Episode Ep 945 August 4, 2026 46 min 10s

Tony Fletcher - teenage label boss! – remembers the Jam, the Tube and the ‘80s pop explosion

From Word In Your Ear Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

Tony Fletcher launched Jamming! when he was 13, wrote for the Face at 16, ran a label with Paul Weller at 17 and a year later was presenting the Tube. And was in a band signed to EMI. If anyone did more as a teenager, we want to meet them. It’s all in his coming-of-age memoir ‘Pow! When UK Punk Went Pop 1980-84’ - discussed here - which touches on …

…the speed, the possibilities and the riches of success in the early ‘80s – and how it felt to be at the heart of it

… “I knew nothing about running a label – and then discovered Paul Weller didn’t either”

… Madness being interviewed by “spiky-haired, Harrington-jacketed, Ben-Sherman-shirted me”

… when confidence meets ignorance

… when bands went from selling 2,000 records to 20,000 and, in America, 200,000: “Phil Oakey always carried £500 in cash”

… the research meetings that launched the Tube and his two-minute audition

… the day Leslie Ash called in sick and he covered for her on live TV

… Pete Townshend, 35, convinced the Who were finished

... discovering the inner circle within the inner circle

… “to the Rainbow for the Mod Revival all-dayer!”

… and memories of Wham!, Paula Yates and Pete Wylie and what he learnt from running labels and magazines.

Order copies of ‘Pow! When UK Punk Went Pop 1980-84’ here: