White Rabbit Records - Blog Archive

 RSS Feed

» Listings for 2023

  1. 2023 Albums Thing 193 - The Jam “Snap !”

    Posted on

    The Jam cared about what they released and cared about their fans. They routinely released non album singles (“All Around The World”, “News Of The World”, “Strange Town”, “When You’re Young”, “Going Underground”, “Absolute Beginners”, “Funeral Pyre”, “The Bitterest Pill…” and “Beat Surrender” were not lifted from or included on albums, that's 9 of their 16 UK singles) and the versions of singles that did appear on albums were usually different in some subtle way, they wanted to give their fans value for their hard earned.

    “Snap!” is a 2 LP “career retrospective”. If you are unfamiliar with The Jam (and if so where have you been ?) then this should be one of the starting points for you. I’m sure Polydor just wanted to whack out a singles collection but “Snap!” isn’t that. Yes it includes all of their singles (well, the vinyl version does, when it was issued on CD it became “Compact Snap!” and didn’t include all the tracks from the LP’s) and those singles, where different from the album versions, are included in their 7” incarnations. It also includes some of the B-sides ("The Butterfly Collector”, “Smithers-Jones” in it’s B-side, band version, "Dreams of Children" in a form edited for the US and "Tales From The Riverbank”) and key album tracks ("Away From The Numbers”, “Billy Hunt”, "Mr. Clean”, "English Rose”, "Thick As Thieves”, "Man In The Corner Shop”).

    And then there were the things that made it worth buying for those of us that already had everything. The recording of “That’s Entertainment” is a previously unreleased demo of Paul Weller’s and initial copies of the album included a 4 track 7” EP of songs recorded at Wembley Arena on their farewell tour. It’s a fantastic compilation. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, strangely an America journalist (America, in the main, didn’t get The Jam) who writes for the AllMusic website has described it as "one of the greatest greatest-hits albums of all time”.

    The Jam cared…

    That’s Entertainment (Demo) - https://youtu.be/djLKEiitumg?si=8kL2v8pT9IVlY3xz

  2. 2023 Albums Thing 192 - The Jam “Dig The New Breed”

    Posted on

    One thing The Jam were, and I cannot and maybe haven’t stressed this enough, was an incredible live force. They are the greatest live band I’ve ever seen and I find it hard to believe I’ll ever see anything that good again. Three fellas should never have been able to produce a sound that powerful and that big…but these three did.

    “Dig The New Breed” is a compilation of live performances by The Jam, the earliest being “In The City” from London’s 100 Club in 1977 through to those from Glasgow Apollo in April 1982 finishing with “Private Hell”. In between there’s all the live favourite’s you’d expect plus a cover of Eddie Floyd’s tribute to Otis Redding, “Big Bird”. It’s often thought of as a posthumous release but The Jam played their final show in Brighton on 11th December 1982 and “Dig The New Breed” was released on the 10th.

    If you saw The Jam live you’ll know. If you didn’t this, and their other live albums, are as close as you’ll ever get. 

    “Put your hands together for the best band in the fucking world…THE JAM !“ Thanx John…

    The Jam, Bingley Hall, Birmingham 21st March 1982 - https://youtu.be/5E4njUD5ayU?si=cFEPhP-pTA1vk4nO 

  3. 2023 Albums Thing 191 - The Jam “The Gift”

    Posted on

    “And now for those of you watchingin black and white, this one is in Technicolour…”

    All good things must come to an end. “The Gift” was released on 12th March 1982, on 30th October Paul Weller made the announcement that the Jam would split up on the completion of a short tour. Following the release of their final single “Beat Surrender” and that short December 1982 tour, they were gone. The decision to split was solely Weller’s, he said “I wanted to end it to see what else I was capable of, and I'm still sure we stopped at the right time. I'm proud of what we did but I didn't want to dilute it, or for us to get embarrassing by trying to go on forever. We finished at our peak.”.

    “The Gift” has its moments, it also has some (to my ears) fairly deep lows. “Precious” is the only Jam track I routinely skip over, just can’t be doing with it. Weller had been listening to different things including Wire, the Gang Of Four and Pigbag, well for “Precious” he just lifted the bassline from Pigbag’s biggest hit (“Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag”) and wrote some words to it. The calypso styled “The Planner’s Dream Gone Wrong” and the instrumental “Circus” are utterly forgettable. Side ones finale “Trans Global Express” is better but at its heart is just a very unsubtle reworking of World Column’s Northern Soul floorshaker “So Is The Sun” (https://youtu.be/Le7B63pA17c?si=RtXfoGflsdMcUpaf).

    Other parts of this album are as good as anything they’d ever done. Both sides opening songs, “Happy Together” and “Running On The Spot” (“We’re running on the spot, Always have always will, We’re just the next generation of the emotionally crippled”), are A1 classic Jam. The two slower songs, “Ghosts” and “Carnation”, are stunningly good. And last but not in anyone’s world anything like least there is “Town Called Malice”, a surgical evisceration of the effects of Thatcher-ism on ordinary people, while at the same time being a superb pop song and dance tune. Lyrically it’s astonishing  

    “Rows and rows of disused milk floats stand dying in the dairy yard
    And a hundred lonely housewives clutch empty milk bottles to their hearts
    Hanging out their old love letters, on the line to dry
    It's enough to make you stop believing when tears come fast and furious
    In a town called malice    ”

    That sense of hopelessness tempered just a few lines later by the positivity of 

    “Playground kids and creaking swings lost laughter in the breeze
    I could go on for hours and I probably will
    But I'd sooner put some joy back in to this town called malice    ”

    It gave The Jam their 3rd #1 single, this one debuting on the charts at #1 in February 1982, and you can still drop it in a DJ set in the right venue to this day and have a packed dancefloor singing along, not many political protest songs can get that reaction.

    I didn’t see them on that final tour in December 1982, don’t know why and it’s still something I regret. The Jam were special, a pivotal part of my teenage years, I found them at age 14 and they split when I was 19. As I type this I’m listening to “Beat Surrender”. Thanx Paul, but I’m still not sure I’ve ever forgiven you…

    Ghosts - https://youtu.be/CjFUpyLT_xo?si=XuBwZcnW3PhSxLPk