Mod to Suedehead

[covskin]

I'm young, I don't have that much disposable money and I dislike throwing stuff away, making me end up wearing the same rubbish I did when I was 15 as soon as my good clothes are all waiting to be washed again

Back then we would have had a Fred Perry, a Ben Sherman, a pullover, a pair of Levis and a pair of Sta Prest plus a Harrington or MA-1 and maybe a crombie. Add some boots and/or brogues and that was it after a year or so, just enough to have things in the wash with your Mum.

 

[DavidWatts69]

Back then we would have had a Fred Perry, a Ben Sherman, a pullover, a pair of Levis and a pair of Sta Prest plus a Harrington or MA-1 and maybe a crombie. Add some boots and/or brogues and that was it after a year or so, just enough to have things in the wash with your Mum.

Yep I already have pretty much all that. Maybe I'm asking for too much!

 

[covskin]

Yep I already have pretty much all that. Maybe I'm asking for too much!

No different to us then. Lots of competing priorities back then - clothes, records, going out. Pick any two!

 

[Man-of-Mystery]

No different to us then. Lots of competing priorities back then - clothes, records, going out. Pick any two!

I remember how those of us who were still at school and had to rely on pocket money from the parents got by on the "fake it until you can make it" principle. Your first pair of Levis were usually a cast-off from a mate who had just bought a new pair - a worn pair of Levis made it look as though you'd been on the scene for a good while. Same thing held true for a surfer jacket, maybe - a cast off. I was able to persuade my mum to buy me a pair of brogues for school, and so I wore them when out on the town. Same with a nicely-cut pair of grey slacks. My Sunday suit had a three-button jacket, narrow lapels, and a centre vent, so that was a shoo-in. If you could save your pocket money, you might be able to buy a minor piece of "in" clobber. Beyond that, it was a case of faking it by varying combinations, wearing something in a different way, sussing out the cool way to stand, being quick onto the latest dance, and so on...

 

[Man-of-Mystery]

New podcast dropped! Kate and I have been threatening this one for a few weeks now - solid Northern session! Here's the shpeel:

DJs Kate Mowbray and Doctor PT dropped in at the V&A Museum in Dundee a few weeks ago, and took a look at the “Dundee Tapestry” exhibition. One panel caught their eye – it celebrated youth movements, and it included the titles of several Northern Soul easy-winners. So this home studio session features those, plus some other really great Northern and classic soul tracks – twenty-four in all! Turn it up loud and pretend you’re going down the corridor to the main dance hall… you can already feel the humidity rising and hear the great dance tracks overdriving an analogue sound system. Play right through to the end, and Keep the Faith!​

 

[Botolph]

I'm young, I don't have that much disposable money and I dislike throwing stuff away, making me end up wearing the same rubbish I did when I was 15 as soon as my good clothes are all waiting to be washed again

From the age of 15 till 20, I think had one Fred Perry, one pair of DM’s(14-eye😳), 2-3 pair Levi’s(cheaper here), a maroon MA-1, and then a green one. Didn’t have a harrington till I found an old Van Heusen Baracuta at a Salvation Army, haha. Moved to Boston and traveled more after that, but man was I a sight as a kid! No gear and no idea!

 

[themodernmod]

hey guys my names jack im 15 and iv been a mod for about 2 years and iv been wanting to get more into the scene im in california does anyone know about any advents soon?

 

[Reggae Mike]

hey guys my names jack im 15 and iv been a mod for about 2 years and iv been wanting to get more into the scene im in california does anyone know about any advents soon?

These things are goin down fairly soon for all ages

 

[Ivyskin89]

 

[Thin White Duke]

I remember how those of us who were still at school and had to rely on pocket money from the parents got by on the "fake it until you can make it" principle. Your first pair of Levis were usually a cast-off from a mate who had just bought a new pair - a worn pair of Levis made it look as though you'd been on the scene for a good while. Same thing held true for a surfer jacket, maybe - a cast off. I was able to persuade my mum to buy me a pair of brogues for school, and so I wore them when out on the town. Same with a nicely-cut pair of grey slacks. My Sunday suit had a three-button jacket, narrow lapels, and a centre vent, so that was a shoo-in. If you could save your pocket money, you might be able to buy a minor piece of "in" clobber. Beyond that, it was a case of faking it by varying combinations, wearing something in a different way, sussing out the cool way to stand, being quick onto the latest dance, and so on...

