[Closed] hey mods, over here......

Separated at Birth Brad & Paul 😆

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Surely it's one of those intangibles: although not as much of a youthquake as punk it's kind of similar in that there'll be folks out there who'd argue it was over within a couple of years and anyone saying otherwise is clinging to the rubble of clichés then there'll be others who'll say it evolved into something quite different and then there'll be the diehards dreaming of past glories etc.

In the version of music history that i prefer the Who were right in on the start of psychedelia via the freakbeat feedback solo in "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" (inspired by free jazzer Charlie Parker) - for 1965 they were way ahead of the game and stayed there through the evolution of rock into the early 70s. They didn't come up with the first 'rock opera' though, the magnificent Pretty Things did that with S.F.Sorrow. I'll shut up now before I start going on a bit...

I remember this from when I was about ten years old...

Time for Action - Secret Affair

and this... doesn't quite sound like it used to when I was a kid! it's a bit naff really.

Lambrettas D-a-a-n-c-e

Kev

just as a side note - Richard Barnes was a very good friend of those 'non mods' the who...

Nicely put, epicyclo. 😉

Having spent most of my adult life riding motorbikes and working on building sites or in garages, I have met loads of older blokes who would reminisce about their life as a rocker. In all that time, I [i]never[/i] met anyone who openly admitted to having been a mod. Now they're all coming out on STW.

Looks like rockers grow up to become builders and mechanics, mods grow up to become fat, middle aged IT managers.

this thread's gone horribly wrong...

wwaswas - Member

the Whoe were mods, they just moved on a bit.

I saw both the Jam and The Who in the late 70's there were as many mods at each.

Yeah The Who might have been "mod" in the late 70's, but they were a decade out.
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Futureboy77 - Member

Small Faces were the true mods!

Spot on.

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Stevie Marriott

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MidlandTrailquestsGraham - Member

Looks like rockers grow up to become builders and mechanics, mods grow up to become fat, middle aged IT managers.

Complete bollox. In the sixties the mods were part of the inner-city British working class youth culture. Whilst hippies and dirty long haired wannabe Hells Angels greasers, were from the posh leafy suburbs and thought everything American was cool ..... sad losers 😐

johnners - Member
Indeed - innocent until proven guilty, and not {pete townshend] charged with any form of sexual assault on minors, so "Fiddler on the Roof" is pretty lame.

Complete bollox. In the sixties the mods were part of the inner-city British working class youth culture.

To be honest though, the ones that could afford the nice clobber were mainly from the slightly more affluent end of things. I always thought 70s Mods looked bloody daft. As did most subcultures really. As they still do today. Mod fashion and style was as much a media marketing creation as all other. British Punk was a 'movement' founded by two middle class kids from Goldsmiths.

It's all about making money for music companies and the fashion industry. Anyone who thinks any different is sadly deluded. Youth fashions aren't dreamt up in council estates, or trendy bars, they're carefully planned in corporate offices by men in suits, advised by some arty farty types from St Martins.

Mod fashion in particular was a load of toss. They couldn't even get decent motorbikes ffs.

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Paul Weller always had bad hair but he wrote some great tunes. I like to appreciate him with my ears not my eyes. 😉

I still have a PX125 and I love it.

Complete bollox. In the sixties the mods were part of the inner-city British working class youth culture. Whilst hippies and dirty long haired wannabe Hells Angels greasers, were from the posh leafy suburbs and thought everything American was cool ..... sad losers

Lol. If you want to glorify the most hungrily consumerist subculture 'til the yuppies (verrrry similar) feel free. And I've a feeling the greasers would've liked to have had a word about being lumped in with the hippies - most greasers were from a trad industrial background and the mods were making their money from the expansion of the service industries. And then the long-haired drop-out 'freaks' who started most of the squats in London and were associated with what ended up being called the cultureculture despised the hippies and were pretty much anti-American.

So, I'm guessing the, "Complete bollox," was a warning about what was coming.

I had a couple of Lambrettas in the late 70's / early 80's (LI 150 and GP 200), but gravitated (or that could be deviated, take your pick) to Buells and Harleys. Still love the Jam and Paul Weller, and if I could afford / justify it to the wife, I'd get a Vespa GTV as well. For what it's worth, I never really liked the Who, Townshend's 'research' just made me feel justified in disliking them even more.

British Punk was a 'movement' founded by two middle class kids from Goldsmiths.

If it's not DIY, it's not punk. 🙄

Youth fashions aren't dreamt up in council estates, or trendy bars, they're carefully planned in corporate offices by men in suits, advised by some arty farty types from St Martins.

2 Tone wasn't. I doubt that the whole E inspired dance/indy scene of the 80/90's was either. Definately street culture.

Mod fashion and style was as much a media marketing creation as all other

You understand absolutely nothing about the sixties.

