Paul Weller Visits His Photographic Exhibition In Woking!

Steve Pilgrim & Paul Weller

Paul Weller Returns To His Roots At The Lightbox
By Beth Duffell
August 08, 2011
From Get Hampshire

WOKING’S Modfather returned to his hometown on Friday (August 8) to attend a private view of a photographic exhibition at The Lightbox.

Paul Weller was back in Woking for one night only when he was a guest at the museum and gallery for a Town Called Malice, Stanley Road Revisited: Photographs of Paul Weller.

Portraits by Weller’s favourite photographer, Lawrence Watson, adorn the walls of the upper gallery in the exhibition that runs until September 25.

The last time Weller made a public appearance in Woking was when he did a gig for Woking Hospice at Woking leisure centre, which raised more than £60,000 for the cause.

Paul, who was born at Woking’s Victoria Hospital, chatted to the Surrey Advertiser about the exhibition and music.

The evening also featured a private view of Snap, Crackle and Pop: British Pop Art meets the High Street in the Swinging Sixties.

Wearing an original paper dress, Katherine Higgins, TV presenter and specialist on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, who co-curated Snap, Crackle and Pop, spoke about the work that had been done behind the scenes to create the colourful exhibition.

Sir Peter Blake CBE officially opened the event and Steve Pilgrim, Paul Weller’s drummer, entertained the crowds with live music.

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John Weller Obituary From The Independent...

For thirty years, John Weller managed the career of his son Paul, through the salad days and success of The Jam in the Seventies and early Eighties, the ups and downs of The Style Council and Paul’s re-emergence as a solo artist in the Nineties. Theirs was a unique father-son relationship in the music industry, built on John’s unwavering belief in Paul’s talent and shared values like hard work and pragmatism.

John could be blunt, and once refused to have lunch in a record company’s executive dining room, remarking to the managing director: “I didn’t come here to eat, I came to do business.” But his bark was worse than his bite.

John’s success was all the more remarkable since he started in his forties after years working in factories, on building sites and driving a taxi. When The Jam signed to Polydor in February 1977, for a £6,000 advance and a six per cent royalty rate, John admitted he didn’t have a bank account and asked for cash instead of a cheque. A&R man Chris Parry duly we…

Paul Weller's Son, Natt Gives A Candid Taxi Interview

Where else to meet the musician son of the agelessly groovy Modfather but at London’s trendy Met Bar? And there’s more than a hint of moody Mod style about the Japanese parka that Paul Weller’s eldest child Natt has slung over his Vivienne Westwood top.

Yet there all similarity ends, for singer-guitarist Natt has inherited the exotic beauty of his mother – former Wham! and Style Council backing singer Dee C Lee – rather than the famously angular features of his father.

‘Everybody always goes, “Luckily he took after his mum…”’ laughs Natt, whose mother is from France and St Lucia and whose great-great grandma was Japanese. Hence Natt’s fascination for Japan, where he moved in 2006 for a year to learn the language.

To pay for his studies, he modelled and deejayed, ‘I felt like an outsized monster,’ confides Natt, 21, a 6ft 1in beanpole. He returned a fan of Japan’s popular culture – from manga cartoons to punk-goth music – and with a different spelling to his name, which now features two ‘…

Steve White On The Passing of John Weller...

It wasn't unexpected to get the news that John Weller had passed away , it was a beautiful sunny morning in fact , but the news still stung even though the anticipation existed .

I finished work today , a day peppered by texts and calls , I missed the call that mattered but made ammends and spoke to the one person I needed to speak to , I raised a glass at dinner and reminisced with my beautiful partner of days of travel and nights of glory that followed , and after a little to much wine the drowsiness lifted and the harsh reality that someone very special had passed hit me , I wanted to say that , with my emotions bubbling very much to the surface , I wanted to remember those decades and shows and nights that we all spent together , indestructible , laughing and making the music of our dreams , wide eyed vagabonds not quite believing .

I remember the day on arriving back from Sydney, John telling me it was all over and he had enough of "this lark" , that was 24 odd years …

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