h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Jam - The Band - A13167489
Author: Alex 'Tufty' Ashman [!] - U566116


This is based upon Six's work at A2471348 - hopefully I haven't done too much damage...

Alex

Great work! Well done, the both of you

Icy

Fantastic work, guys - a great entry on a great band!

I have only a couple of nitpicks: I think that the line near the end about how the three of them haven't spoken since the split is a little misleading. The bad feeling between the ex-members is entirely a matter of Paul Weller versus the other two: Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler get along just fine together. Foxton has even made guest appearances with Buckler's new band The Gift, whose live set mostly consists of Jam songs, and whose website suggests that the two of them might be working together more regularly. If you go to http://www.the-gift.info/the_gift_news.htm , you can hear an interesting BBC Radio Nottingham interview with Buckler in which he talks about the feud with Weller, and mentions that he and Weller haven't spoken since 1983.

My only other quibble is that the title of 'Start!' has an exclamation mark. You've included one in the discography, but not in the main text.

Finally, you could mention that 'News Of The World' now has an unlikely new lease of life as the title music for the topical comedy TV show 'Mock The Week'. Given that it's a Foxton composition, I wonder how Weller feels about that?

Ok, I've sorted out those three points and I've added this link for The Gift - http://www.bbc.co.uk/somerset/content/articles/2006/09/13/the_gift_review_feature.shtml

That'll do nicely. Good choice of link - sounds like it was a great gig!

It wasn't bad

The quote from the second paragraph after the 'In The City' heading was in Paolo Hewitt's book 'The Jam - A Beat Concerto' and doesn't as such quite fit with the second half of the sentence... Off the top of my head (I'm moving house, my books are in boxes) I think it was probably Steve Brookes who said it, in the context that the young (possibly pre-Jam) Weller was obsessed with London, he had this portable cassette recorder and went up there on the train saying "I want to tape London". Anyway, that's the fascination that eventually begat the song 'In the City'...

'Going Underground' was only the third song ever to go into the charts straight in at Number One - it happens all the time these days, of course, but at the time it was a very unusual thing... Although it was partly because of sharp marketing by Polydor - prior to that, it was accepted practice to put out new releases in the middle of the week, but they stuck it out early to give it a full week's sales and a flying start in the charts.

'Funeral Pyre' is the only Jam song where all the band get writing credits, which is probably an indication of how short of ideas Paul Weller was at the time - on the back of the 'Dig The New Breed' album he says something like '81 was an 'orrible year for songs'...

It's also the song that happened to be on my walkman when I was walking up the path to school to get my GCSE results.

You've done a great job all-in. One small quibble - "the Mod look of bands like the Sex Pistols" - que? If there's one thing the Pistols never looked like, it was Mods! Did you perhaps mean the Small Faces?

Ok, I think I've sorted out all those

"Did you perhaps mean the Small Faces?" - I honestly thought I'd written 'Small Faces' until I went and checked

And in a flash, he was gone...

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

It's gone underground!

Hello! Hurray! What a nice day, for the Jam Guide Entry, Jam Guide Entry...

Well done!

Well done Alex for taking it on and getting it here!

Hey Alex and Number Six,

I've been given your fabulous entry to subedit, and the result is at A18927381. If you spot anything that needs attention, please drop me a note.

SchrEck Inc.

No problems as far as I can tell

Nice one - the only thing I might query is at the end of the first paragraph of 'When You're Young'... as I tend to see bands as a collective rather than an individual entity in their own right, I think of them as plural rather than singular. So i'd say '...The Jam were formed' rather than 'was formed'.

However this is just personal preference, and I know there isn't actually a 'correct' answer in grammar, either are right!

Great photo, by the way.

Photo?