The Mod Revival started with disillusionment with the punk scene when commercialism set in.[citation needed] It was featured in an article in Sounds music paper in 1976 and had a big following in Reading/London during that time. It gained momentum as an underground movement which was highlighted on London Weekend Show 20 May 1979, prior to the impending release of the film Quadrophenia.[citation needed]
The late 1970s mod revival was led by the band The Jam, who adopted a stark mod look and mixed the energy of punk with the sound of early 1960s mod influenced bands. It was heavily influenced by the 1979 film Quadrophenia. The mod revival was a conscious effort to hark back to the earlier generation in terms of style and presentation. In the early 1980s in the UK, a mod revival scene influenced by the original mod subculture of the 1960s developed.
The mod revival was largely set in motion by the Jam and their fans.[3] The band had adopted a stark mod look and mixed the energy of punk with the sound of 1960s mod bands. Their debut album In the City (1977), mixed R&B standards with originals modelled on the Who's early singles. They confirmed their status as the leading mod revival band with their third album All Mod Cons (1978), on which Paul Weller's song-writing drew heavily on the British-focused narratives of the Kinks.[4] The revival was also spurred on by small concerts at venues such as the Cambridge Hotel, Edmonton, Hop Poles Hotel and Howard Hall both in Enfield, the Wellington, Waterloo Road, London, and the Bridge House in Canning Town. In 1979, the film Quadrophenia, which romanticised the original 1960s mod subculture, widened the impact and popularity of the mod revival across the UK. The original mod revival fanzine, Maximum Speed started in 1979 and spawned other home-produced fanzines from then until the mid-to-late 1980s.
Bands grew up to feed the desire for mod music, often combining the music of 1960s mod groups with elements of punk music, including the Chords, Secret Affair, Purple Hearts and the Lambrettas.[5] These acts managed to develop cult followings and some had pop hits, before the revival petered out in the early 1980s.[6] More R'n'B based bands such as the Little Roosters, the Inmates and Nine Below Zero also became key acts in the growing mod revival scene in London.[7]
In 1979 the mod scene in Australia began and took off particularly in Sydney & Melbourne, led by bands such as The Sets, Little Murders, Division 4, The Introverts & The Go. There was a documentary made in early 1981 called The Go-Set about the mod revival scene in Sydney & Melbourne. There was also a book published about the mod scene in Australia from 1979 to 1986.
1980s
Two highly accessorised "mod-style" Lambretta scooters in 2007
Paul Weller broke up the Jam in 1982 and formed the Style Council, who abandoned most of the punk rock elements to adopt music much more based in modern jazz, R&B and early soul.[8]
In the mid-1980s, there was a brief mod revival centered on bands such as the Prisoners. Fanzines following on from Maximum Speed – such as Mission Impossible, Patriotic, Roadrunner, Extraordinary Sensations and Chris Hunt and Karl Bedingfield's Shadows & Reflections – helped generate further interest in this stage of the mod revival.[9] The Phoenix List was a weekly newsletter listing national events, and they organised a series of national rallies. A main player in the 1980s UK mod revival was Eddie Piller, who founded Countdown Records, and then went on to develop the acid jazz movement of the late 1980s.[9] In 1985, the mod all-dayer in Walthamstow paid tribute to Band Aid, was sponsored by Unicorn Records, and had a host of 80s mod revival bands playing, old and new: Making Time (probably one of the biggest mod revival bands of the 80s after the Jam) and a well-known north London mod band called the Outlets, with band members Steve Byrne and Mario Vitrano, who also supported Steve Marriott's Packet of 3 and Geno Washington at various gigs in north London in the mid-80s.
The UK mod revival was followed by a mod revival in North America in the early 1980s, particularly in Southern California, led by bands such as the Untouchables,[10][11][12] The Question, and Manual Scan. While on the East Coast (yet touring heavily in California) Mod Fun carried the revival torch. In Brazil the band Ira! led the mod revival releasing their first album Mudança de comportamento in 1985 on the WEA label. Their 1986 followup "Vivendo e Não Aprendendo" further established them as leaders of the mod revival in Brazil. They quickly achieved Gold Album status in sales of "Vivendo e Não Aprendendo".
1990s and later
Bands associated with Britpop in the mid-1990s often championed aspects of mod culture. Blur were fans of Quadrophenia, with the film's star Phil Daniels featuring on the title track of the band's album Parklife and appearing in the song's video, while Oasis' Noel Gallagher struck up a high-profile friendship with Paul Weller. Around this time the UK music press championed a number of bands as constituting a new wave of the mod revival under the name "New Mod", including Menswe@r and the Bluetones, both of whom were later identified with Britpop.[13][14][15]
A number of 1970s mod revival bands have reunited in recent years to play concerts, including Secret Affair,[16] the Chords and the Purple Hearts.[17][18]
A fanzine is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest. The term was coined in an October 1940 science fiction fanzine by Russ Chauvenet and first popularized within science fiction fandom, and from there the term was adopted by other communities.
New wave is a music genre that encompasses pop-oriented styles from the 1970s through the 1980s. It is considered a lighter and more melodic "broadening of punk culture". It was originally used as a catch-all for the various styles of music that emerged after punk rock. Later, critical consensus favored "new wave" as an umbrella term involving many contemporary popular music styles, including synth-pop, alternative dance and post-punk. The main new wave movement coincided with late 1970s punk and continued into the early 1980s.
