The interviews he did then were very political, but maybe he felt the music was getting a bit lost.Īnd Live Aid – what Bob Geldof did was amazing. It was all done with good intentions, but then I think maybe Paul realised – not saying any names, but Ken Livingstone and the other one with the dodgy haircut – they were using him a little bit. I’m bringing the more political side of The Style Council with Red Wedge and the Miners’ Strike into this exhibition. The politics of today is on those covers from 40 years ago. Reading all the music press, the NME and Sounds and Melody Maker, all those things that don’t even exist any more, when you look at the front covers, it is like we have gone full circle. Red Wedge – pop and politics combined in 1985 And I’ve tried to get Tracie involved and all the honorary Councillors. Some purists might think, ‘Oh my god, folded posters’, but it has kept them really tidy. We didn’t know they were there because they have been folded up for over 30 years. We pretty much have every Style Council poster. But it was Mick who got me really excited by it. I said ‘I want it’ and Paul gave us that as well. Paul gave me it two days ago and last week I was in his cottage and saw the gramophone from the picture. To the left of the Otis Redding T-shirt – which is on a Twiggy hanger, there is a John Lennon hanger and in front is a Georgie Best hanger. By the time it opens, we should have a good representation of it. We’re trying to recreate it for the exhibition. It was a very colourful picture originally. The album cover was given a wash all over it. The original shot used for the cover of Our Favourite Shop – and recreated at the new exhibition “Every band at one time in their life should have an exhibition. We were like, if we can make ours even a quarter as good as this… There were so many artefacts and personal things and that is what it is all about, keeping those memories alive. “I went to the David Bowie at the V&A three times before we did The Jam one at Somerset House. That was incredible – finding his schoolbooks and stuff he didn’t realise he had. “Me and Russell went to clear out my brother’s shed at his studio when we were doing some stuff for him down there. And it wasn’t until my dad died and I cleared out his garage that I realised how much stuff he kept. So there was always a mix of me and him writing in there. My brother put stuff into my scrapbooks as well. I’ve always kept scrapbooks from day one. I was still at school and the highlight of the week was the Friday Night Disco in Knaphill – so when I started to go up to London to the Vortex Club and the Marquee and see all these mad punks, this was like another world. “So it’s been a bit of a cottage industry for all of us. I was 13 or 14 and I was a member of the David Essex fan club – which for £5 a year was pretty crap, to be honest. I started the fanclub because there was piles and piles of post coming through the letterbox. We had to be the first ones to get up and dance. Me and Mum were the sort of rent-a-crowd in those days. My mum used to look after their clothes and make sure they were smart and washed and ironed. “My brother started playing guitar at an early age, and my dad, who was a builder and worked taxis at night, got them a few gigs and stuff,” says Weller. We asked Nicky to tell us some of the stories behind the exhibition. And it’s taking place In The City of Brighton until the end of August. Nicky Weller at the new exhibition in Brighton We can even step into a re-creation of the cover photo of The Style Council’s brilliant second LP Our Favourite Shop and so much more. We can see Paul Weller’s school books and reports, the first ever photoshoot of The Jam (with handwritten comments by the singer), original handwritten lyrics, The Jam’s 1982 Subbuteo team, Weller’s iconic Whaam guitar, torn trousers given away as a fanclub prize in 1977, and a talent contest trophy the band won as teens in Woking. Now, Nicky is curating a new exhibition, This Is The Modern World, featuring music, clothes and incredible ephemera offering a new view on The Jam and The Style Council. It became the family business – with their father John managing the band while Nicky ran the fanclub. Then her brother Paul Weller became a teenage sensation, as singer and driving force of The Jam.
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