We were delighted to be asked to create a specially commissioned piece for Sir Peter Blake’s 90th birthday celebrations at the Royal Festival Hall in December 2022, featuring Noel Gallagher, Madness, Chrissie Hynde, The Who and Paul Weller’

Here are four Paul Weller performances we filmed recently at Black Barn Studios, for his Sunday Sessions series on YouTube.

True Featuring The Mysteries and Josh McClorey

In Better Times

That Pleasure

In Better Times (Acoustic)

Filmed by Lee Cogswell and Daniel Thompson
Sound recorded by Charles Rees
Edited by Lee Cogswell

‘Long Hot Summers’ hits the Dutch TV screens, Saturday on NPO 3.

Friend of MMF, Phil Tilli, has been interviewed by Het Parool ahead of the broadcast.

Here is a Google translation of the interview:

On Saturday the VPRO will broadcast the documentary Long Hot Summers about The Style Council. Superfan Phil Tilli considers for. “It was a redefinition of mod culture.”
Peter van Brummelen – June 10, 2021, 9:04 am
The scooter in front of the house in Ilpendam makes no mistake: a mod lives here. Phil Tilli fell for the quintessential British mod culture, where it’s all about good music and beautiful clothes, as a fan of Paul Weller, also known as the Modfather.
It is difficult to measure of course, but Tilli (49) – once guitarist in the Moke group, now artist manager – could well be the biggest Weller fan in the Netherlands. Three periods can be distinguished in Weller’s career: first there was the punk trio The Jam, then he founded The Style Council, after which he started a solo career that has continued to this day.
Phil Tilli prefers The Style Council (1983-1989). A suitable figure to watch Long Hot Summers, the British documentary that will be broadcast on Dutch television on Saturday through his intercession.
But first we take a tour of his house. Lots of guitars, a record collection in which Paul Weller naturally dominates, a gold record from The Style Council on the wall. Weller’s latest album, Fat Pop, has Tilli in seven versions, including music cassette. It’s the record with which Weller (63) recently topped the album chart domestically – not many other artists can boast of having reached that position in five decades.
Tilli does not have a walk-in closet, but an entire walk-in basement. In the basement of his house, Fred Perry shirts hang neatly on a rack and many shoeboxes are piled against one wall. “I’m the most effeminate straight there is,” Tilli says. “You-know-who also has such an orderly clothing collection.” (For the uninitiated: that you-know-who is Weller).
Pinking away a tear
Long Hot Summers has seen Tilli about three times already – the first time he shed a tear when the documentary turned out to be a reunion of The Style Council – but he likes to put it on again before the visit. Excellent documentary, he thinks: ”There is enough in it that is exciting for inveterate fans, but it is also interesting for people who are not that familiar with the group at all.”
The Style Council was a radical break with The Jam, making Weller hugely popular especially at home in the UK. The Jam was also a mod group, but the music was often very heavy. With The Style Council, Weller also threw himself into soul and – somewhat more cautiously – jazz, both forms of music that were already appreciated by the original mods of the sixties. He also derived influences from classical music (wonderful how Weller pronounces the names Debussy and Satie in the documentary with a flat English accent) and even from house in the twilight years of The Style Council.
“The Style Council was a redefinition of mod. Truly revolutionary,” says Tilli. Many fans of The Jam didn’t get it. It also took me a while before I understood that house album, which his record company did not want to release at the time. And it’s only in recent years that I buy jazz records: Art Blakey, Stan Getz. That’s the beauty of Weller: if you immerse yourself in his music, you also get to know and appreciate other things.”
Friendship
The Jam did especially well with boys. “The girls also joined The Style Council,” says Tilli. The clip that director Tim Pope made for The Style Council for Long Hot Summer (the song from which the documentary derives its title) was really at odds with The Jam’s rather tough image: a film with an unmistakably homo-erotic atmosphere. “Some fans of The Jam are still angry about it.”
Phil Tilli has known Paul Weller personally for years. “You have to be careful with the word friendship, but we always see each other when he is in the Netherlands. We got to know each other when he recorded his album Studio 150 in Amsterdam in 2004 and often visited café De Koe. At four o’clock in the afternoon we started talking, at four o’clock in the morning we were still talking. On a subsequent occasion he introduced me to a compatriot with: This is the guy that drank me under the table.”

Here’s a new music video we made, recently, for Still Glides The Stream, taken from Paul Weller‘s new album Fat Pop (Volume 1).

Dancer: Harry Black
Directed & Edited: Lee Cogswell
Camera: Daniel Thompson
Choreography: Ryan Perry
Hair & Make-up: Rebecca Yeates

Lee & Mark have recently been guests on Dan Jennings‘ fantastic new podcast Desperately Seeking Paul.

“The World’s first Paul Weller podcast for the fans by the fans.
A radio broadcaster who gave up a career with one big regret.
Never getting to interview his hero , the legendary British musician Paul Weller.
This podcast exists purely to solve that issue.
It promises to be a celebration from In The City to On Sunset with everything in between.
Welcome to Desperately Seeking Paul!”

You can listen to the episodes here:

EP02 – The Mumper – Mark Baxter

On Episode 2, we are joined by Weller Super Fan, and friend, Mark Baxter (Bax)

A Writer / film-maker / PR man / London Legend … known as The Mumper, who, together with his Mono Media company partner, Lee Cogswell, has made documentary films on recent Paul Weller albums from Jawbone through to On Sunset.

They also made 2020’s incredible Sky Arts Documentary on The Style Council called Long Hot Summers.

