Ian Stone writes his Jam-based memoirs

Comic's book To Be Someone gets crowdfunded

Comedian Ian Stone is writing a book about his lifelong obsession with The Jam.

In the memoirs, entitled To Be Someone, the stand-up will remember how his love of the Mod revival band helped him grow up in the turbulent Britain of the 1970s.

It starts in the late 1970s, when Stone was watching his parents’ marriage disintegrate, while outside the country was divide by racism, violence an unemployment.

But Stone says everything changed in 1978, when he saw The Jam live at the Music Machine – the London venue subsequently known as Camden Palace and Koko – which he says opens his eyes to a new world.

Stone, who also hosts the breakfast show on LoveSport Radio, says: ‘The noise was insane. I was ten feet away from the stage. It was the most exciting moment of my life. For the next 90 minutes, they played a blistering set of some of the best pop tunes ever written.

‘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.’

Weller has even provided a quote for the sleeve of the book, which is due out next summer. He said: ‘I really liked this book. I’d forgotten how shit it was in the 1970s’.

Unbound is a crowdfunded publisher, and Stone has already hit the target to get the book, released thanks to more than 350 supporters. It can be ordered here.

Here is talking about the book: