The Jam

The Jam's enduring, eternal popularity in the U.K. meant an ever-increasing number of archival releases that cropped up over the years, with Live Jam, a fine counterpart to the other official concert album, Dig the New Breed, turning up in 1993. Like that earlier effort, it draws together a slew of tracks from shows ranging from 1979 to 1982, including some cuts from the band's almost-farewell headlining bows at Wembley Arena. Quite happily, there's no track overlap at all with Dig the New Breed, making the two perfectly complementary recordings in ways. The real treat, thanks to the expanded space on CDs, is the inclusion of nine songs from two December 1979 shows in London, the best portrait of what an actual specific show must have been like.

Extras offers 26 B-sides, rarities and unreleased tracks that, while far from complete (the wonderful "See Saw" is absent, for instance), is a fan's dream come true. This is a fans' album, to be sure, but for fans, the never-before-heard demos (like "Burning Sky" and "Thick As Thieves") have a certain spine-tingling effect, and the covers (like "So Sad About Us," "And Your Bird Can Sing," and "Disguises") are undeniably fun – often more so than the covers they chose to include on the proper albums. Extras is not a good introduction, to be sure, but for the converted, this is essential.

The brilliance of this collection is that it combines the standard Brit-punk anthems by the Sex Pistols, the Damned, the Buzzcocks, and Stiff Little Fingers with other great songs that typify the variety and range of punk-era independent music from both sides of the Atlantic. The songs are so well chosen that the punk aesthetic is further revealed by the inclusion of songs that characterize pub rock, new wave, and other related genres. The usual punk suspects ("New Rose," "Anarchy in the UK") are all here, along with many other treasures: Dr. Feelgood's "Milk and Alcohol", Devo's "Mongoloid," Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner," Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer," and Television's "Marquee Moon." The less commonly anthologized punk selections are inspired, too: the Ruts' "Babylon Is Burning," Generation X's "Ready Steady Go," and X-Ray Spex's "Identity," along with the seminal "Sheena is a Punk Rocker." The conception of the genre is expanded further to include Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, XTC, Joe Jackson, the Pretenders, the Tubes, and Blondie, and their presence overcomes the tendency for boring repetition on a very long collection.

The Jam's Setting Sons was originally planned as a concept album about three childhood friends who, upon meeting after some time apart, discover the different directions in which they've grown apart. Only about half of the songs ended up following the concept due to a rushed recording schedule, but where they do, Paul Weller vividly depicts British life, male relationships, and coming to terms with entry into adulthood…

Universal Music issued in 2017 The Jam / 1977, a new 40th anniversary, five-disc box set celebrating the busy debut year of The Jam, when Paul Weller, Rick Buckler Bruce Foxton and delivered two albums and three hit singles. This collection features remastered versions of both In The City and This Is The Modern World, and despite a plethora of Jam box sets in the last five or six years the label have dug out six previously unreleased demos from the first album which feature on the second CD alongside five further demos which have been issued before. CD four is a live disc and includes a previously unreleased concert (15 tracks) from the ‘Nashville’ recorded on 10 September 1977. This is paired with two John Peel sessions from the same year.

Universal Music reissued The Jam‘s fourth album Setting Sons as a 3CD+DVD super deluxe box set in November 2014. The 1979 album is remastered from the original analogue tapes and the first disc adds single edits and B-sides. Amongst the 22-tracks on the second audio disc are 14 previously unreleased demos and alternates, along with 4 tracks from the 1979 John Peel session. CD 3 brings Live in Brighton 1979, a live performance that has never been previously issued. The 20-song set features Setting Sons in almost its entirety.

40th anniversary five-disc box set (4CD/1DVD), celebrating the Jam's debut year when they released two albums and three hit singles. Features 'In The City' & 'This Is The Modern World' - original albums re-mastered as well as unreleased demos and live recordings. The DVD features TV appearances and promo videos from 1977…

Yak were a 4 piece instrumental progressive rock band who played between '82 & '84. The line up consisted of Robin Hodder (guitar), SySnell (bass), John Wynn (drums) & Martin Morgan (keyboards). The band stopped playing when jobs took the members to disperate parts of the UK. The material had only ever been recorded in Lo-Fi but Martin was determined that it should not be 'lost'. In 2003 he set about re-recording 8 of the YAK tracks which were released as the "Dark Side of the Duck" album in Feb '04. Following this and enthused with the response, the band re-formed - original line up, but now with Max Johnson on bass. A live EP, "Does Your Yak Bite ?" was released in 2005, and the same line-up released the jam collection "The Rutland Chronicles" the following year.