The Jam 1982

Rick Buckler & Zoe Howe

OMNIBUS Mod icons’ swansong year.

Drummer Rick Buckler was the stylish member of The Jam – the one who for ages we believed was the singer, he looked so sharp. Sharp in print too. On the verge of The Jam’s arena status, Buckler comments at the end of his touching intro: “Without guidance in our business affairs, we carried on… buoyed up by our fans and our love of playing live. Then came 1982.”

What follows is a warts-andall oral history of The Jam’s final, traumatic year, led by Buckler and supported by a cast of dozens of insiders, with a couple of key voices missing, obviously. The shock waves of the event are still being felt 40 years on. As Bruce Foxton put it: “We’d still meet fans after the show and they’d all be in tears: ‘Why are you calling it a day?’ And I’m in tears on the other side: ‘I don’t know! I don’t know.’”

This superbly illustrated book makes me want to go and listen to The Jam from 1982 (like

I have every year since). That’s a helluva recommendation.