EP05 – Lee Cogswell – Mono Media Films

Episode 5 sees Dan chat to film-maker Lee Cogswell about his work with Paul Weller.

From mini-documentaries on albums from Kind Revolution, to True Meanings and On Sunset through to Style Council Documentary “Long Hot Summers”

Lee has even created music videos for Paul for ‘White Horses’ and ‘Movin’ On’

The pop group The Style Council, whilst at all times impeccably dressed, served up a diverse and catchy mix of classic agitprop pop, soul and jazzed infused songs, that are still fondly remembered to this day. We look back at how the fervent 1980s political landscape shaped the life, times and music of the band, that Paul Weller left The Jam to create, with Mick Talbot.

Featuring: Paul Weller, Mick Talbot, Dee C Lee, Boy George, Billy Bragg, Martin Freeman, Rev Richard Coles and more.

Here is a short fly on the wall film we made about the making of Paul Weller‘s fifteenth studio album, On Sunset. On Sunset reached number 1 in the UK album chart.

Paul has become only the third artist to top the UK album chart in five consecutive decades, alongside Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

His previous chart-toppers include one with the Jam (The Gift, 1982) and one with the Style Council (Our Favourite Shop, 1985), plus solo albums: Stanley Road (1995), Illumination (2002), 22 Dreams (2008) and Sonik Kicks (2012).

Shot & Edited by Lee Cogswell
Additional Filming by Ben Gordelier
Additional Audio Charles Rees
Interviews John Wilson & Lee Cogswell

Here’s the short film THE FIRST DAY.

THE FIRST DAY is a fly on the wall glimpse at the first rehearsal, on 2nd July 2018, for Paul Weller‘s Royal Festival Hall gig.
This short film “THE FIRST DAY” was screened in Vue cinema’s across the UK, alongside Paul Weller‘s Royal Festival Hall gig, in February 2019.

Shot & Edited by Lee Cogswell
Additional Camera – Daniel Thompson
Audio mix – Charles Rees

Mono Media Films began, when myself and Mark met, back in 2013. And so, as this decade draws to a close, I’ve looked back at the work we’ve achieved so far. I could never have imagined where this would lead to.

Our independently made documentary films were really well received and have been screened all over the world. These were made with a lot of passion and hard work, both on niche subjects, they somehow seemed to find audiences far bigger than we expected.

Our first big project as MMF, Tubby Hayes: A Man in a Hurry was narrated by Martin Freeman and featured Sir Peter Blake, Michael Horowitz, Jeffrey Kruger, Ray Gelato.

John Simons: A Modernist featured, amongst others, Paul Weller, Kevin Rowland, Suggs, John Hegarty and Robert Elms.

We teamed up with Channel X to create Peter Blake: Pop Art Life, commissioned by Sky Arts. We looked at the work Sir Peter Blake created over his career within the world of music. This was a real big one for us. This doc featured Sir Peter Blake, Paul Weller, Noel Gallagher, Suggs, Chris Jagger and Bob Geldof.

We had the pleasure of being on set and documenting the making of the film JAWBONE, interviewing director Thomas Napper, writer and lead actor Johnny Harris, actors Ray Winstone, Michael Smiley and Ian McShane, trainer Barry McGuigan and sound track composer Paul Weller. We have also made ‘behind the scenes’ docs for Sulphur & White and the short film Beverley.

We created lots of work with musicians and bands.

With Stone Foundation, we made many music videos (featuring Calum MacNab, Steve Furst and Andy Nyman), we made EPKs for several of their recent albums, filmed and edited the live show ‘Live Rituals’, I traveled with the band, documenting their first trip to Japan and also made the short documentary Keep On Keepin’ On about the band’s collaboration with soul legend Nolan Porter.

For Paul Weller, we created EPKs about his albums ‘A Kind Revolution’ and ‘True Meanings’. Spending time in the studio while Paul records is fascinating and always an education. We made music videos for his song White Horses, probably the piece of work I am most proud of, and for Movin On, with artist Ed Gray. We made the short film First Day that was shown in cinemas alongside Paul’s 2018 Royal Festival Hall gig and we also filmed and edited The Black Barn Sessions featuring Miles Kane and Samm Henshaw.

We made a short doc called If Destroyed Still True with Pete Williams about his album H.O.L.L.A.N.D. and a short film with Kris Halpin, The Gloves Are On, about his 2016 adventures with the Mi.mu gloves. We made performance promos with Steve Pilgrim featuring Double Bass man Danny Thompson and a music video for Mark Butcher.

We made a short documentary piece about LeRoy Hutson, The Man!, for Acid Jazz Records and PIAS that was released by Apple. For this we interviewed Craig Charles, Norman Jay MBE, Femi Fem, Andrew Levy and Simon Bartholomew.

As a Beatles fan, it was incredible to get to spend a day at Abbey Road in Studio 2, documenting album recording with the band The Moons.

DJ Gary Crowley was the subject of a 10 minute profile piece, The Life, Music & Hairstyles of Gary Crowley, Commissioned by Demon Records and Modfather Clothing. Always a pleasure to work with GC.

It’s hard to believe how many great projects we’ve had the privilege of being involved with so far.

We’re a small team but we’re passionate about what we do. We’re currently in the edit, on a feature length TV documentary due for release in 2020. More on that in due course.

Thank you, to everybody we’ve had the pleasure to work alongside and to those that have supported us and followed the work we’ve done.

Happy New Year. Happy New Decade. Much love, all.
Lee