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I've a feeling the greasers would've liked to have had a word about being lumped in with the hippies

Yup, I've always lumped greasers with hippies. Although I had considerable more time for hippies...........greasers were truly sad ****ers.

Circa 1964 I wore a parka and rode around on a Lambretta. We trawled around the pubs, bowling alleys & snooker halls of downtown Bradford, Keighley, Leeds and Halifax. Did the Clacton and Gt Yarmouth venues mainly to hear music from Radio Caroline which had just started. Back then we only had Radio Luxembourg & listened to 'tranies' at 11pm every Sunday for the top twenty hour (ah the memories!). When Radio 270 (two-seven-o) moored off Scarborough we went there at weekends. There was the odd punchup between mods and rockers but not really big like the south coast ones.
Then I bought a car and someone took me hillwalking in the lakes and there started a lifelong love of the outdoors.

rode around on a Lambretta. We trawled around the pubs, bowling alleys & snooker halls of downtown Bradford, Keighley, Leeds and Halifax. Did the Clacton and Gt Yarmouth venues mainly to hear music from Radio Caroline which had just started....... Then I bought a car and ......

.....and you were able to enter the kiss-in-the-car contest ! 😀

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I like this thread. Everyone elses memories are making me feel young 8)

PMSL that this thread is still going!

Having spent most of my adult life riding motorbikes and working on building sites or in garages, I have met loads of older blokes who would reminisce about their life as a rocker. In all that time, I never met anyone who openly admitted to having been a mod.

Funny that. All the mods (my father included) i know or knew are working class. Much like the other youth movements to follow: the skinheads, football casuals (which is widely accepted as a continuation of mod...not that i'm condonoing football violence),

Mod fashion in particular was a load of toss. They couldn't even get decent motorbikes ffs

That picture is a late 90's/00's scooter with plastic mod mirrors. The whole mirror thing lasted about 6 months in the 60's, but because it was in Quadro it must be true! 🙂 Do some research!

2 Tone wasn't. I doubt that the whole E inspired dance/indy scene of the 80/90's was either. Definately street culture.

Amen!

Well back to the second post paul weller is not great now tbh, but his first solo album paul weller still stands up well now i think, certainly amngst my top5 90s albums.

He was a briliant songwriter for a bit at least.....

I wonder where my Lambretta SX150 is now........ ah! Happy days ... wearing my crombie, skinner jeans (or two tone trousers), doc martins, ben sherman shirts - and no helmets 😯 - where the **** has 40 years gone!

( i wasn't strictly a mod - more a smoothie!)

As I remember it most of the scooters were clapped out crap, customising consisted of brush painted features, accessories consisted of 2 mirrors at most and perhaps one foglight (there wasn't the electrical power to drive more than that), and the parka was about the only waterproof overcoat that could be afforded by an indigent under 21 year old. Never understood it, but back then hardly any of them rode their scooters far - you could spot a mod run to the coast by the trail of forlorn figures beside broken scooters along the road. Mods were all about posturing and image. Pathetic really.

I never heard the term greasers until the 70s - we was rockers. Not glamorous, it was hard yakka. We lived for the bikes and going as fast as possible, and we were the only thing on 2 wheels from December to March. Black fingernails, skinned knuckles, oil impregnated jeans that could stand up on their own, impervious to cold, a panda look from road dirt around our goggles, bugs in our teeth in summer, and every penny going into the bike. Frequent police harassment any time more than 2 of us rode together. Still we had the joys of 100mph (legal) on empty winding roads, no helmet, and the music of a megaphone on a big single. We had a ****ing great time.

ok................ greaser eh! ... you looking at me ... eh! do you want some .. do ya!

I never heard the term greasers until the 70s

Don't know where you lived, but in the late sixties in Peckham, the term 'greaser' was used to described anyone with a motorbike/leather jacket. And the word 'greaser' was almost always preceded by the word 'dirty'.

Nah, I had mates who rode scooters. I rode one 100 yards, got off and pushed it back, they were that foul.

The owner then had a go on my bike, but only got 10 feet before it flipped back on top off him. Luckily it wasn't scratched or bent 🙂

(I lived in the North of Scotland and also down in So'ton - never went near London except to buy bike bits. And yeah, I suppose you could say we were dirty 🙂 )

Black fingernails, skinned knuckles, oil impregnated jeans that could stand up on their own, impervious to cold, a panda look from road dirt around our goggles, bugs in our teeth in summer, and every penny going into the bike. Frequent police harassment any time more than 2 of us rode together.

Wow, sounds like a real barrel of monkeys

trailmonkey - Member
Wow, sounds like a real barrel of monkeys

It wasn't about appearances, it was about the feeling you get when you strap out a bike on the right road.

I think you have to take drugs these days to get anything like that feeling 🙂

I seem to remember extremely high mortality rates amongst the greasers in my locality, young lads, no real licence required, on a bike of any capacity .......... with no helmet 😯

I'm an Odd.

