A
product of working-class
British youth of the mid-
sixties, there are many theories and reports about what this
group of people were.
Quick Background:
Brighton beach, a scene that looks like it has been taken directly out of The Outsiders. Where the Rockers (greasers) face the Mods (socs) for yet another violent clash.
So what was this culture known as The Mods? Think A Clockwork Orange, think Paul Weller, think scooters. Fashionable, modern and casual with a whole musical genre to its name.
So does mod come from "modern"? Perhaps. Another theory stems from the vehicles driven by the two violent factions. The Mods, driving scooters and the Rockers driving the motorbike. The motorbikes of the time having to be "rocked" to get the petrol distribution correct whilst the mopeds had modern technology to circumvent this need.
I remain cynical as to the above theory, but it still remains.
There were Mods in the late 50s but they were limited to the younger teenagers. When these teenagers grew older, the 60s happened and the mod culture exploded, where it became a culture that included drugs, scooters as well as fashion and music.
The Who became THE Mod band of the sixties.
But alas - the violence and media coverage ensured the mod movement blew itself out...until the 70s when Paul Weller appeared on the scene, now the culture started to appear in America, as the Anglophile USA craved a replacement for Beatlemania. The US got Punk and Mod.
Once again the Mod movement was marred by violence, this time with petrol bombs.
Mod(ern) Revival picked itself up off its battered legs in 1989 with the advent of Acid Jazz, and was helped along in the early 90s with the Manchester music scene, the Stone Roses, The Smiths, Happy Mondays, and the Hacienda club (RIP).
The Late nineties saw the "indy" scene somewhat work along side the Mod Scene and sometimes they were synonymous, bands such as Blur and Pulp were such borderline bands, who embraced the Mod lifestyle but were labelled as indy.
The Mod scene in the 21st Century is somewhat subdued. It's out there, but who knows how it will surface this time? Plenty of British grafitti artists have made it clear it has for the time split into the mainstream and the underground. The RAF "target" symbol that has been unofficially adopted by the movement, appearing in bus shelters throughout the land.