Recent news & reviews:

Two new publications due out 1st October 2017

The hilarious memoirs of original Mod DAVE DRY from the cutting edge of both fashion and scooters.

A whopping 250 pages at just £9.99 + £2.00 UK P&P (£5 ROW)

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Modernist beat poet JASON DISLEY’s thrilling homage to pulp-fiction noir novellas of the ’40’s and ’50’s, set in the Mod clubs of mid-sixties Manchester

Priced at just £6.99 + £2.00 UK P&P (£5 ROW)

The eagerly awaited READY STEADY GIRLS compiled by Mark Baxter, Jason Brummell and Ian Snowball is now available for pre-order.

After it’s successful crowd-funding via KickStarter the book is already at first proof stage and should be sent to print within the week and is right on course for delivery early October 2016

Priced at just £20.00 + £5.00 UK P&P (£10 ROW) this is the essential book for the Modernist bookshelf.

At Last! The eagerly awaited novel by acclaimed writer Pete McKenna; Maradona good, Pele better, GEORGE BEST is now available to purchase. 

Released to coincide with the 10th Anniversary of his death, the book is a celebration of the memory of a man that meant so much to a generation of football fans. It is the tale of Pete’s journey to attend George’s funeral to pay his respects to the flawed genius, who’s demons were just too strong for him in the end.

Maradona, good, Pele better, GEORGE BEST is a warm and good humoured novel but with a serious and at times sad undercurrent as the self-destruction of George and another significant person in Pete’s life, are all too inevitable.

Priced at just £6.99 + £1.99 UK P&P these make an ideal present for the Man Utd fan, the George Best fan or simply the fan of a good read in your life.

Great News! All About My Girl, the long out of print and highly sought after first novel by Jason Brummell is back in print, complete with a stunning new cover by Steven Millington.

These are in a strictly limited production run of just 250 so you’ll need to move quick if you wish to grab a copy.

Priced at just £5.99 + £1.49 UK P&P these wont hang about.

Check out more of Steven Millington’s wonderful work here:

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5.30Many thanks to Tara Milton – from one of the very great bands of the Mod-revival-revival (TM Mark ‘Monkey’ Raison) – 5.30 – for his kind review of All About My Girl, that I received just before X-mas.

Hello Jason Brummell, long time coming I know, but please allow me to congratulate you on the fine piece of work which is ‘All About My Girl’! For me, the writing is accomplished, believable and most importantly economical. To compare you to a master, like Hemmingway, never verbose, elaborate or fussy; always dynamic and succinct.
If you’re looking for a great plot, a who dun nit? or a gripping page turner, of course this book is not for you. Fortunately those reads rarely please me; this is European cinema as oppose to Hollywood block buster, and it extends to the reader a hand which guides you effortlessly through one of the most illuminating social epochs of our City. And as with Collin Macinnes’s famous trilogy this is very much a ‘London thing’. In close smoked filled night clubs we are at one with our narrator, untouchable, vulnerable, invincible, spell bound by an incredible organ player. Jason, always put’s the reader nicely in the thick of it…… (to be continued)

Thank you Jason. I could go on for hours and I probably will, but I got to go and do my Xmas shopping!

I’m pleased to say he is back in the studio again after getting some sponsorship via a crowd-funding platform, so hopefully we can expect some new material over the course of 2015.

For those who’ve not bought it – 5.30’s classic album Bed is available on Amazon in an expanded version – it is BRILLIANT so do youselves a mighty big favour and add it to your collection

http://www.amazon.co.uk/BED–EXPANDED—2CD-reissue/dp/B00FP8Z9BC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1421052173&sr=8-2&keywords=5.30+bed

I’m delighted to have been invited to this event on Saturday 7th February 2015

It’ll be a gathering of some of the finest Modernist chroniclers of recent years all talking together about our influences (cue six guys all saying Richard Barnes’ Mods book) and our experiences in writing and getting published.

We’ll also be joined by former Jam drummer Rick Buckler who’s autobiography will be in shops soon. He’ll also be taking lots of questiosn about the Jam and probably not so many about Time UK

Tickets are £15 each and available at www.thecockpit.org.uk

Would love to see you there!

Not a review per se but I do love this great picture of top-Mod Daniele Savare, catching up with some quality reading

For those with exquisite taste in the very finest of knitwear would do worse than checking out Daniele’s Connection Knitwear site on facebook

Click on the link below, should get you there!

His stuff like everything he does is of the absolute highest order!

Forza Daniele!!

