It occurs to me that I've never fully understood what the whole "Teddy Boy" thing is! Could someone from the UK explain??

Seems to have some root bearing on the whole Mods and Rockers thing but I am not even entirely sure I get THAT. Perhaps my greatest insight into it is that Michel Sardou song but I don't understand French either.

One theory I have is that Gene Vincent (and the Teddy Boys) were BOTH MODS AND ROCKERS at that precise consensus moment in post-war culture and at some point people were made to choose between frilly shirts (Mods and, ultimately, Nikki Sudden) and leather (Rockers), hence the understandable rioting that would be the natural consequence of such a momentous cultural schism.

I have often wondered about John Peel's decision to release a Gene Vincent record on his Dandelion label and I am convinced it has something to do with all of this. (I mean, why else?)

(btw, fiending on new Dandelion box set DL from eMusic...) Niiiice!! Never heard that particular Gene Vincent stuff until now. lots of HTF shit on there.

Anyway, I think if you understand Pirates v. Ninjas you are probably well on your way.

Obviously, I would also welcome any sort of explanation too.

I don't think that Gene Vincent's subcultural influence had that much to do with it, more because Peel was always a fan of early rock'n'roll, his whole roots were there. I'm sure he would have been releasing Bo Diddley and Roy Orbison records if he could.

Pirate shirts = Johnny Kidd?

Best visual record Free Cinema's 'We are the Lambeth Boys' (1959). Includes a lot of action around the youth club where the various tribes can be spotted (it's subtle though - compared to now all the clothes look superficially similar and conservative)

we need mark s up in this bitch to explain why not to go to hebdige.

My father was a Ted.

The history of Teddy Boys in its simplest form is well known. Following the war, nostalgia for a simpler time arose. One aspect of this was a vogue amongst upper class young blades to dress in a fashion recalling the Edwardian era; a period which in retrospect seemed idyllic, a time before the horrors of two World Wars and the Great Depression. In April 1950 Vogue noted - “There is a new almost Edwardian formality in men’s London clothes.” The fashion for elaborate suits with decorative trims, patterned waistcoats and ostentatious cravats was applauded as a new flowering of gentlemanly elegance. These fashionable young men were described as wearing the neo-Edwardian style. In keeping with the fluxive state of society, this fashion jumped the class barrier and was adopted by young men around the Elephant and Castle, young men with connections to spivs and criminal gangs. All of this would have been of interest to very few people until the murder of 17 year old John Beckley near Clapham Common on 2nd July, 1953. The Daily Mirror, September 15th , 1953 reported the opening day of the trial under the front-page headline ‘Flick Knives, Dance Music and Edwardian Suits.’ The connection between violent thugs and Edwardian clothes and was set in the public mind. In the Daily Express, September 23rd , 1953 a new phrase was used to describe violent thugs in Edwardian clothes, 'Teddy Boys'. The term became shorthand for rebellious or simply boisterous youth. In January, 1955, Rock ‘n’ Roll hit Britain with Bill Haley’s 'Rock Around The Clock', via the film 'The Blackboard Jungle', and Teddy Boys (or Teddies) became the focus of an even more intense media glare.
From 'Bombsite Boudiccas', the name of Ken Russell's photo-book about Teddy Girls.

Loog-Oldham's book, like everything he's ever written on any subject whatsoever, is not to be trusted in any way at all. the guy is, and always has been a total bullshit artist w/a vast self-serving streak in his writings (which are admittedly entertaining usually)

I suspect the '50's in the UK were probably a lot less boring to live through than the way they're portrayed in the press/books/media. The kultural victors (60's boomers, London=all of englandists) get to write history the way they saw it, perhaps. My parents, for example, met in jazz clubs in & around Newcastle-on-Tyne in the '50's and early '60's. They used to dig Monk, Ella Fitzgerald. Stuff I've gleaned about the scene frome them make it sound pretty wild. I remember speaking to some of my dad's old friends, old leftists who remember the '50's fondly b/c things might have been shit, post war/austerity, but it looked like things were going to keep getting better in the future at that time. It doesn't sound too boring to me.

Not that any of this has shit to do w/teddy bys, obv.

pash otm. i think a lot of the 60s winning is to do with specific forms of popular music winning what our idea of youth culture is. hence idea the teddy boys were into gene vincent -- tough guys need tough music, and the idea that if they *weren't* into that sort of think they can't have been rebels. that said one of the key books of the hippy '60s, jeff nuttall's 'bomb culture', is very pro-teddy.

It's a neat story and I loved it but anyone know if there is any truth to it?

As a huge Everlys fan, I've always been amused by Oldham's reading of their act's supposed homoerotic subtext: i.e., that they're singing *to each other*.