We lost a few, but I lost more of my climbing mates in this country.

My time in Oz was worse - lost 3 friends in 3 consecutive weekends in the 70s plus the usual toll of cripplings and maimings.

I'm an Odd.

Have you got the Oddie hair style ?

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I'd better go and sell my Lambretta's and hang up my parka.

Go on then buy a proper bike like a Triumph and a leather jacket

One or two old buggers on here 😉

pennine - Member
One or two old buggers on here

Officially ancient, but not so old and frail as to need gears yet...

That picture is a late 90's/00's scooter with plastic mod mirrors. The whole mirror thing lasted about 6 months in the 60's, but because it was in Quadro it must be true! Do some research!

FFs does it matter??! The point is that those stupid scooters were crap then and are crap now, unless you're an old lady needing to get down to the village to buy some eggs. You'd need a lift back though as the sodding thing would have broken down.

You understand absolutely nothing about the sixties.

One of the greatest eras of marketing bullshit. In fact, quite possibly the era that spawned the modern lust for consumer goods, designer labels and consumerism as we know it today.

Bag o' shite, the lot of it.

At least the Rockers had bikes that could outrun a mobility cart.

lol! still like yer style mate.

One of the greatest eras of marketing bullshit. In fact, quite possible the era that spawned the modern lust for consumer goods, designer labels and consumerism as we know it today.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

In the sixties, the fashion, the music, and the life styles, all came from the youth themselves. The trailblazers were the newly liberated postwar teenagers of the fifties, who because of the war, had grown up with unprecedented freedom from parental control and influence.

The establishment and the consumer market providers of the fifties and sixties, had absolutely no idea what was happening, and were certainly not in anyway able to control or manipulate the situation - most of which they intensely disapproved.

This carried on right through to the seventies, with the final free and independent youth culture being the punks.

By the eighties, the teenagers of the sixties had become middle-aged business men. Their knowledge, understanding, and personal experience of youth culture, gave them huge advantages which previous generations of business men had not possessed.

From the eighties onwards, all youth fashion, music, and life styles, was completely dominated by business interests.

And so we find ourselves in the desperately sad situation today, where the present youth have nothing which they can call their own - everything is marketed and sold to them. Tragically, they are perfectly willing to oblige and conform, without the slightest inclination to rebel 🙁

Somos los mods, somos los mods, somos, somos, somos los mods!

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Doesn't quite have the same ring, does it?

The point is that those stupid scooters were crap then and are crap now, unless you're an old lady needing to get down to the village to buy some eggs. You'd need a lift back though as the sodding thing would have broken down.

Aye, righto. Funny how me and many others manage to cover thousands of miles going to rallies then without breaking down.

What's your issue with scooters really? Is being into them really any different to being in to mountain bikes???

Somos los Mods! 8)

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

Oh, and you do, I suppose?

60s fashion, in Britain at least, was fuelled by the new-found affluence following on from the austerity of the 50s. People had a bit more money to spend on stuff like clothes and music. Styles were created by European fashion houses rebuilding themselves, and Goldsmiths students like Mary Quant. Music? Much of it was coming across the pond, from the well-established American 'industry'. The 'kids' simply adopted what was being sold to them through popular media. The Beatles were a manufactured pop band. British styles were heavily influenced by peoples coming from the former colonies of the West Indies, or the India subcontinent.

Fashion wasn't something invented by a bunch of kids in a suburb in Croydon. They just had a bit more money to buy it.

Funny how me and many others manage to cover thousands of miles going to rallies

Nah it was only hundred. It just felt like thousands because it took so long at 20mph.

Nah, only kidding. Scooters are ok, quite cute really. I've got nothing against them. Might buy me mum one.

You do know that all the mirrors were to provide extra rear visibility to see other vehicles bearing down on you, so that you could get out of the way?

Tragically, they are perfectly willing to oblige and conform, without the slightest inclination to rebel

so says you.. I believe that the chav phenomena is the closet relation to any sort of sentimental notions you have of a rebellious youth culture..

I know they are knocked and disparaged and abhorred by the older generation who cannot comprehend them.. but as a rebel youth movement I feel the drug taking.. fake trainer wearing.. tesco value shellsuit adorned.. sneering at law and order chav has a legitimate anti establisment ethos that should be commended by anyone claiming to have roots in any historically edgy youth movement..

😉

Oh, and you do, I suppose?

Well I obviously know more than you.

[b][i]"The Beatles were a manufactured pop band."[/i][/b]

You really have no idea.

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The Cavern.......not the "Britain's Got Talent stage"

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so says you..

Yup, it was me what said it - today's youth completely conform ........in every respect ... fashion, music, and politics.

weren't mods about conforming though? dressing well and getting a job to pay for your lifestyle accessories?

or have I missed something?

The Cavern.......

Ringo was a lot better looking in those days..