1. Good info P - BTW I asked you on here a while back but maybe you didn’t see the question. I was always curious what people like you who were original late Mods / skins thought of us second generation Mods around 1979 onwards. Were you excited that the revival injected new energy and options into the look, or were you disdainful of us clueless younguns coming in and muddying up the waters?

2. As for youthful Mods on a low budget, I think for all but the richest of rich kids this was a challenge and it was ever thus. Richard Barnes says the original stylists in the sixties were mostly Jewish kids in London who were spoilt rich kids either from wealthy families and / or their parents were tailors so they could get top drawer threads at a discount. A lot of people who jumped on the Mod bandwagon round ours during the revival thought all they needed was a parka, low quality two tone suit and make do with a couple of shirts and ties for the disco. Casual wear was jeans, polos, dessies, Harrington etc all of which could be had on the cheap. Only when the aforementioned Mods book came out it all changed. The bandwagon jumpers weren’t that committed and jumped off. A few of us die hards became even more dedicated and that’s when the financial shortcomings really kicked in. We wanted more than one crappy suit, we wanted boating blazers, tweed jackets, trench coats, hush puppies, moccasins, Chelsea boots, crombies, leather blazers, varieties of shirts, ties, pocket squares, etc. plus by then we were old enough to ride scooters … usually the scooter lads eschewed any style aspirations and split the scene as no-one could afford all the style elements plus the cost of buying and running a scooter. I was more into the style and music so my dosh went on clothes, records, concert tickets etc but it wasn’t easy. Plus some lads left school at 16 and were on wages but I was in the sixth form then uni on a student grant (remember them?) On the occasional trips to London I discovered a wealth of vintage gear at Camden Market and Pettycoat Lane so that made it easier to expand the wardrobe at a reasonable price plus places like Shelly’s sold gear you could never get oop north like my electric blue suede chelseas boots.

 

[Man-of-Mystery]

1. Good info P - BTW I asked you on here a while back but maybe you didn’t see the question. I was always curious what people like you who were original late Mods / skins thought of us second generation Mods around 1979 onwards. Were you excited that the revival injected new energy and options into the look, or were you disdainful of us clueless younguns coming in and muddying up the waters?

2. As for youthful Mods on a low budget, I think for all but the richest of rich kids this was a challenge and it was ever thus. Richard Barnes says the original stylists in the sixties were mostly Jewish kids in London who were spoilt rich kids either from wealthy families and / or their parents were tailors so they could get top drawer threads at a discount...

1. I can only really speak for myself, but I guess most people from the 60s would be approaching their thirties or even mid-thirties, would most likely be married, and youth movements would come and go without their taking much notice. It was a bit different for me, for two reasons. Firstly by 1980 I was riding motorcycles* and socialised mainly with a motorbike club (though I was a bit of an odd fish in the midst of them) but was DJing at clubs where the music was punk/new-wave and some roots reggae. So I saw quite a few folk, influenced by Two-Tone bands or Oi, not quite getting mod and skinhead styles quite right. But that's always the way with revival movements - they tend to settle on a "snapshot" of an era, get a few minor details wrong, and before you know where you are, everyone is wearing those minor details. I didn't mind too much, even though I was DJing in that scene, because I didn't want to interfere - the punk era and immediate post-punk era allowed a lot of autonomy to kids. And then it all started getting a bit tribal again. Also I was involved with motorcycle training, and I would sometimes get someone on a scooter to train to take his test. Once a young bloke I knew turned up on his Vespa the day before his test, and asked for some tips. I got him to go round our block on his scoot while I followed him,** and he did everything wrong! So basically I had to give him a crash course in the space of an evening, including teaching him the Highway Code, and hope for the best. Amazingly, he passed.
*I had always liked motorcycles, even in the 60s, but didn't like the way rockers/gr€a€rs/whatever dressed. I liked how mods dressed and I liked their music, and I felt that scooters were just another type of motorcycle only used by different folk for different purposes. Shoot me.
** On my 350 Jawa + sidecar.

