Its a Mod Thing, You Wouldn’t Understand

Some people just know what they like. They don’t obsess over things, they don’t examine the minutiae of the things they enjoy. They just take life as it is and enjoy the “surface-kick” so to speak. For example, when they hear a song they like, they go out and buy the record. They don’t need to know what the band had for breakfast, they don’t need to know what garage bands the members played in before they got their record deal and they certainly are not interested in the musical influences of the band. These people will never be mods. Not only that, but these people will struggle to grasp what it is to be a mod. Some will even claim at some stage in their lives to be mods because they have a Ben Sherman shirt or a target T-Shirt or something, but they are not and never will be.There are even those individuals who hop wholeheartedly on the bandwagon without ever understanding what propels it. When the craze runs its course they hop off leaving it to the obsessive to carry on away from the sensational gaze of the media.

Many questions surround the mod phenomenon. What makes a mod? Do you have to wear a suit? Can you wear trainers? Do mods listen to Soul, Ska, R&B or New Wave music? Is there even such thing as a mod anymore? As far as I’m concerned, the masses of Zoot Suit and Parka wearing teens of the 65/66 bandwagon and those of the late 70’s/early 80’s “mod revival” completely missed the point. Mod is about individualism as much as it is being part of a group. In a way mod is THE dialectical youth culture. At its best it is full of contradictions – style and spunk, cool yet rallying against official fashion, laid back and angry, intellectual and stupid all at the same time.

Being a mod in 90’s Ireland was no mean feat. The fact the odds were against you back then made you a better class of mod. There were no ready made off the peg, top-shop cod mod lines ( imagine the vulgarity, off the peg “mod” suits!) You had to go out and create a look that was contemporary yet indisputably modist. For me that meant taking elements of the Acid Jazz look – White Levis hipster cords, retro Adidas T shirts, and mixing them with classic mod – two hole Clarke’s desert boots, button down shirts, smart casual sweaters. You’d get a few curious looks. In an age when most teens were either into Grunge or Rave, your class mates rarely got it. You’d get comments like “did your mother buy you that jacket” or “look its Thomas Gradgrind Junior” (Dickens’s Hard times was on the leaving cert that year) to which I’d reply “Its a mod thing, you wouldn’t understand”. I’d seen that slogan on a T-Shirt in a magazine and thought it adequately summed up what I wanted to get across.

Sure they didn’t understand, but did I? Did any of us? Here’s where the obsession comes in. I was constantly looking for magazine articles, old books, reading sleeve notes, anything that could help me pin down what a mod was. I watched Quadrophenia over and over again, but all I got from that was that Jimmy Cooper (Phil Daniels) was on the same quest as me – searching for mod perfection, something as elusive as the perfect equilateral triangle. Between Quadrophenia, various articles in Melody Maker and lyrics from old mod anthems, such as The High Numbers’ “Zoot Suit” and “I’m The Face”, I formed a mental blueprint of a proper mod suit and headed off to Michael Meegan’s tailor in Navan to pick out my cloth and tell him what I wanted. It was indeed a handsome suit. Black with five inch side vents (I later wished I’d gone for Charcoal Grey and a single back vent- mods are never satisfied) slim fit jacket, three buttons, narrow lapels, drainpipe trousers, 15 inch hem. The look was capped off with a pair of patent leather loafers. True to form, the lads didn’t get it, the ladies however sure noticed. Standing out had its fringe benefits!

In the mod scene, music and fashion always went hand in hand. The original proto-mods (as represented in Colin McInnes classic novel Absolute Beginners and the dire musical film of the same name) were into Modern jazz. They were Modernists – which is where the term mod comes from. They drew their style influences from Jazz heroes like Miles Davis and Italian gangster films. They only wanted the best. the best music, the best style, the best books, the best coffee etc. They hung out in Cappuccino bars and listened to the Modern Jazz Quartet and Grant Green. Their favourite type of transport, the Italian scooter was a matter of style and practicality. They were practical because they got you about from the Italian Café to the Jazz club and they were cleaner than the big dirty motorbikes favoured by the proto-rockers, the ton-up boys and the teds, so you didn’t get your clothes dirty. Ironically, for a youth culture that became synonymous with Britain in general and swinging London in particular, these modernists were often called Yanks by other kids because of their predominantly American musical tastes. Other than modern jazz, rhythm and blues became a staple of this embryonic youth cult. Jamaican music too was on the agenda, as the early mods lapped up ska imports which had originally been brought in to cater for London’s growing West Indian population.

Philosophically, the mods were existentialists. Their take on this philosophy could be summed up like thus; You’re going to die sometime so you might as well have a good time now and look good while you’re at it. These ideas also contributed to the mod’s individualism. You had to stand out from the crowd. You were striving to be “the face” rather than a third class ticket. Being a mod certainly contributed to my intellectual development. I devoured Camus and Sartre and eventually studied Philosophy along with English at University.

Another influence on the proto-mod was the Soho gay scene. The gay clubs played the new soul music coming out of Detroit – Motown and their clientele wore the very best clothes. Some mods even dabbled in make-up which thankfully never caught on (though I did consider using eye-liner at one stage, horrified mates talked me out of it!). In the early days, the modernists were mainly centred around London but by 1963, the scene was set for something much bigger that would cement mod’s place in cultural history forever.

