Mod: C or D?

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Whatcha gonna do about it?

― fritz, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Possible areas of discussion: Mods vs. Rockers: Taking sides; clothes vs. music; is the 60's fetish of current mod revivalism a betrayal of the forward-thinking ideals of the (fabled?) original "modernists"; American Mods: oxymorons or just regular morons?; and so forth.

― fritz, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Original mods = probably classic. Mods now = normally dud.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I agree with Richard's analysis.

I persoanlly would'nt have been either...I think I'd have been like my dad and got into Jazz and some folk.

― james, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

JIMMAY!

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

At least they nicely provide targets

― dave q, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

some folk music!

― james, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

what, exactly, is a mod?

― Maria, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mods = Ben Sherman, The Kinks, Vespas, Coats with furry hoods, Beatle hair do's, badges. Today = Paul Weller and Ocean Colour Scene.

― james, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the Kinks!? Beatle hairdos!!? Someone hav been telling you porkies and no mistake young feller-me-lad! Laurel Aitken and modernist hairdos, if you please.

― mark s, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

R. Tunnicliffe = totally korrekt in this instance

― Norman Phay, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Kinks were never considered Mod??

― Sean, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

not by themselves and not by anyone else

i am going to bed now but tomorrow if i remember i will dig out penny reel's decription of the first evah mod and post it

― mark s, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mod was always a state of mind for me -- never owned a lot of suits, never got a Vespa, never did ludes. But I was always a music whore and surly as all hell, so I figured it counted for something.

I was more of an Indie anyway. They're the new (c. 1996) Mod.

― JM, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And I'll agree with Richard on this one. Most cats who claim to be mod aren't. And a lot of it comes down to attitude, again.

― JM, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I find it really strange that Mods still exist. I like them a lot better than hippies, but seeing them in the modern world is as surreal as seeing a Teddy Boy or a beret-wearing beatnik. Classic, though, sure.

― Justyn Dillingham, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mods are the Classic par excellence, the modern classic at least. Nobody ever looked so good and did pills with more style. Any revival did not quite make it to the original squad, a pity, especially arrogants twats hanging around the Blow Up in 94

― Laetitia, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Doing pills with style = rather incompatible, no?

― Sarah, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sarah is correct. all that running around on Brighton Beach wasn't just a big jape you know.

so what do you call a modern day mod then (apart from a twat that is)?

― katie, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Blow Up in 94? Mmmmm, scrummy boys, it's all coming back to me... My favourite mods are the slightly evil ones who look like the child catcher out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

― Madchen, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You can find out by asking his or her name.

― JM, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

bahahahaha but what i really meant was "mod" meant modern in the *'60s* so is now by definition past it. mods these days should be called "Post-mods", "meta-mods" or simply "Ocean Colour Scene fans". or, as i suggested earlier, "twats".

― katie, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i actually found "the good mixer" pub in camden just the other week. an amazing array of parka-clad mods still there. (I was more a lock tavern and enterprise sort of person during THAT time when it was constantly in the nme chat pages)

― Alan Trewartha, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Good Mixer = Bad PubXoR. Accidentally went in there a few months ago for the first time. Twas indie tourist hell.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Toilet graffiti: Simon from Menswe@r = sex!!! Johnny Dean And Me 4EVA! Good miXoR is very entertaining despite my only having been there two or three times. If Brixton was Camden I would like to think that it's Good Mixer would be the Hero of Switzerland.

― Sarah, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I like the idea of one little corner of the world being stuck in a certain place and time 4-evah.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Incidentally, Chris from Menswear is modelling in the Face this month.

― Madchen, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sorry, Menswe@r.

― Madchen, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hmmmm... One might argue that the "original is always better" argument is kneejerk. Why, in pop phenomenae, do we always insist that earlier = more authentic? There's nothing particularly authentic about any era of Mod - it's all about the hierarchy of edifices anyway. Maybe it is dud in its own way, but Mod revivalism is infinitely more interesting than the original Mod subculture. It's got so many internal contradictions, but it keeps going. It's like the urban version of Renaissance Faires.

― fritz, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mod style is a subculture that parodied/celebrated conformism by creating uniforms that could be customized, but only within proscribed codes of stylistic correctness. Because there are strict rules (dating back 40 yrs), the perfect Mod is the perfect conformist - but he doesn't look like anyone else. Mod is based on Platonic ideals of the perfect suit, the perfect scooter, the perfect record - all unattainable because it's gone on so long that the rules are all mixed up. When transplanted to North America, it becomes even more absurd and interesting.

