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

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

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold August 4, 2026 Duration: 46:10


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:

US: https://www.trouserpressbooks.com/pow

 

UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/pow-when-uk-punk-went-pop-1980-84-tony-fletcher/74b193de4c1dee68

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There’s a particular kind of conversation about music that happens between friends who’ve spent a lifetime immersed in it-not as distant critics, but as participants in the culture. That’s the atmosphere you’ll find in Word In Your Ear, a podcast from Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, and Alex Gold. With a collective eighty years of writing and broadcasting for titles like Smash Hits and Mojo, and shows from "The Old Grey Whistle Test" to VH-1, they don’t just recount history; they unpack the stories behind it with the ease of a shared laugh. This podcast grew naturally from their work on the late, great magazine The Word, where they began recording over thirteen years ago, building a dedicated following who found something genuinely special in the mix. Each episode weaves together music, commentary, history, and interviews, moving seamlessly from deep-dive analysis of a seminal album to a frank chat with a surprising guest, all delivered with the warmth and wit of a late-night chat. It feels less like a formal show and more like you’ve been invited to pull up a chair in a room where the anecdotes are plentiful and the expertise is worn lightly. The result is a consistently engaging listen that treats music not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing part of our lives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

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