London comedian Ian Stone has started a crowdfunding campaign to raise the money to publish a memoir about his music-fixated childhood. To Be Someone is about growing up in North London and being obsessed with The Jam (for younger readers he means Paull Weller's band, not the fruit-based sandwich spread). Stone has to pay for the initial launch through publisher Unbound, which is where this appeal comes in. "I'm doing it through a crowdfunding scheme because ultimately, I want to find out who my real friends are." Stone explains the book here and there is a pledge link below.
"The Jam released ‘In The City’ in May 1977. At that time, no-one was happy in Britain, particularly not in my house. I was fourteen and my life consisted of school, watching Arsenal play terrible football and listening to my parents’ marriage disintegrating. I was simultaneously bored, irritated and massively angry. In the real world, there was terrible food, awful clothes, racism, football violence, inner-city riots, police corruption, high levels of unemployment and terrorism (partially abetted by my father, as you’ll discover). The country was divided. Some people tried to cheer themselves up by having street parties to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. The Sex Pistols took a boat down the Thames and sang about a fascist regime and how the Queen wasn’t a human being.
I first saw The Jam at the Music Machine in London in 1978. Late that evening the lights went down, a silver-haired man who turned out to be Paul Weller’s dad walked onto the stage and in a forty Marlborough a day voice said “Please welcome the best fucking band in the land, the Jam.”
The boys walked out to a huge roar and launched into ‘It’s Too Bad’. The noise was insane. I was ten feet away from the stage. It was the most exciting moment of my life. For the next ninety minutes, they played a blistering set of some of the best pop tunes ever written. I knew every word of every song. I still do.
For the next five years, I was obsessed. I took weekend jobs so that I could go to gigs. I had adventures. I tried to bunk into the Hammersmith Odeon and ended up on the roof. I was on the point of being thrown out of a hotel in Brighton when Paul Weller intervened and invited me and my mates back into the bar. I went to see them in Paris and somehow found myself being interviewed for the Melody Maker. I went to Bracknell for the first time in my life.
In 1982, Paul Weller announced that the band were splitting up. I was devastated. I’m just about over it now. There will never be another band like the Jam. For those of us who went on that five year journey with them, the love ran deep. It still does. They helped me and thousands of others like me to grow up. They helped me to be someone. This book is in part a thank you to them."
