Bands in the "Mod" chapter of the 1980 new wave guide I just bought for $2 off a seemingly homeless guy set up on the sidewalk of St Marks

The Jam & the Chords are the only ones that are any good though, I think. Lambrettas/Merton Parkas/Purple Hearts a bit generic?

No Secret Affair? Shocking.

i think the chord were actually called the chords. never heard of the crooks or the jolt. surprised it doesn't mention secret affiar.

and it is indeed the chords.

i blame my quadropheniphobia.

The Lambrettas had a hit in the UK with a ska version of "Poison Ivy". The Chords had a couple of minor hits in the UK with "Maybe Tomorrow" (good) and "British Way Of Life" (not so good). I've got their album "So Far Away" which is a pretty good Jam clone. They have decent stab at "She Said She Said". Merton Parka keyboardist Mick Parker, later of the Style Council, played on the album as "Merton" Mick Parker. I think he was in the Purple Hearts too. Guess he was the only mod in London with a piano.

What about The Wall?

At least some of them became a band called Snakes of Shake or something though that might be the shakin pryamids...

Weren't all of those mod bands power pop / r&b bands, just with slightly different clothes? Or am I missing something?

Tim, I'm probably wrong about the Mick Parker thing - this is all info retrieved from burned out memory cells. Someone will show up on this thread soon to sort it all out, no doubt.

I wouldn't include the Wall with these bands at all, although I only know some of their stuff (I have Hobby for a day 7" and the Day Tripper LP) it's not really the mod revival sound, it's more post-punk albeit not very experimental.

Really, I think Mod is a state of mind, not a musical genre.

Looks like all these bands get an overview in Cherry Red's forthcoming Mod revival box set: http://www.cherryred.co.uk/shopexd.asp?id=4908

thing about lots of these bands is that you also had stuff like dexys or joboxers who were drawing on a lot of the same influences but sounding heaps fresher and writing much better songs afaict

The Jolt were from Glasgow

Wishaw!

All of these bands were shite apart from The Jam.

Which makes sense, because the whole Mod Revival bollocks probably wouldn't have happened without them.

Personally, I think anyone who dresses like a '60s mod and rides around a scooter with target stickers on it in 2014 is a fucking mong.

This track is great but it's so close to the Jam that it's a bit LOL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA2wyIS8xDM

Yeah, it's clear that the singer badly wants to be Weller (although he sounds more like Foxton!) ... he's even got the Rickenbacker guitar and throwing in lyrics like "sound from the streets", and the way it goes to the middle-8...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti4ixFQz008

I like this video about the L.A. mod revival, were any of these bands good aside from the Untouchables?

All of these bands were shite apart from The Jam.

You're talking about every single band on that Cherry Red box? Or just the original bands that xhuxk listed?

I was involved with the So. California '80s scene and it was a lot of fun. I was just a teenager and a lot of these bands were inspiring to me. The whole idea that you could hone in on specific genre traits of old music and use vintage gear to get cool sounds.

Looks like we got one of our San Diego bands on that box - Manual Scan. Nice to see.

It's odd to think that mod may be thought of as a primarily retro movement since its origins are the polar opposite. It was once about keeping up with the moment and changed constantly.
I guess the revival was a reaction against the percieved scruffiness of punk. Not sure where they could have gone with it at the time to keep the original perspective while also having a related look. I think other tribes had come along and adopted the keep up with the cutting edge with clothing thing since then anyway.

I do love the mod look from 65-66 as well as the look people were calling mod in the US in 66-68ish which is a bit different but possibly related. You see bands like Jefferson Airplane wearing it at the time.

Really don't like the square fronted single breasted jackets that are about the one new thing I can think of from the first revival.

As for bands I do like The Chords and Purple Hearts. Can't really think who else. Haven't heard Secret Affair in years but Ian Page bought me a pint once.

Somebody asked about Squire's relation to the mod scene. They were on Mod's Mayday '79 a set recorded at the Bridgehouse Tavern at a mod alldayer. So they would be related for that if they weren't already linked otherwise.

r

There was a great Timeshift documentary repeated on BBC4 last night on mods and rockers. I'd seen it a few months ago but watched it again.
Got a copy from piratebay a few months back after seeing it on tv. So it may be there if anybody wants to see it. Can't think of exact title but it is in the Timeshift series & most of the rest of that series is interesting too.