2. This is very familiar. In Blackpool in 1967, the mod scene was pretty classless. You got working-class kids, middle-class kids, and kids whose parents were well off (maybe had their own business). The working-class kids had left school and were buying decent gear out of their wage packets. The rich kids got a lot of pocket money. It was the middle-class kids like me who had to fake it till we could make it!

 

[Swampster]

New podcast dropped! Kate and I have been threatening this one for a few weeks now - solid Northern session! Here's the shpeel:

DJs Kate Mowbray and Doctor PT dropped in at the V&A Museum in Dundee a few weeks ago, and took a look at the “Dundee Tapestry” exhibition. One panel caught their eye – it celebrated youth movements, and it included the titles of several Northern Soul easy-winners. So this home studio session features those, plus some other really great Northern and classic soul tracks – twenty-four in all! Turn it up loud and pretend you’re going down the corridor to the main dance hall… you can already feel the humidity rising and hear the great dance tracks overdriving an analogue sound system. Play right through to the end, and Keep the Faith!​

I've only ever paddled in the shallow end of Northern Soul, so a lot of these were new to me. Very enjoyable. One advantage of not having listened to much until the last few years is that even the usual suspects are still fresh for me. Nice to here them included - there is always the danger with any genre of dismissing the more well known stuff. A chap I was at school with is into NS and he described the stuff that was played as things we wouldn't have heard of. I don't suppose they played the theme from Joe 90 (by no means 'proper' NS but damn groovy. Those scenes with the RAT were giving the pre-teens an introduction to liquid light shows. Perhaps that is why I have an urge to get a Mathmos lamp for the new house).

 

[Thin White Duke]

1. I can only really speak for myself, but I guess most people from the 60s would be approaching their thirties or even mid-thirties, would most likely be married, and youth movements would come and go without their taking much notice. It was a bit different for me, for two reasons. Firstly by 1980 I was riding motorcycles* and socialised mainly with a motorbike club (though I was a bit of an odd fish in the midst of them) but was DJing at clubs where the music was punk/new-wave and some roots reggae. So I saw quite a few folk, influenced by Two-Tone bands or Oi, not quite getting mod and skinhead styles quite right. But that's always the way with revival movements - they tend to settle on a "snapshot" of an era, get a few minor details wrong, and before you know where you are, everyone is wearing those minor details. I didn't mind too much, even though I was DJing in that scene, because I didn't want to interfere - the punk era and immediate post-punk era allowed a lot of autonomy to kids. And then it all started getting a bit tribal again. Also I was involved with motorcycle training, and I would sometimes get someone on a scooter to train to take his test. Once a young bloke I knew turned up on his Vespa the day before his test, and asked for some tips. I got him to go round our block on his scoot while I followed him,** and he did everything wrong! So basically I had to give him a crash course in the space of an evening, including teaching him the Highway Code, and hope for the best. Amazingly, he passed.
*I had always liked motorcycles, even in the 60s, but didn't like the way rockers/gr€a€rs/whatever dressed. I liked how mods dressed and I liked their music, and I felt that scooters were just another type of motorcycle only used by different folk for different purposes. Shoot me.
** On my 350 Jawa + sidecar.

2. This is very familiar. In Blackpool in 1967, the mod scene was pretty classless. You got working-class kids, middle-class kids, and kids whose parents were well off (maybe had their own business). The working-class kids had left school and were buying decent gear out of their wage packets. The rich kids got a lot of pocket money. It was the middle-class kids like me who had to fake it till we could make it!

