The previous year, Polydor had rejected the fifth full-length Style Council studio album, the house-influenced Modernism: A New Decade, and John fought Paul’s corner, lifting head of Polydor David Munns out of his chair during a particularly fractious meeting and telling him: “You don’t talk about my son like that.”
One of rock’s coolest dads, John Weller, who supported and managed son Paul‘s career from his earliest rock aspirations as a teenager through The Jam, The Style Council, and his rebirth as a solo artist, has died. I don’t know a whole lot about the guy, but I’ve seen interviews with him and read some stuff and I’ve always thought that if either of my sons wants to be a rock musician, I’d like to be as willing as John Weller was to be in his son’s corner and help him achieve his rock dreams. Pere Weller had excellent hair to boot!
NEXT: Rock Town Hall’s Official Eulogy…
how sad for Paul. my dad and i are pretty tight, so my heart goes out.
I saw Paul on his first solo tour in the States, supporting his first solo LP ( a very good record). I got a kick out of seeing his Pops backstage, lurking about. Don’t remember whether he introduced his son or not. Either way, he seemed a good guy. I always wondered if Weller’s “IWasADoleDad’sToyBoy” song was autobiographical.
Sounds like a pretty cool guy. Think there was bit on him in some relatively recent Weller article in Mojo maybe; seemed cool in there as well.
Anyone got Modernism? Opinions?
Did Modernism ever come out in its submitted form or did it become Weller’s first solo album? That first solo album has a few really good songs.
Amazon has a listing for an out of print Japanese version by the Style Council
http://www.amazon.com/Modernism-New-Decade-Style-Council/dp/B00005NS15
I’m almost certain that it came out on a Style Council box set that came out at some point in the ’90s. Let’s see if I can find it.
]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Adventures-Style-Council/dp/B00000G6H5
Mr. Mod or someone else, can you please remind me how to make that above link active?
Thanks, Berlyant. The best way to make the link active is to hope that The Back Office or I spot it and have a second to activate it. The blog only allows administrators to activate links in the Comments section. I wish we had such controls on the Poll so that we could return to allowing the “Write-in” answer, which was always one of the highlights of my day in the Halls of Rock. As it is, you may remember, some genius spammers found a way to immediately load up the poll results with links for new ways to pump up your penis or otherwise wish that you could get it up. Too bad!