The London mods of the early ’60’s had evolved from the cool modern jazz aficionados who had pioneered the movement. The Soho gay scene had another influence on the mods in that it introduced them to amphetamines. With the introduction of French Blues and Purple Hearts, things got a little more sweaty. Young mods were beginning to form their own bands. They were influenced by American R&B and Soul but their sound was more raucous. After several attempts to manufacture a mod band, scene guru Pete Meaden turned his friend Pete Townsend’s band The Who into the iconic mod group of that era. They’re spunky R&B sound and rebellious lyrics gave the fingers to the establishment and the hitherto boring, clean cut British music scene. “My Generation” was the new mod anthem with its now ironic lyric “I hope I die before I get old” summing up the fast drug fuelled lifestyle of the mid 60’s scene.

Unfortunately, with success comes prostitution. As soon as the mod scene began to look like a money spinner, the mainstream got hold of it. Carnaby Street became a tacky tourist trap with one shop after another selling the same generic “mod” clothes. Like Punk in the 70’s, success was the biggest failure of the 60’s mod scene. Thousands of teenagers up and down Britain adopted the mod look without really understanding the lifestyle. Like an over exploited piggy-bank the mod scene was turned upside down and shook until it was empty of relevance and meaning. There was still some great music coming out, through The Small Faces and underground bands like The Action but to all intents and purposes mod was finished. Having gone full cycle the scene withered and died, but as in life, death was preceded by germination and ante-ceded by rebirth.

The mid 60’s mod scene gave birth to two children. On the one hand there emerged the “freak-beat” scene. Bands like The Creation and The Eyes played a type of garage-protopunk, fuelled by amphetamines and latterly LSD. It was with the introduction of LSD onto the scene and its primary appeal among the art school end of mod that lead in part to the birth of psychedelia and later the hippy phenomenon. With the advent of long hair, beards and noodley head music, all semblance of mod was lost.

The other child of mod was the more working class skinhead scene. The skins adopted the “hard mod” look. They kept the Ben Shermans, the Fred Perrys and the Sta-Pressed trousers and added crombies, bovver boots and braces. Their musical tastes ranged from Motown to Reggae, Dub and Rocksteady. They were notorious for being organised into gangs who fought among themselves more often than against “rockers”. This type of mod predominated in the industrial cities of the north of England and Southern Scotland. If you’ve seen the movie Small Faces (nothing to do with the band), you’ll get the idea.

Throughout the next decade, this scene remained on the fringes of youth culture. The emphasis on clothes and style declined, the hair lengths varied from skin, to suede and back again but one thing remained – Soul. The flame was kept alive in the great dance-halls of the North of England, like the Wigan Casino giving birth to the term Northern Soul. This was a people’s dance music to rival the crassness of disco.

The late 70’s is where things get messy. Out of the punk scene came a young group of self-styled mods called The Jam. Their leader Paul Weller was to become the ultimate mod icon. Their influences were, The Who, The Beatles, Tamla-Motown and The Sex Pistols. They wore mod suits, sported mod haircuts and their sound was maximum R&B. The Jam were undoubtedly one of THE great British bands. However, every silver lining has a cloud and from The Jam’s success came the “mod revival”. This official mod scene produced a great deal of dross from bands who only got record deals because they looked the part. It took over from where the 1966 stagnation left off with masses of plastic “mods” taking bank holiday trips to the British seaside resorts. That’s not to say nothing good came from this scene. Purple Hearts classic anthems, Millions Like Us and Frustration and The Chords’ Maybe Tomorrow are worthy additions to any mod record collection.

Meanwhile the unbroken thread of the skin/suede-head scene was transforming into something new. It has been argued that the Two-Tone/Ska scene of the late 70’s and early 80’s was the true inheritor of the mod mantle. 2-Tone borrowed left right and centre from other musical trends. 60’s Ska, Rocksteady and Reggae sounds met the sullen cynical style of late 70’s industrial Britain. The 2-Tone bands, particularly The Specials encapsulated an age, speaking to a whole generation of disenfranchised youth. The fashion was mod meets punk with nods towards the skinhead phenomenon.

Another band that some have argued, amid much controversy, were the inheritors of the mod mantle were Dexys Midnight Runners. They were faces on the Northern Soul scene. Their name was inspired by the Dexedrine (amphetamine of choice) fueled Northern Soul All-Nighters. The band certainly didn’t have a mod look but then the early mods didn’t listen to self styled scene gurus, they chose their own music.

I think that after this point it is impossible to pin down the mod phenomenon. In my opinion this is a good thing. It is the spirit of mod that is most important to me rather than an ossified orthodoxy. I became interested in mod from listening to my Dad’s old 60’s records. The Small Faces 7″ vinyl offerings were regular after school listening for me as was The Who’s My Generation album. At the same time I was listening to bands who while not styled as mods, could have been said to have been keeping the spirit of mod alive. The Stone Roses and Primal Scream certainly seemed to me at the time to exude the kind of cool that you would expect of the mythical ultimate mod. Seeing Bobby Gillespie on top of the pops doing the Screams Come Together when I was 14 was a real eye opener. The proto-mop top, the sun glasses; I wanted to be that cool.

Later in my teens there was somewhat of an official mod revival led by Blur. This britpop wasn’t really mod, however the scene produced some great music, most notably from Blur themselves. The dross though was everywhere as a plethora of talentless acts tried to get their fifteen minutes of fame. One thing this did lead to though was a revival in mod literature and the re-emergence of Paul Weller as an icon. It was through this scene that I began to learn about the early mods and what it really meant to be one.

Though in University I stopped calling myself a mod and slowly began to discard the look, I remain fascinated by this 20th century Renaissance. Like Jimmy at the end of Quadrophenia I think it was only after I thrashed the image that I really understood. Maybe this article has also helped you, the reader to understand but then again, “Its a mod thing” so probably not.

~ by Marcas MacCaoimhín on May 14, 2007.