Excellent post matey and thanks for the insight from your unique perspective.
To your first point I always wondered what happened to the original Mods and have posed the question several times without really getting a fully satisfactory answer. I’m sure what you say is true, that a lot of people got older and grew out of it, got married, got settled, priorities became mortgage payments and summer holidays and prams then school uniforms for kids but I just find it hard to believe that those who were sooo dedicated and fully invested in the Mod scene could seemingly so radically and rapidly change their lifestyle.

To your later point about a ‘snapshot’ I find that interesting too. Due to constant one upmanship and rapidly evolving styles of the original lads I’ve heard there was a broad range of mini trends that were ever-changing back then. Nobody wanted to be the same as the next lad. During the revival the look settled on three button suits and jackets without deviation and lads settled into a rigid look in order to wear their tribal badge and be sure they were identified with the group at large, so there wasn’t slot of deviation within a fairly prescribed look (and variety wasn’t that broadly available in the high street gear anyway).

Yeah despite Americans always banging on about class divisions in British society - probably aided and abetted by the success of Upstairs Downstairs on TV here years ago and more recently Downton Abbey! - my personal background was weirdly ‘classless’ and I think that was true for the Mod scene in general. The original stylists must have been rich kids wearing their tailored suits to go dancing in basement soho blues clubs but as the look spread and more street wear was ‘allowed’ the broader availability of the aforementioned polos, harringtons, dessies, jeans, monkey jackets, trainers, etc meant the look became a lot more egalitarian and lads of more modest means could feel a part of the scene too.

 

[Man-of-Mystery]

I've only ever paddled in the shallow end of Northern Soul, so a lot of these were new to me. Very enjoyable. One advantage of not having listened to much until the last few years is that even the usual suspects are still fresh for me. Nice to here them included - there is always the danger with any genre of dismissing the more well known stuff. A chap I was at school with is into NS and he described the stuff that was played as things we wouldn't have heard of. I don't suppose they played the theme from Joe 90 (by no means 'proper' NS but damn groovy. Those scenes with the RAT were giving the pre-teens an introduction to liquid light shows. Perhaps that is why I have an urge to get a Mathmos lamp for the new house).

It's a seam I am still mining, and will return to in future podcasts. I might even play the theme from Joe 90, you never know. I must admit that the "more well known stuff" does begin to get boring after a while, but mainly because it isn't "listening music." A few of the better-known tracks attract listeners to the podcasts and enable me to slip in the lesser-known stuff. Same with any genre that I tackle - I have odd things like obscure funk tracks, retro-soul treatments of a Def Leppard track, etc. etc. Stay tuned!

 

[Man-of-Mystery]

To your first point I always wondered what happened to the original Mods and have posed the question several times without really getting a fully satisfactory answer. I’m sure what you say is true, that a lot of people got older and grew out of it, got married, got settled, priorities became mortgage payments and summer holidays and prams then school uniforms for kids but I just find it hard to believe that those who were sooo dedicated and fully invested in the Mod scene could seemingly so radically and rapidly change their lifestyle.

I don't know where I saw this quotation - it was either in the book Generation X or in the original colour supplement article on mods (the one that had a pic of Mark Feld) - but someone in the 1960s said, tellingly, that "You have to be young to be a mod." There was little point in hanging around on the scene in one's 20s, because it would have looked weird to the kids and one might even have been accused of being a "n0nce" (yeah, I know I was in a punk/post-punk "scene" in my 30s, but that was kinda different, and I was a bit young-looking anyway).

The great thing about the clothes that stick in the mind, and have made their way back into the wardrobe, of someone who was "there" in the 60s, is that they have become timeless "classics," and therefore a way of just looking bloody cool in age. Plus we now look back to the music of the time as being at a high point.

Having said that - last night I was at a Reggae night in Dundee, at which I was wearing a white Ben Sherman, a burgundy slipover, Levi 501s with a turnup, burgundy socks, and black loafers. Pretty cool, eh? But then it occurred to me, when I got home, that I only had to discard one of those items - the pair of shoes - and put on my slippers, and I would simply look like an old geezer.