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Underground > Radio & Music >

Mods: Do they exist anymore?

16:28 / 18.02.03

In my town, the idea of "mods" is hitting the clubs. Obscure Northern Soul, 60's Garage and Britpop are prevailent. My question, do mods exist anymore and are the ideas they represent relevant? Discuss

uncle retrospective

16:58 / 18.02.03

Weren't they beaten up by some Rockers down the pub?

17:19 / 18.02.03

Yeah, well, they're persistent buggers

17:45 / 18.02.03

My brother was a mod back in 1992... well, he wanted to be, and tried to be. Living 3000 miles from real mods, the idea of mods are what can be taken from Quadrophenia...

...what did mods stand for / what ideas did they represent?

12:59 / 19.02.03

hmm.., I dunno.. there's an argument to be made that in the '60s Mods represented a kind of self-defining, aspirational Working Class coolness - poor kids from London or thereabouts working hard and spending their earnings developing their own vision of coolness via clothes, music, drugs etc. (see Tom Wolfe's essay about the Noonday Underground club), whereas these days those who aspire to be mods are more like rich kids with nostalgia complexes spending obscene amounts of money in specialist shops in order to look like poor kids trying to look like rich kids 40 years ago....?

But then, there seem to be two different visions of 'Mod' really - on one hand, the kind seen in Quadrophenia with the parkas and the scooters and the target T-shirts, going 'round like a gang getting into fights, and on the other hand the Jerry Cornelius / Paisley Shirt kind of 'Mod' with the velvet jackets and extravagant clothes and rickenbackers, poncing around underground rock clubs being flawlessly cool..

13:06 / 19.02.03

Not to mention the internationalist Cary Grant lookalike mod zooming round Italy on a scooter and drinking espresso with Audrey Hepburn clones.

13:19 / 19.02.03

I like the mod thing, and tend to identify with it a lot myself, picking and choosing the aspects that I like from the broad range of possibilities available, and inventing my own interpretation of it. For me, mod = modernism, and is more of a perspective/standpoint than a collection of cultural signifiers.

Although a lot of the stylistic trappings connected with mod do appeal to me aesthetically, I like the 1960's vision of 'the future', where James Bond sips cocktails with Barbarella against a Cubist skyline. I love soul music and 60's ska. I like swanning about the place in sharp suits and a parka. But it's more about the perspective than anything else. Neophilia. Futurism. Modernism. Certain interpretations of mod are obsessed with the early 60's, which to my mind, kind of misses the point of modernism.

16:25 / 19.02.03

"Although a lot of the stylistic trappings connected with mod do appeal to me aesthetically, I like the 1960's vision of 'the future', where James Bond sips cocktails with Barbarella against a Cubist skyline. I love soul music and 60's ska. I like swanning about the place in sharp suits and a parka."

You know how everyone is supposed to have a doppelganger floating around somewhere in the world? I just found mine.

Twig the Wonder Kid

16:33 / 19.02.03

bloody mods, my town's infested with them

18:52 / 19.02.03

"Are you a mod or a rocker?"

"I'm a mocker."

01:14 / 20.02.03

"Are you a mod or a rocker?"

"Six of one, half dozen of the other, love"

01:19 / 20.02.03

I think of the "mods" as elitists, here anyways. It seems that if you tread into their clubs or nights and you don't fit the bill, they size you up and figure you for an interloper. I dig all kinds of music and don't really follow any trends when it comes to fashion and all. But the need to exemplify yourself towards a bygone ideal seems like a waste of time. I dig the music but the fans are a little much and I'm left wondering...why? Why the need to be a slave to a 60's ideal of "swinging" London or what Quadrophenia tells you to follow? Why the need to be a slave to fashion?

08:27 / 20.02.03

Well, I don't know if it counts as strictly "mod" but one of my favourite nights out in London for the last couple of years has been the the Capitol Soul Club at The Dome in Tufnell Park. It's a real old "northern soul scene" type of night, most of the regulars are pretty old (30+, with a lot pushing 40) who might have been mods or modettes in their heyday. Now most of them have got beer bellies instead or sharp suits but loads of 'em have still got the moves!
I love it - it's the one night out where I really dance my arse off. The music is really the focus of the night.

Website ishere .
Next one is on the 28th of March featuring a PA from Sidney Barnes (Hits inc. "You'll always be in style" amongst others)>

Anyone out there wants to check it out PM me.

08:30 / 20.02.03

That link didn't seem to work - try this
http://www.capitolsoulclub.homestead.com/DomeDetails.html
instead.

wembley can change in 28 days

08:31 / 20.02.03

Oh, my lord, I wish they would hurry up and move to Helsinki. Moriarty, I'm sure, can attest to how much withdrawal I must be suffering when the closest I get to 60s soul these days is by going on vacation to Berlin!

Apparently the scene is quite lively in Stockholm, but the boat trips aren't cheap. Sigh. In Toronto there were the cliquey mods who never smiled, never appeared to have fun at their own clubs, and wore fantastic fashion and hairdos. They did their best to make everyone else feel out of place, but it didn't work on me, ha ha! I'm not actually much for arguing about the lifestyle or what-have-you, which seems like something people would do when they forget that there are novels to read and art shows to mock and other things to do before they die, but i really, really love that music. Someone! Mainline it! Please!

08:31 / 20.02.03

Why the need to be a slave to fashion?

I think the phrase your searching for is 'a dedicated follower'.

(..couldn't resist)

It's all just a little game though really, the elitism is silly but it comes with the territory and is part of that particular scene. Although, as I said before, 'modernism' shouldn't really be about looking back to the 60's, an item of clothing made in 2003 to an aesthetically appealing design ethic, should be preferable to one built to a similar ethic in 1963.

I tend to make 'mod' mean whatever I want it to mean at any given moment though, and this self-defining aspect of it is one of the things that appeals to me.

08:36 / 20.02.03

Northern Soul club sounds cool, a few people have told me about that place but I've never been. Do I detect a Barbelith northern soul club night coming on...

The Natural Way

12:12 / 20.02.03

Brighton eject Aspirational Mod central. Eject Laserbeak.

Eject Ratbat.

But Brighton can stick it's cool 60's britguitarband thing up its arse (along with its "phunky breaks").

I once ejected the local Ace Face at a party in Robertsbridge. Or at least his Dad was the Ace Face of Hastings, or somesuch bollocks. He was a right pillock and at the time, because I was 19, drunk and had no idea what on Earth an "Ace Face" was, I misunderstood him and laboured under the impression that his dad was "A Fraise - King of the Hasting's Mods". I shall never be ejectiing him again, favouring Rumble instead.

Eject Rumble.

12:26 / 20.02.03

Absolutly right about the mods in Toronto...

04:35 / 22.02.03

I've no damn clue as to what you all are going on about.

- Are you a mod or a rocker?
- None of the above, I'm a motherfucker.

02:02 / 24.02.03

I like to think that the ideals of style or philosophy of a given style or whatever stays true to the end. But, like the skinheads in 60's England, the mods have just become a cartoon version of themselves, no longer hanging onto the creedo that it's about the music and the scene and about how you look in a night club, sneering.