This first Summer Of Hate got me thinking about the first Summers of Love - when acid house and rave took hold of virtually everyone I knew...except me.
Almost all my mates were spending their hard earned cash on Es. I was spending my money on madras shorts and penny loafers. Predictable, I know.
One thing that I couldn't have predicted was when Weller gave me a cassette of some demos he'd been working on. He'd been going to places like Norman Jays' High On Hope and had caught the bug for house music, big time. Fortunately, it was house of the soulful, deep variety.
A little while later The Style Council debuted this new sound at the Royal Albert Hall. It was to be their last ever gig. I remember Marco Nelson, Gee Bello and of course Mick Talbot and Steve White were in the band. I thought it was amazing. All those pot-bellied Mods however, who seemed to attend all their gigs, calling for Jam songs, were horrified. Maybe they'd forgotten that the original Mod soundtrack was r'n'b, jazz and soul. It was the eeriest atmosphere when, in virtual silence, the shocked Mods shuffled out of the auditorium after the gig.
But they weren't the only people who were shocked. The bosses at Wellers' label refused to release the LP.
Maybe the powers that be assumed the spirit so evident during those first few summers would fade away just as quickly as it had arrived. How wrong could they be.
Maybe the powers that be assumed the spirit so evident during those first few summers would fade away just as quickly as it had arrived. How wrong could they be.
This video is of the Style Council, final line-up, performing one of the songs from the aborted LP Modernism, A New Decade. The performance was recorded in London for a music show broadcast in Japan. The songs were later released as part of a Style Council box set in the UK. A nine track LP was released in Japan some years later.
