Glasgow Mods - R&B, British Beat Music, Motown, Northern Soul

The term mod derives from modernist, which was a term used in the 1950s to describe modern jazz fans as well as the musicians themselves. This usage contrasted with the term trad, which described traditional jazz and its players and fans. The 1959 novel Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes describes as a modernist a young modern jazz fan who dresses in sharp modern Italian clothes. Absolute Beginners may be one of the earliest written examples of the term modernist being used to describe young British style-conscious modern jazz fans. The word modernist in this sense is believed to refer specifically to modern jazz and should not be confused with the wider use of the term modernism in the context of literature, art, design and architecture.

There are contradicting stories about the origins of the first mods, but one popular belief is that the movement began with a few disparate cliques of middle class teenage boys with family connections to the garment trade in London in 1958. These early mods were obsessed with new fashions such as slim-cut Italian suits, and music styles such as modern jazz and rhythm and blues. It has been suggested that both modernists and their contemporaries, the rockers, evolved from the Teddy Boy subculture. Teddy Boys were influenced by American rock n’ roll, wore Edwardian-style clothing, and had pompadour or quiff hairstyles. Other sources suggest a link between the modernist and beatnik subcultures, both of which had a penchant for modern jazz.

By the early 1960s, mod had developed to include contemporary fashion and lifestyle elements, such as continental European clothes, Italian motorscooters and — to a lesser degree — a taste for French New Wave films and existentialist philosophy (popular also with beatniks).

The original mods gathered at all-night clubs such as The Scene, The Flamingo and The Marquee in London to hear the latest records and to show off their clothes and dance moves. As mod spread across the UK, other clubs became popular such as Twisted Wheel Club in Manchester. Although reports as to the importance of drugs amongst the original mods vary, for some mods at least, their all-night urban social life was fueled, in part, by amphetamines. Many mods used motorscooters for transportation, usually either Vespa or Lambretta. At the time, public transport stopped relatively early, and scooters were cheaper than cars and were also available via a Hire purchase scheme. After a law was passed requiring at least one mirror be attached to every motorcycle, mods were known to add four, 10, or as many as 30 mirrors to their scooters. This may have been to mock the new law. Indeed, The Who’s album Quadrophenia, which follows the struggle of a British youth to establish an identity in a culture of mods and rockers, features cover art depicting a man on a scooter with four mirrors attached (though the mirrors also have conceptual implications for the album).

As the lifestyle developed and was adopted by British teenagers of all economic strata, mods expanded their musical tastes beyond American jazz and R&B to embrace soul (particularly records released on the Atlantic, Stax, Tamla Motown and Sue labels), Jamaican ska, and British beat music and R&B; by artists such as Georgie Fame, The Animals, The Small Faces, The Who, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, and The Spencer Davis Group. Lesser-known British artists associated with the 1960s mod scene include The Action, Zoot Money and The Creation. However, many mods rejected British beat groups such as The Beatles (despite their significant contribution to the awareness of mod clothing fashion under Brian Epstein’s image makeover in the spring and summer of 1962) and The Rolling Stones because they did not consider those bands’ R&B-influenced music to be authentic enough.

Mods sometimes clashed with rockers, although fights between rival mod gangs were probably more common. In 1964, there were several well-publicised battles at seaside resorts such as Brighton, Margate, and Hastings. The mods and rockers conflict led to a moral panic about young people in the United Kingdom. There is disagreement about how much of the reports of violence were true, and how much was a media or police invention. Some credible sources suggest that the battles were staged for photographers. Whatever the truth of the matter, the media coverage has permanently linked the mod and rocker subcultures in the popular consciousness.

Decline and new beginnings

Mods were the products of a culture of constant change, and by the time Bobby Moore held the World Cup aloft in the summer of 1966, the mod scene was in sharp decline. As psychedelic rock music and the hippie culture rose, many people drifted away from the mod lifestyle. Bands such as The Who and The Small Faces had changed their musical styles and no longer considered themselves mods. The Bohemian style of the hippie culture featured a passive outlook on life that differed from the frenetic energy of the mod ethos.

At the other end of the youth culture spectrum, both in philosophy and appearance, were the hard mods. The hard mods were rougher, had less emphasis on cutting-edge fashion trends, and got their hair cropped short. The hard mods soon transformed into the first skinheads. They retained basic elements of mod fashion — three-button suits, Fred Perry and Ben Sherman shirts, Sta-Prest trousers and Levi’s jeans — but mixed them with working class-oriented accessories such as braces and Dr. Martens boots. Their style borrowed heavily from the Jamaican rude boy look, which included cropped hair, short-hemmed trousers and very narrow brimmed Trilby hats (commonly referred to in the UK as pork pie hats). Their shorter hair may have also come about for practical reasons; long hair can be a liability in industrial jobs and in streetfights. The 1960s skinheads kept some of the original mod music styles alive; specifically ska, soul, rocksteady and early reggae. These first skinheads had no association with any political movements, and mostly represented working-class pride.

Mods also made up a notable proportion of the northern soul scene, a subculture based on obscure 1960s and 1970s American soul records.

Revival and later influence

The 1979 film Quadrophenia, based on the 1973 album of the same name by The Who, celebrated the mod movement and partly inspired a mod revival in the UK in the late 1970s. Many of the mod revival bands were influenced by the energy of British punk rock and New Wave music. The revival was led by The Jam, and included bands such as Secret Affair, Purple Hearts and The Chords. This was followed by a mod revival in North America in the early 1980s, particularly in Southern California, led by bands such as The Untouchables. The mod scene in Los Angeles and Orange County was partly influenced by the 2 Tone ska revival in England, and was unique in its racial diversity.

The 1990s Britpop genre displayed mod influences on bands such as Oasis, Blur, Ocean Colour Scene. The mod subculture has spread around the world, but now mainly exists as an underground culture.