― fritz, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Fritz, the revivalists may be more *interesting* but you seem to be confusing more interesting with better. Apart from anything else, the mods picked up on the best contemporary pop available on the planet in the mid 60s. None of the spotterish revivals could make any sensible claim to do that. Hence, worse.

Not sure I agree with the other things you say, but am reluctant to misquote vast swathes of Kevin Pearce's all-time classic mod bible "Something Be ginning with O". Suffice to say that my favoured definition of Mod would exclude revivalism, and the fact that revivalists *call* themselves Mods makes them charlatans.

― Tim, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

In terms of Pop, why doesn't more interesting = better?

What's so great about being the original? Is a can of Campbell's soup better than a Warhol?

(I'd be really interested to read pearce's book. Any idea if there's a website with excerpts?)

― fritz, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mods had good clothes but that's pretty much it, but the clothes are enough, because everyone else has crap clothes.

― Ally, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's like the urban version of Renaissance Faires.

Is this a compliment?

― scott p., Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ummm, yes?

― fritz, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mod, fl.1960s onwards: by 1965, wrote Penny Reel in 1979, the Scene Club's coolest couple wee to be seen, "dressed in exotic Tibetan smocks, with Indian silk scarves affixed to their ewrists, sandals on their bare feet, woodens beads around their necks, daisies in their hair, and looking for all the world like, as one observer put it, two flecking gypsies. They proceed to tell anyone who will listen that love is all what realy matters."

"Not only is [Beardy Pegley] the first guy I ever see wear hair lacquer and lipstick, but he is also the earliest on the scene with a pink tab-collar shirt, a grey crew neck jersey, knitted tie, scarlet suede jacket with matching leather collar, navy blue crombie overcoat, white half-mast flares, and candy- stripe socks, as well as being the first mod to sing the praises of Laurel Aitken, James Brown, the Pretty Things, the Flamingo Club in Wardour Street, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and marijuana, insult Eden Kane at the Chez Don, and is still the only guy I ever meet who owns a pair of bright emerald green fur booties, all this circa 1962."

― mark s, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

eg by 1966, "real" mods were either hippies or skinheads: divergence related more to temperament than class, i think

― mark s, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

wow, what is that from? and who be this Penny Reel?

― fritz, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

essay in nme 1979, round the release of quadrophenia: reel = a true-blood former mod hisself, and by the mid-70s uk's greatest chronicler of london reggae scene...

i've misplaced my tattered copy of the original unfortunately, which = pure hilarious genius: these quotes lifted from frith's sound effects

― mark s, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

By my googling, the Penny Reel article doesn't seem to be available on the ol' web-net machine. Neither can I find Pearce's book for order. Somebody send up the Dastoor-signal.

Any other good related reading? "Noonday Underground" by Tom Wolfe is good, but brief. Dick Hebidge's "Subculture: The Meaning of Style" made a big impression on me, but that was about 10 years ago. I'd like to read it again.

― fritz, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"The Meaning of Style" is on my coffee table. I leafed thru it and was overwhelmed by the smell of autumn...

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Illusion, shattered all this time i thought Penny Reel was a gurl, how wrong I was.

I can still remember his review of the JAMC Upside down 'buzzsaw black rite', sometimes less really is more.

― Billy Dods, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Why, so did I!

(think Penny Reel was a girl, that is)

― Robin Carmody, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh! Meant to reply to Fritz's questions. I can see how you (Fritz) think of the revivalist mods as more interesting, for the reasons of internal contradiction you state; I might well agree. But when I say the original issue (which is an issue in itself) were better, I mean they were cooler (the coolest kids were not mods in '79 and they haven't been since), the music was better, the clothes were better. The early mod accent on being sharper as in cleverer had more or less vanished.

The mod revival had its moments, and was a route in to lots of great stuff for lots of great people, but mostly it was, and remains, a big manky dud. I should add that, most probably, whatever mass mod movement there was in the 60s was most likely a poxy dud too (the point being that the mod state of being shd be about moving quickly, being one cooler, one cleverer, one more obscure).

Sadly, the Pearce book is very hard to get hold of these days. It was published by Heavenly, if that's any help. It finds the spirit of mod in lots of places, not least Vic Godard, Mark E Smith and the Pop Group. Quite right.

― Tim, Friday, 26 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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