'n'Rick weren't just "luggage").
Sounds so pretty ...

at school, wasn't allowed out that much and never to discos. But I loved music deeply and consumed magazines and books about music to a huge degree. I remained spectacularly uncool.
But not being allowed out or to dress in fashionable clothes, I found myself in constant thrall to the mods at school. I was drawn in particular to the older lads like Stephen Patterson (whose Lambretta my oul fella fixed - Patsy Snr was an old greaser) and Paul O'Neill. They were well sharp and were Jam die hards. I think it may be the reason why I love Harringtons and Fred Perry to this day.
I loved their gas capes, their parkas, their cycling jerseys and loafers.
My uncle and aunt lived next door to Nicky Okasilli, who was the top mod in Craigavon, and I used to look at his The Jam and The Who targets on his coats and just marvel at how good this band must be.
BTW: Wearing a target on your back wasn't a good idea where I came from during the Troubles.
As a result of this yearning to be cool, when I could, I submerged myself in the Jam. It transformed my life musically.
I never could be doing with Morrissey (who the other cool types were into) but I still think Weller is a great poet and perhaps the true voice of Britain in the early 80s.
Anyway, therapy session over, here's the first Jam song I deeply loved, from the first Jam album I dearly loved, Sound Affects.

(The Jam - Boy About Town)

I grew up in Bisley, that well known suburb of Woking, between 1977 and 1984. Irrationally, I've always thought of them as 'my' band.

And let's be clear - it's The Jam, the three of them. Mr Weller's post-Style Council work has been distinctly second rate compared to this.

look at that video. Put in on, and turn the speakers up. I can't dance at all. This isn't really dance music. But it makes me really *feel* something. I don't know what, but it feels real, immediate, raw and powerful. It feels good. Not a lot of music does that to me.

The Jam. They rule.

History has tended to overplay the commercial success of the Clash and underplay the commercial success of the Jam. They were huge, at least in Britain. And they were extremely good. Almost everything they did in that 5-year period from All Mod Cons to Beat Surrunder was spot-on. In the duco01 book, they are the best B-side band ever, and the third best singles band ever, after the Beatles and the Kinks.

To my chagrin, I only saw the Jam live once, and that was at the Sheffield Top Rank on the final tour. The outstanding memory from that night is a fierce version of "Trans-Global Express" that left the studio original for dead.

I would like to have been at the Albert Hall last year, when Weller and Foxton were finally reunited on stage.

Are we supposed to select two favourite Jam tracks for this love-in?
Oh well, here are two that I've always loved:

Man in the Corner Shop
The Butterfly Collector

I still remember vividly going round to my mate Jonny's house in March 1980, when we were both 13, and 'recording' our own version of Going Underground, by leaping around the room and singing into a mic attached to his mum's cassette recorder while the record played in the background.

We thought we were so f***ing cool! Then we played it back and I realised that my mum had been right all along: I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

I've loved The Jam ever since. Playing Snap is a guaranteed Proustian rush for me, taking me straight back to my last few years in school. Just ace!

Well, him and Stan Bowles.

The looks, the clothes, the tunes.

Still have scars on the tips of my fingers of my left hand from trying to perfect the bassline of Town Called Malice.

One my favourite cover versions ever...

As a teenager growing up in Leeds, Weller received instant cred for taking on members the Australian Rugby League team in a hotel in Leeds in late 77:

After the gig the band retired to their hotel and Paul gets involved in a fight with members of a visiting Australian rugby team. He was arrested but discharged by the Leeds Court after spending a night in the cells. Some fans chalked “Paul Weller Is Innocent” on the court steps.

Buying "Down In The Tube Station" without having heard it, simply because it was the new Jam single

Helping to smuggle lots of ticketless Manchester mods (who I'd never seen before in my life) into the final tour gig at the Apollo - the one and only time I saw them live - and at the end of the gig having to pick my way through weeping modettes.

My favourite Jam song

From 1982 - Ghosts.

thread takes me back, many good memories.
- Seeing them at the Rainbow in 1980, standing right down the front and just being awed how great they were live. Weller at his peak - as he was then - was a ferocious live performer but he needed the other two as well. They were a great great band. I bumped into Weller outside the Tate a few years back, mentioned how I had been at the gig and he was surprisingly very friendly. I asked him for his autograph, and I'm only about a couple of years younger them him but I felt like an awkward teenager all over again.
- Loving Down in the tube station at midnight at the time and the initial rush of Going Underground. Now, I tend to go for That's Entertainment and A town called malice.
- Scrawling the Jam logo everywhere, even my cricket bat.

Recently, I met up with my 16 year old niece wearing a Jam t- shirt. She didn't like the music that much, but liked the logo. But, it's a start....

I think they got better and better as they went along. My favourite tracks remain Town Called Malice, Funeral Pyre and this one....

I was so upset when Weller called it a day that I refused to buy any Style Council stuff, and still to this day don't own a note by them. I have now relented somewhat on the solo Weller projects.

...was when I managed to get hold of a copy of "Sound Affects" a few days before its official release from a local shop. Told my mates at school, and some of the kids who wouldn't normally have even dreamed of even acknowledging my existence, cam up to me and asked me where I had got it. Had about a couple of hours of being "cool" then sunk back to my natural level.

They were one of the fist bands where I was desperate to buy everything they released (helped as I seem to recall that they re-released their entire back catalogue of singles at least once so I was able to pick up the missing ones).

Top tracks have all pretty much been mentioned above, but a particular favourite of mine is "So Sad About Us"

surely the greatest Double A-side 7" single ever?!

