E235: Tony Fletcher on Jamming! + The Jam + U2 audio interview

For this episode we're joined in Hammersmith by the much-travelled Tony Fletcher as he returns to his homeland to promote his new book POW! When UK Punk Went Pop, 1980–84. We begin by asking our guest about Jamming!, the fondly-remembered fanzine he launched in South London at the tender age of 13. He recalls the huge impact of the Jam on his adolescent life and the friendship with Paul Weller that grew out of his passion for the band. After discussing how Jamming! evolved into a proper monthly magazine — scooping early '80s interviews with Paul McCartney, Morrissey and U2 along the way — we ask Tony about the hyper-tribalism of the period POW! covers. He ponders the way punks like Adam Ant "went pop" while other bands forged a rearguard return to rock. A conversation about '80s "rockism" and its foes leads to clips from the late Richard Cook's February 1982 audio interview with U2, conducted in America just as the Irish quartet was commencing its full-scale ascent into the stadium-rock stratosphere. After we hear about our guest's post-Jamming! life as an author and biographer based in Brooklyn — and then upstate New York — Jasper talks us out with quotes from (and thoughts on) Chris Bohn's 1981 NME piece about Budapest's "semi-legal" musical underground... and a great Dua Lipa interview from 2022.