Connection Knitwear

Many thanks to Dave Dry for his enjoyable and enthusiastic review in Issue 96 of Classic Scooterist Magazine

http://www.scooteristscene.com/

‘All or Nothing’ book review by Dave Dry/Classic Scooterist Magazine

 scooterist Magazine

Jason Brummell’s All or Nothing is the author’s second book and the follow up to the earlier All About the Girl featuring the familiar cast of characters from that original novel, but with the time line rolled forward three years to 1966 – the year of IN-GER-LAND and the World Cup Final.  Jason once again manages to capture an authentic, well researched image of London in the swinging sixties and helps to fill a niche market for fiction from this period.  Jason’s work sits snugly between the London novels of Colin McInnes, an opus including the classic Absolute Beginners, and the greatly underestimated book Quadrophenia written by Alan Fletcher.  For some unknown reason there are very few works of fiction about the vibrant, unforgettable years of the ‘Mod’ youth movement, so Jason’s efforts in this direction are both timely and welcome.

Jason Brummell has crafted a story around the events of the mid 1960’s included in the melting pot: corrupt police, the intrigues of petty house breaking villains and card sharps –  with a side serving of the organised criminality of the Richardson’s gang and a garnish of bloody murder and jail breaks – all grafted into a racy, purple heart tinged plot that builds up to a major gold bullion heist.

The hip style of British Modernists with their flair for sharp suits and shoes and their taste equally hip American music are the cement that binds the passion behind All or Nothing.  So evocative is the storyline that the reader can immerse him/her self into the story to the extent that you can almost smell the cafes and their espresso as the book takes you along the seedy back streets of Soho.

Curiously woven into the story line, and a unique occurrence as far as this reviewer is aware, is the very unlikely scenario of a Vespa GS160 being featured as both a pursuit and a getaway vehicle as the plot buzzes around the club scene of metropolitan London.  Jason, in real life, actually owns a GS, so he is well versed in the world of this iconic, classic scooter and, no doubt sees the humour of including this improbable gem in a scene from his book?

This fast paced unputdownable volume ends, sadly, all too soon, as the reader would like it just to run and run.  However, despite only being 188 pages in length, this novel is a still  a modern classic of the period, whetting the appetite of all those interested in the long gone evocative era of the 60’s and making All or Nothing a ‘must read’ novel for this genre.

DD

April/May 2014

Many thanks to Paul Hooper-Keeley one of the busiest bloggers on the Mod scene for his kind review of All About My Girl in his Modernist Society Blog:

http://modernistsociety.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/all-about-my-girl-book-review-by-paul.html

‘All About My Girl’ book review by Paul Hooper-Keeley

 Aamg
Mod author, Jason Brummell, has a new book out called ‘All or Nothing’ which I have all ready to read and review. However, having only recently discovered that he had already got a previous book, ‘All About My Girl, published and in circulation, I thought it only good form to read this one first.
Jason states in the preface that he intentionally uses the flavour of the writings of Colin MacInnes, Irish Jack, Tom Woolfe and Paolo Hewitt in his own book as a respectful way of drawing on their finest parts.
The story is set in the Modernist era of early sixties London with the Scene Club as a central location and the story of intrigue, gangsters and ministerial indiscretions mixed in with music, clubs, tailoring, scooters and pills. It is based on the lives of four individuals and is told in the first person.
Within the storyline, you get parallels to things you’ve seen or read before such as in ‘Alfie’ (northern girl making her way to London via a lorry), Richard Barnes ‘Mods!’ book (re: cycling shirts, watches worn with their faces on the inside of the wrist), Guy Stevens DJ’ing and making tapes of rare soul, Ready Steady Go! scouring the Mod clubs for dancers and the inferences of Pete Meaden and Mickey Tenner being part of the character’s crowd. Then there’s the suit detail; vent length, ticket pockets, cuff buttoning design, cloth, colour etc.
In fact Jason lovingly weaves all of these elements into a rich Mod tapestry in a way that really does make you feel that you are in Ham Yard or at the Flamingo. And this can only be done by someone from the Mod scene, someone who knows what he is really talking about; not some outsider writing from limited research but zero passion and empathy for us.
And the story itself is pretty darn good too, ultimately linking to a sixties scandal that most people will know of.
‘All About My Girl’ is an excellent book and available via PayPal for just £5 (and that includes P&P) – full details can be found at the official web site:
Right, I have to go now – I’ve got the new Jason Brummell book, ‘All Or Nothing’ to read next…….
Paul Hooper-Keeley

