A personal reflection on the Mod scene, disguised as a review of Sharp Class live in Newport’s Le Pub.
In the interest of openness, I have to declare the angle I’m coming from. I’ve never been a mod. It seems odd saying this, but younger readers will not appreciate how tribal things were back then. It was quite common to get beaten up for liking a different style of music.
I came of age as Punk Rock was being born. I fell in love with Punk Rock. Initially Punks had grief from Teds and Sun Readers. It wasn’t long before Teds died out and Skinheads stepped up to the plate. Although that scene was quite confusing. You had Skinheads into the original Ska, then Skinheads into Oi, then the Two Tone thing started to break.
Around the same time of the Two Tone thing, a Mod revival started to emerge. I don’t recall how that came about, but undoubtedly the Jam played a major part in it. That and the release of the movie Quadrophenia. The Jam had originally been in the slipstream of the Punk explosion, but their preference for being sharp, rather than shocking and embracing, rather than demonising the past, saw them slowly but surely plough their own furrow. As Journalist Barry Kane put it, “They were The Who, kissed by Mowtown, with a dash of the Clash”.
The Jam became mainstream, which was another reason, for me, to pay them no attention. As is often the way – well, always the way – success led to a slew of other bands wanting to be part of a new scene. Bands with names like The Merton Parkas, The Lambrettas and The Purple Hearts. None of these really did anything for me, although I quite liked ‘Time for Action’ by Secret Affair.
As the Mod thing started to pick up steam a lot of people that had previously been Punks followed the new trend and smartened themselves up. Ripped jeans were replaced by tonic suits, leather jackets were replaced by fishtail parkas suddenly people were riding around on Italian scooters again.
Of course, one of the major elements of the original Mod scene was the rivalry with Rockers. Pitched battles on Brighton Beach and all that.
Whilst there were several variations on the Rocker theme around, such as heavy metal fans, Punk Rockers seemed to be the ones that would incur the wrath of this new generation of Mods.
One Saturday afternoon in 1979 I was walking through Cardiff Bus Station. The previous few Saturdays there had been pitched battles between Mods and Punks in town. As I walked through the station I suddenly found myself surrounded by Mods.
“Why you dressed like that dude? Punk Rock was last year’s thing”, asked a dude in a fishtail parker and a porkpie hat.
“Because I like Punk Rock and I’m not interested in following trends”, I replied.
“What if I said you’d get a kicking if you didn’t become a Mod” said parker man.
“I’d be a Punk with a black eye” I responded, wondering how threats of violence would make me like Mods any more..
There was a pause whilst he waited to see if I was going to run or swing for him. I just stood there and looked at him with disdain. He eventually shook my hand and he and his gang walked off.
Punk was always about far more than fashion, it was about DIY, a politically progressive outlook, anti commercial, non conformist, looking forward rather than backwards. I still think of myself as a punk, although I no longer feel the need to dress in some sort of punk uniform (which is actually the opposite of what punk was originally about) and often listen to other types of music. I like to think I still have that punk outlook. As the song ‘Used to be Punk’ by the Sporadics hints, if you used to be a punk, you were never really a punk anyway.
It wasn’t long before many Mods moved on to become New Romantics, soul boys, soccer casuals and who knows what in the coming years. Most just settled down, had kids and moved away from contemporary culture. I had no time for people that just followed the latest fashion. Juvenile really, but things like that were important to teenagers in the seventies and eighties.
Eventually the Mod scene faded away, Rave came along, then Britpop, then as we rolled into the brave new century of streaming, social media and MP3s, youth culture as we had known it in the latter half of the twentieth century faded away.
Not all Mods moved on though. Some stuck true to the ‘clean living in difficult circumstances’ attitude towards life. Many mods didn’t actually die before they got old. It would be stretching it to say there is a second Mod revival, but there’s no denying the scene is alive and well today. It happened so subtly I didn’t really notice when it started, but there seems to be a lot of middle aged blokes who’s kids have grown up now out riding scooters again, going to Northern Soul nights and wearing Harrington jackets. Many of them I remember as Mods ‘back in the day’, but there’s quite a few about that I don’t recall being into the scene first time around (or should that be second time around?). Whilst teenage me looked down my nose at Mods following the latest trend in the eighties, anyone still flying the Mod flag almost half a century later cannot be accused of simply being a dedicated follower of fashion. Fair play to them.
