I Hope You Like Jamming! Too....

In the early to mid 80's I would devour every music paper/mag that I could lay my hands on...N.M.E., Melody Maker, Smash Hits...you name it I would buy it...basically anything that featured music I would buy and with my fellow music fan mates we would discuss the latest new bands, learn all the lyrics in Smash Hits and try and get anyone else on board that would humour us..
It was while buying my weekly collection in '83 that I first spotted Jamming! magazine...50p for articles on Dexy's, Aztec Camera, Cocteau Twins...these were the bands that I was starting to listen to at the time on Radio 1 and there it was,a mag with all my bands in one place...thought I had died and went to heaven there and then...coming back on the train from Glasgow I read the mag from back to front and then realised the previous edition had been a full YEAR ago...what to do until the next edition but thankfully Jamming! was moving to bi-monthly after this edition..so only 2 months to wait...seemed like a bloody lifetime to wait then...

Over the next two and a half years or so Jamming! was THE mag to buy...anyone who was anyone was featured...cover stars included Madness, Pete Townsend, The Faith Brothers, Talking Heads, Lloyd Cole and in the final edition a cartoon of Elvis..

I had a fair few flexi discs that you would get free with Jamming! but over the years I seem to have lost them somewhere or other, which featured bands including 10,000 Maniacs, Big Sound Authority, Faith Brothers...this was just another reason to buy Jamming!...

As time went on Jamming! sadly lost its way with some of the writing becoming increasingly conceited and losing a lot of the passion that was there at the start and becoming indistinguishable from the weeklies...until early '86 when fed up with the lack of direction and lack of financial support Tony Fletcher and the publishers pulled the plug on what had once been the best music mag being produced in the U.K.

I have a lot of fond memories of Jamming! but only one copy exists from my collection and perhaps ironically that is the very last edition from Jan '86 which featured amongst others New Order , Madness , Prefab Sprout , and the man who went on to be my favourite author, Raymond Carver ...

Great writing and passion for what they were writing about set Jamming! apart from the pack...Tony Fletcher has a website called iJamming that is always worth a look and has some of the great articles that graced Jamming!

It can be found here

Here's a couple of tunes that always remind me of the glory days of Jamming!