Many thanks to Mark Raison and his always very readable blog Monkey Picks, for his kind review of All or Nothing:

http://monkey-picks.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/all-or-nothing-by-jason-brummell-2013.html

wednesday, 5 march 2014

ALL OR NOTHING by JASON BRUMMELL (2013)

 All or Nothing Jason Brummell House of Suave
As any Mod worth their salt will tell you, it’s all about the detail, and Jason Brummell’s second book, All Or Nothing, is all about the detail.
The plot centres on an unnamed photographer (shades of Absolute Beginners from the off) who returns to London in 1966 against the backdrop of the World Cup after three years in Milan and through investigating the death of his friend becomes embroiled in a cops and robbers tale involving murder and a gold bullion robbery. The chapters, all named after famous songs of the period, are narrated through the eyes of our sharp but shifty snapper; a criminal lynch-pin Terry Rankin; and a Glaswegian Detective Sergeant Alex Dixon-Brown.
Brummell, by his own admission, writes with caper movies like The Italian Job and Gambit in mind and this come across; All Or Nothingreads like a neat little Pan paperback movie tie-in picked up from the local charity shop.
I was less interested in the actual story than how Brummell manages to demonstrate his keen eye for period detail and especially the changes which occurred the three years the main protagonist was out of the country. The changes in fashions are dealt with superbly, with a commercialized uniformity mixed with contrived outlandishness replacing the subtle discreet touches of 1963. It’s very much a “Mod novel” but done skilfully enough to include obvious reference points (scooters, John Lee Hooker, drugs, tailoring) in a more imaginative way than “picked up a suit from the tailors, hopped on the GS and collected a handful of purple hearts inside the doorway of the Scene Club”.
Brummell’s appreciation and love of original Mod ethos shine through the chapters narrated by his hero (which are the ones which work best). “Mod was so serious then. It was a religion. It still is for me. Black music was like our hymns and the DJ booth was our alter delivering its nightly sermons direct to our souls.” I’m a sucker for prose like that. Cameo appearances from Pete Meaden, Jeff Dexter, Mark Feld, Lord Lucan, the Krays and many others populate the pages, adding colour and a knowing nod. Details, it’s all about the details.
All Or Nothing is the sequel to All About My Girl (set in 1963) which I’ve not read yet but on this showing is also going to be worthy of investigation.
 
All Or Nothing by Jason Brummell is published by The House of Suave and available for £5 (including P&P)  from Suave Collective.  

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Many thanks to Paul Hooper-Keeley one of the busiest bloggers on the Mod scene for his kind review of All or Nothing in his Modernist Society Blog:

http://modernistsociety.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/book-review-jason-brummells-all-or.html

Wednesday, 12 March 2014

Book Review: Jason Brummell’s ‘All Or Nothing’

 All or Nothing Jason Brummell House of Suave
Having recently read Jason’s ‘All Bout My Girl’, a fictional book set in the early 60s Mod scene of London, I have been really looking forward to his latest book, ‘All Or Nothing’, and I most certainly wasn’t disappointed.
The new book is a continuation of the story of the main Mod character from the first book and is set in 1966. Being the tail-end of that scene, with original styles, club nights and themes fragmenting, this gives a very interesting perspective of that time (particularly as the main character has been out of the UK for a couple of years and is returning (to attend a friends’ funeral) to a changing scene himself). Jason carefully crafts in the changing styles in shirts, going to Tiles on Oxford Street, the younger generation of Mods on the scene, the disappearance of older Faces and even talks about Jeff Dexter DJ’ing and what has happened to Guy Stevens (post The Scene Club)whilst he’s been away.
But that’s not all, there is a good old sixties gold bullion caper running throughout the story with the Old Bill on the teams’ trail – the main characters having chapters in the first person so you can really feel the story developing and how they all interact with each other. And all of this during the 1966 World Cup tournament!!!
There’s a few twists and turns along the way, culminating in an exciting finale (at the same time that England are facing West Germany at Wembley), which certainly leaves the door open for another story in the future.
With ‘All Or Nothing’, Jason has given us another fictional book combining attention to the detail of Mod (at a very interesting point in time) with a rip-roaring, humorous, adventure story which is a great read on many levels.
Having read most of the large volume of Mod fiction that has come out in recent years, Jason’s work is amongst the very best – you would be doing yourself an immense favour by getting a copy of ‘All Or Nothing’ (and ‘All About My Girl’ if you haven’t already read it) and immersing yourself in this incredibly entertaining Mod caper.
Both books are available from http://suavecollective.co.uk/ for just £5 (incl. P&P) and are available for Kindle at just £2 each. Go on – you know you want to…….
By Paul Hooper-Keeley