Sup up your beer and collect your fags

There has been a spate of bands recently getting back together some for the right reasons and some to boost the pension funds for one last hurrah. It was pleasing to see that Crowded House have reformed, though this is one reunion that is tinged with sadness. As the original drummer Paul Hester will not be around, having committed suicide in 2005.

The news to today that The Jam are getting back together is something of a shock, given that Paul Weller had previously said that his kids would have to be destitute before he considered it.

The news is all the more baffling given that Weller in fact will not be joining the band for the ‘reunion’ - it will be bassist Bruce Foxton, Rick Buckler and AN Others instead. Worryingly they have a 20-date tour and album ready to roll.

This has got to be the most ill conceived idea that I have ever heard in my life. As the years have rolled on, the dignity of the other two has lapsed year-by-year, from the whingeing biography Our Story, through to Rick Buckler joining The Gift – a Jam tribute band!

The Jam is Paul Weller, and though Buckler and Foxton have some claim to the legacy of The Jam – this would in effect be pissing all over that legacy.

I don’t think I’ll be buying a ticket or the CD – I wait eagerly as to what Weller’s response will be.