Meanwhile, whilst I have still not really paid much attention to the Class of 79 Mod Revival bands, in the forty odd years that have passed since then I have got into some of the original generation, like The Small Faces, The Graham Bond Organisation and The Ramsey Lewis Trio. I’ve even invested in Eddie Piller’s recent box sets of ‘British Mod Sounds of the Sixties’.
I’ve learned that there was far more of a crossover with the psyche scene than I originally thought. Early Deep Purple, The Yardbirds and Caravan were liked by Mods? Apparently so. Given The Who played such a big part of the scene, I shouldn’t really have been surprised.
And then along comes Sharp Class. Hardly men having a midlife crisis reliving their youth, these guys are only just in their twenties. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that their parents weren’t even born when Quadrophenia was released. But boy have they taken to the Mod sound.
I only stumbled upon them last year, but was immediately taken by their, well, sharp sound. When I saw they were coming to one of my favourite venues, Le Pub, I snapped up tickets.
A last minute check of the tickets revealed that support was from The Hornets, a London based band, similarly youthful and similarly influenced by the original Mod Scene. So we head south to the ‘port early to make sure we catch both bands.
As we drive down I’m wondering if Sharp Class are spearheading another revival and if the venue will be filled with young Mods experiencing the excitement of being part of a youth culture. As soon as I walk through the door I stop wondering. The answer is no. The venue is full of Mods, and a few Modettes, that have been around the block a few times.
But there is a positive to this. I want to relive my youth by continually getting the buzz of discovering new music. I know a lot of people my age that want to relive their youth by listening to the music of their youth. The presence of so many people with a leaning towards sixties music gathered to listen to mostly original music is reassuring.
The gig room is half full, which is fine be me. There’s enough people to create a good atmosphere, but as much as I love this venue, it can be uncomfortable when it is rammed. Or at least it is for old gits like me.
The Hornets are already on stage when we get there and are giving it some welly. They might be paying homage to a scene that had been around since long before they were born, but they have taken to it like ducks to water and play naturally with huge grins on their faces. They have two albums of original material under their belt and draw on those, but throw in the odd odd cover version for good measure. They play ‘Who Do You Love’, which was originally recorded back in 1956 by Bo Didley. Whilst a twenty first century Mod band is inevitably going to be backward looking, even the original Mods took inspiration from what had gone before, taking whatever sounded good and giving it a new twist.
Eventually Sharp Class take to the stage.
I tend to do my best to avoid comparing artists to other bands, but with Sharp Class, there’s no avoiding the elephant in the room. You cannot ignore the fact that they are a three piece, they wear suits and sunglasses, and … well, lets just say they must have listened to a lot of early Jam as they were growing up. In fairness, I don’t think they will take exception to the comparison, they acknowledge the influence of the band during their set and play a cover version of ‘Down in the Tube Station at Midnight’ by way of a tribute to Jam drummer Rick Bukler who sadly passed away just last week.
Whilst they sound uncannily like the Jam, a Jam tribute they aint. They have two albums and several singles under their belts and an incredibly tight and – erm – sharp sound. They kick off with ‘Welcome to the Matinee Show of the End of The World’, the title track of the album they released towards the end of last year, and immediately have the crowd grooving. They throw in a few of their singles, such a ‘Move’ and numbers from their first album ‘Tales of a Teenage Mind’. There’s also a few covers to raise a nostalgic grin, including the theme to ‘Only Fools and Horses’ and Billy Bragg’s ‘New England’.
The gig ended with the traditional band selfie with the crowd in the background and we eventually file back out into the night, with smiles on our faces and no one had beaten us up. Result.