![]() ![]() See if you can spot the supernumerary third nipple. “People are getting hot and bothered just because he’s fondling Merton Mick’s ear?” I asked, incredulously, to anyone who’d listen. With fortuitous serendipity, Long Hot Summer’s title even reflected the weather: Britain had just experienced, or endured, what remained the hottest July on record until that was swelteringly surpassed in 2006.įilmed on the River Cam in Cambridge, the “controversial” video depicted a boating scene and raised more than a few Roger Moore-style eyebrows with a thinly veiled homoerotic undertone while pretty Paul, looking as lithe and lovely as ever, paraded around topless and amorous. Lee’s defection from the George Michael and Wham! camp to the collective’s, later becoming Weller’s wife and mother of his first two children.** 11 (“It reminds me of a cockney Gil Scott-Heron, said Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp, ambiguously) but via an appearance on Top Of The Pops it did confirm guest vocalist Dee C. The second Style Council single, the club-influenced anti-capitalist Money Go Round, stalled at No. I wanted him in my new group because I believe him to be the finest young jazz/soul organist in the country.” For the time bring it’s just me and keyboard player Mick Talbot. ![]() Talking to a press release in February 1983, he announced Speak Like A Child, their debut 45, and an appointment that gave an indication of his future musical direction: “Like Robin Hood I will be collecting members for The Style Council as I go on my merry way. Within eight months of the final activity of those new wave pacesetters, Weller’s new cafe club collective had three hit singles to their name. Weller’s still an attractive, angsty presence, retaining a streak of aggression alongside an inquiring mind – for instance, his only semi-joking introduction to the newish, punchy psych rocker Long Time, “which you won’t know because you haven’t bought the fucking record.” Indeed, for someone so revered his chart record since junking The Jam in 1982 is a curious one. #Paul weller pet shop boys movie#Alongside a splash of cocktail and bachelor pad moves was the cool cerulean surprise of Have You Ever Had It Blue, a jazz-inflected light-stepper from the soundtrack to Absolute Beginners (the flop David Bowie movie rather than the Jam song, which didn’t get an airing). Approaching his seventh decade, dignity as well as age subdued the Woking wonder’s dynamic thrash moves of yore, but he’s still in fine form, vocally and visually. In Sydney 2018, poor Paul was more snotty than snorty. The only other person I’ve seen do that was Grace Jones, but, alas, she’d just been heavy in the powdering department. So imagine my surprise when a slightly under the weather Weller decided to blow his nose on stage. With his cultural icon status and premier pop pedigree as frontman of The Jam and The Style Council-two of the most recognisable British bands of the ‘70s and ‘80s-the so-called Modfather has a reputation as one of the most stylish men in rock. #Paul weller pet shop boys mod#Not just because the Fab Four, the Swinging Sixties, and psychedelic rock all are factors in Weller’s illustrious background, but because of the being a Mod amid punk thing, and switching to being a sweater-over-the-shoulders, jazz-soul man when puffed-up powered pop was making its name, to explorations of Krautrock and electronics, folk and rock in the past 20 years, it has always been true that tomorrow never knows what will pique his interest next, from where the next musical punch will come. Weller ignites Sydney © Steve Pafford 2018 I caught the hastily added third and final show on January 29, where he was preceded on stage by The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows. But this is a man who not only turns 60 today, but an artist whose albums routinely land in the Top Five, who is considered nearly as big an influence by Britpop stalwarts as the ‘60s artists who inspired him, and who has always preferred to maintain a distinct Englishness rather than chasing an international audience.Įven though he has only managed to figure on the Billboard Hot 100 for one solitary week (1984’s paean to bipolarity, My Ever Changing Moods), Weller did manage to sell out a hat-trick of concerts at Australia’s iconic Sydney Opera House at the start of the year. Given Paul Weller’s slightly low-key profile outside of the UK since his 1980s heyday, the reverence with which he is regarded at home may come as a surprise to some casual observers. ![]() ![]() A key figure not just in music but also in youth culture, his influence on people in their teens and early twenties during the decade extended beyond their record-buying habits and on to their politics and appreciation of the arts in general. There has been so much written about Paul Weller that to attempt to tell his story in a short blog format seems futile. ![]()
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