I managed to persuade my wife, who is also a huge Jam fan and not from these Isles - that moving to Slough, a place mentioned in The Jam's "Eton Rifles", was cool and not because I had no money or prospects to afford to live anywhere posh!

The Jam meant getting a lift to football training on Sunday morning from my Dad's mate Mick who would play 'Snap' as loud as his crappy car stereo would go and miming the drums to the end of Funeral Pyre. Both of us. The car careering across the lanes of the motorway as we both got lost in the maelstrom.

so little time
..9 year old me playing solo swingball exhilirated by a third week of Going Underground on Top of the pops!!...phew..Setting Sons on a reel to reel tape wore it out...listening to their new single in a friend's house his brother's copy we thought Tales from the riverbank was the A side for weeks.. being physically shocked when the same brother told me they were splitting up a year later..dig the new breed for Christmas....and on and on still listening to them/watchin them ..there's a darkness and sharpness to it i really like..

so many Jam fans like me on here! Lots of memories from my teenage years - Weller on TOTP wearing an Heinz ketchup apron, 'Going Underground' straight in at number 1, watching their last TV appearance on The Tube, getting to see them live twice on their last two tours....
The Jam were so important to me when I was younger, and even though other music has come along into my life, they always were and always will be "my" band...

Here's one I've been playing a lot lately:

(But I'm Different Now)

I was 12 when In The City grazed the Top 40, and I quite liked it, and was convinced they were punk. They were liked by cooler people than me, and therefore were slightly scary.

I never really got into them like some people, and my mate Paul was a MASSIVE fan, and by osmosis I knew all the songs: singles, album tracks, etc., but they still didn't make much of an impression on me.

I love them now though.

Here's my favourite:

The farewell single; with Weller sans guitar (never a great idea - see Style Council - but cracking song)

Only £6.99 on Amazon at the moment. Bargain!

Their best album I reckon.

But still had my one man Mod Revival from 82-85 (actually never cool enough either, but this period was pretty much all mod stuff for me)

First heard saw then in 1980 with Going Underground - recorded that from Radio 1 chart run down and listened to it until the tape wore out.
Never owned any Jam records until Snap, and then got the rest of the albums & singles as soon as I could.

Followed each member after the band split and religiously bought anything that was released.

Never saw them live, but I have seen Bruce Foxton live when he played with Stiff Little Fingers.

Top Two? Too many to choose from. If pushed, I would plump for these two (Man In The Cornershop & Absolute Beginners). However, ask me tommorrow and it'll be something else

Right I'm off for a Jam Marathon, starting with In The City finishing with The Gift, and then the rest from the Direction, Reaction, Creation Box Set. Should be finished in about 9 hours or so

you have surpassed yourselves, what a fantastic collection of teenage memories and example after example of what a truly great band they were. I had The Jam on shuffle today and there is not a weak link, lyrics, voice, guitar bass and drums in perfect harmony and as exciting at 46 as they were at 15. They were and remain our band.

... I saw the Jam 27 times including 3 nights in a row at the Rainbow and the 'secret' gig at the Marquee when they were John's Boys.
Here's a Bruce Foxton special.....

The Jam, the Clash and Elvis Costello. The holy trinity of my late teens

but i think the style council in their first half decade are superior
(ducks)

my childhood band. yellow flexi disc pop art poem still held. queueing up at the rainbow from 6 in the morning to get tickets. ally pally , michael sobell sports centre , all 5 gigs at wembley , my first gig was them at hammy odeon support bands dolly mixtures, mo-dettes. soundcheck at hammy palais meeting the great man, great days.

someone who was 18 in 1997, my first memory of Paul Weller was of some git who clearly wanted to be in the Small Faces: a po-faced, serious, no-frills mod bloke...the solo Ocean Colour Scene.

It's only listening to quite a lot of Jam songs (including a lot mentioned on this thread) that made me realise how brilliant he could be. He seemed a funnier, wiser songwriter back then, but instead of evolving from cliche, he seemed to descend into it. He seems to have got it back a bit in recent years, but when he used to appear on TFI Friday in the 90s, I dived for cover.

12 December 1979, Glasgow Apollo, The Setting Sons tour. I was two rows back, having bought the tickets not knowing the stage at the Apollo was at least 10 feet high and pretty much all I saw of the band was the top of Weller's head.

Saw them several times after that but couldn't bring myself to listen to them these days.

us...

http://isysarchive.tv/what-we-wore-8

For The Jam, The Great Depression was a mere B-side...

I was a very earnest 12 year old when this came out and already quite liked The Jam after having bought Setting Sons from Woking Library (cheers) for 25p. It represented a cornerstone of my fledgling record collection for a while and was one of my first proper LPs.

Going Underground's message was the same as I had been banging on about at school. I was in the ferociously uncool Bertrand Russell-founded Peace Pledge Union but also got fully immersed in the Anti Nazi League and CND in my own ineffectual, pre-teenage long-streak-of-piss way. Went to lots of marches. When Going Underground entered the charts at number one, it felt like a very important event.

I was also at an age where the mod/punk thing was a clear divide, socially. I was more into the punk stuff (now known as "post punk"). The mods seemed to claim The Jam - but their music was hardly Secret Affair or The Lambrettas. In my neck of the woods, Going Underground was their crossover hit.

I remember going to the local record shop (we had them in those days) with a mate to get The Gift on the day it was released. It came in a striped paper bag, which I sadly no longer have.

I saw them once - it was my first gig but their last London one - at the Wembley Arena with support by the Big Country (with that bloke, you know the one from The Skids).

Over the years I've seen the Style Council and Paul Weller "solo" so many times. But you never forget your first.
(Town Called Malice)

(Butterfly Collector)