The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of music, ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature, and film. Largely characterised by anti-establishment views, the promotion of individual freedom, and the DIY ethics, the culture originated from punk rock.
Rock is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the black musical genres of blues, rhythm and blues, and country music. Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock is typically centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a 4 4 time signature and utilizing a verse–chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political. Rock was the most popular genre of music in the U.S. and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s.
A skinhead or skin is a member of a subculture that originated among working-class youth in London, England, in the 1960s. It soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working-class skinhead movement emerging worldwide in the late 1970s. Motivated by social alienation and working-class solidarity, skinheads are defined by their close-cropped or shaven heads and working-class clothing such as Dr. Martens and steel toe work boots, braces, high rise and varying length straight-leg jeans, and button-down collar shirts, usually slim fitting in check or plain. The movement reached a peak at the end of the 1960s, experienced a revival in the 1980s, and, since then, has endured in multiple contexts worldwide.
Mods and rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the late 1950s to mid 1960s. Media coverage of the two groups fighting in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youth, and they became widely perceived as violent, unruly troublemakers.
Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) are anti-racist skinheads who oppose white power skinheads, neo-fascists and other political racists, particularly if they identify themselves as skinheads. SHARPs claim to reclaim the original multicultural identity of the original skinheads, hijacked by white power skinheads, who they sometimes deride as "boneheads".
A punk zine is a zine related to the punk subculture and hardcore punk music genre. Often primitively or casually produced, they feature punk literature, such as social commentary, punk poetry, news, gossip, music reviews and articles about punk rock bands or regional punk scenes.
Popular music of the United Kingdom in the 1980s built on the post-punk and new wave movements, incorporating different sources of inspiration from subgenres and what is now classed as world music in the shape of Jamaican and Indian music. It also explored the consequences of new technology and social change in the electronic music of synthpop. In the early years of the decade, while subgenres like heavy metal music continued to develop separately, there was a considerable crossover between rock and more commercial popular music, with a large number of more "serious" bands, like The Police and UB40, enjoying considerable single chart success.
Rude boy is a subculture that originated from 1960s Jamaican street culture. In the late 1970s, there was a revival in England of the terms rude boy and rude girl, among other variations like rudeboy and rudebwoy, being used to describe fans of two-tone and ska. This revival of the subculture and term was partially the result of Jamaican immigration to the UK and the so-called "Windrush" generation. The use of these terms moved into the more contemporary ska punk movement as well. In the UK and especially Jamaica, the terms rude boy and rude girl are used in a way similar to gangsta, yardie, or badman.
Mod, from the word modernist, is a subculture that began in late 1950s London and spread throughout Great Britain, eventually influencing fashions and trends in other countries. It continues today on a smaller scale. Focused on music and fashion, the subculture has its roots in a small group of stylish London-based young men and women in the late 1950s who were termed modernists because they listened to modern jazz. Elements of the mod subculture include fashion ; music and motor scooters. In the mid-1960s when they started to fade out, the subculture listened to rock groups with R&B influences such as the Who and Small Faces. The original mod scene was associated with amphetamine-fuelled all-night jazz dancing at clubs.
British rock describes a wide variety of forms of music made in the United Kingdom. Since around 1964, with the "British Invasion" of the United States spearheaded by the Beatles, British rock music has had a considerable impact on the development of American music and rock music across the world.
The 20th century saw the rise and fall of many subcultures.
Purple Hearts are an English mod revival band, formed in 1977 in Romford, eastern Greater London. They were often considered one of the best English mod revival groups, the NME calling them "one of the few mod bands to actually cut it on rock 'n' roll terms".
The history of the punk subculture involves the history of punk rock, the history of various punk ideologies, punk fashion, punk visual art, punk literature, dance, and punk film. Since emerging in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia in the mid-1970s, the punk subculture has spread around the globe and evolved into a number of different forms. The history of punk plays an important part in the history of subcultures in the 20th century.
Eddie Piller is a British DJ, radio show host, and founder/managing director of Acid Jazz Records.
Garage punk is a rock music fusion genre combining the influences of garage rock, punk rock, and often other genres, that took shape in the indie rock underground between the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bands drew heavily from 1960s garage rock, stripped-down 1970s punk rock, and Detroit proto-punk, and often incorporated numerous other styles into their approach, such as power pop, 1960s girl groups, hardcore punk, blues, early R&B and surf rock.
'Hoxton' Tom McCourt is the former bassist and bandleader of punk rock/Oi! band, The 4-Skins. He was one of the most influential members of the skinhead revival of 1977 to 1978, the mod revival of 1978 to 1979 and the Oi! movement from 1979 to 1984.
A number of overlapping punk rock subgenres have developed since the emergence of punk rock in the mid-1970s. Even though punk genres at times are difficult to segregate, they usually show differing characteristics in overall structures, instrumental and vocal styles, and tempo. However, sometimes a particular trait is common in several genres, and thus punk genres are normally grouped by a combination of traits.
British rhythm and blues was a musical movement that developed in the United Kingdom between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, and reached a peak in the mid-1960s. It overlapped with, but was distinct from, the broader British beat and more purist British blues scenes, attempting to emulate the music of American blues and rock and roll pioneers, such as Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. It often placed greater emphasis on guitars and was often played with greater energy.
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