The New Narcissism begins with mod. Four welldressed boys walk along the prom, preen themselves for the "renes" - one rung above boilers - and pose for pictures. The session draws the girls' eyes to the boys, and they loving it. Ian Page, SECRET AFFAIR's singer, is leading his three accomplices through the beach-hut paradise of Torquay's seafront, where the band have their pictures taken. Page wears his East End peacockney bravado in his smile. "OY RENE! ARM!" he orders, offering his elbow to non-plussed potential takers. His sucess rate would not win him favourable odds, though he's not really trying too hard. The rule of this game differ, however, insofar as the renes eye the boys and the boys eye themselves in any readily available reflecive surface. Mod boys keep swinging, regardless.
The Secret Affair are in the south of England on the first leg of a co-headlining March Of The Mods tour with the Purple Hearts and supports Back To Zero. The neatly attired Page would have preferres a Get Smart banner - "but the Purple Hearts are too scruffy," he asserts. For perky Page's band, the alternative name would have been perfect. Apart from the reference to their immaculate dress sense, the title would have had an extra connotation in the reference to the old TV spoof spy serial. Page says to me as we prepare to begin the trek south: "So your name's Chris bond, eh? . Close. "Good, Bond fits in with Secret Affair." That's about the limit of my link with the nouveau mod movement. Neatness is an essential prerequisite of the new order. So much so that Boris, a young mod who followed the band to the coast, worried about how he could smarten up after spending a night under an upturned boat on the beach. His freshly alert appearance belies a hard night subjected to the elements. His suit betrays no creases, his hair is neatly in place, and he's doubtless clean behind the ears, too.How he maintains his meticulous appearance under adverse conditions is explained by S.A. guitarist Dave Cairns: "The one thing he was worried about when he came to the hotel was how he could get his suit pressed and his clothes cleaned. The mods would sneak into the place and take a wash or a bath, too." Seb Shelton, their drummer; adds: "He would have taken his suit off and folded it before kipping down. Oh no, it would have been out of order to crease it." I'm surprised that they tolerate my unkempt presence. The bands are less merciful with their sound crew, though. "How come they're always bleedin' hippies?" asks one mod. "It doesn't matter who the band is, whether it's a punk band, mod band or what, the sound crew has always got hair down to here." "Peace, brother," the mods mutter, flashing a peace sign when a soundman passes.
The grouping of the three outfits came about through the teaming of the two top groups on the scene, the PURPLE HEARTS replacing the LITTLE ROOSTERS at the last minute. Page contends that for a co-operative tour such as this the Roosters wouldn't have been compatible, so the more amenable Purple Hearts got the gig. BACK TO ZERO are a recently gathered together collection of North London mods, whose inexperience will undoubtedly benefit from roadwork, but at the moment the only notable thing about them is singer Brian Betteridge's collection of 2,000 singles and his 31-year-old elder brother who was one of the original mods - so says Junior. The co-headliners offer two very different varieties of 1979 mod. Secret Affair's music is an immensely danceable marriage of Sixties Tamla soul with a hard-edged contemporary rock aggression, which works admirably. Purple Hearts' spunkier roots show through their modish appearance. The band once stated they filled the gap between life and art. I would say they bridged the years between punk and mod, but maybethat's beacause I'm ignorant. Whatever, their thumping drumbeats and scattered bass have the forceful drive of punk, but with a slight lurch, which is possibly the distinguishing factor. On top Simon Stebbing concentrates on sustained, sparse and dramatic chordings alternated with shrill little breaks, not the punky ramalama speed. The PURPLE HEARTS are second on the bill on the opening night of the tour, at Plymouth Clones. We arrive just as BACK TO ZERO started their set. they looked like one of those bands which used to populate party scenes in movies of swinging London. Betteridge, a short stocky chap with a cheap hair cut that looks as unbecoming as John Entwhistle's in the very early WHO photos, holds the mike languidly. They include their upcoming single "Your Side Of Heaven" (September release on fiction Records) and a version of "Land Of A 1000 Dances" in their set. The last-named they insist on playing twice in Torquay, when they're inexplicably called back for an encore. They might get better, but for the moment I'll pass. The first night is not very sucessfl one for the Purple hearts, but secret Affair, billtoppers-of-the-day, win over a small crowd of local mods, stray punks and inquisitive holidaymakers with consummare ease. They are very good indeed. They key is a carefully calculated dance music with enslaves the feet, leaving the mind at the mercy of a succession of well-writen youth anthems. The titles say it all: "Shake And Shout", "My World", the single "Time For action", and even the soul staple "Get ready". But, above all, "Glory Boys". From their very appearance, the crowd knows that the Secret affair are going to cut it. This is not the scooter/parka fragment. They belong to the set that derived its reputation from looking better than the rest. Onstage throughout the set in well-cut suits, none of them removes his jacket or loosens his tie, despite the heat of the night. Page has perfected a persona that takes in the sharpness of Frank Sinatra, the relaxed cool of bio-pic bandleaners and the ability of any number of the best rabblerousers, from Noddy Holder through to Jimmy Pursey (the last name only being evoked because he's been popular for longer than Page - so far.)
The three elements are used perfectly in the band's rallying cry, "Glory Boys". Page croons the laidback intro before the band kick the song into action and, suddenly, the singer's voice is harder, commanding, but nevertheless tuneful as he continues: "Hey don't crowd me - I want to be the only one - Hey won't you give me a break - I'm going to be second to none." "You looking at me boy - You trying to match my stare - Don't you know I'm a glory boy - I can cut you down by combing my hair." "No-one touches a glory boy - They look too good for you - If you want to know about us - You gotta be one too." By the song's end, the crowd is already captivated, joining in on the chorus and punching the air along with Page. And this is only the second song into the set. Secret Affair are dangerous . The more I think about them, their strenght, their powers of persuasion, the more convinced I am of their ability to use an audience, to suck in newcomers and swell the ranks of their Glory boys. Be cool, get smart, go mod. Enough. Following it immediately with "Get ready", the crowd is allowed no break. This time the emphasis is shifted back from the mind to the feet. The rhythm section finds a compulsive recoil that jerks the audience at will, and Page's assertive voice pushes forever onward. Another anthem, "My world", then Smokey Robinson's "Going To A 'Go-Go", which introduces Page as trumpeter - a killer blow. and so on. The pace doesn't relent.
Page is cocky and confident. He'd told me, in the bus on the way to the gig, what was to come. He asserted then that the mods need no-one - and by "mods" he means Secret Affair. His every move has been carefully choreographed, even to the extent that it accommodates outsider hostility by its very exclusion. His aim is to create a nationwide Glory Boys clone network, to prove to everyone, thet he can do it. Odds on he will, too. The ultimate narcissism. I've heard it said that Page is motived abave all by revenge; revenge on the music business that gave his and cairn's old band, NEW HEARTS, such a bad time. He says now that his first band, formed and signed when they still only 16, were rooted in Sixties pop, but then they didn't have the rhythmic flexibility to carry it. Their company, CBS, released two unseccessful singles, and the relationship terminated well before the end of the five-year contract. Bitter but sussed the duo set about searching for their dream band. Page says: "We used as a foundation what we learnt with the New Hearts, and this is a ligical progression from the Sixties pop band, which was them called powerpop. The Secret Affair is a soul-type, dance-type band of a new kind." "The New Hearts were simultaneous with the JAM, but we were up there learning the ropes. We weren't good enough, but Secret Affair take it farther than the Jam. They were a mod band working in punk, and their audience was punk." Carins: "The world mod shouldn't be used. this lifestyle, this way of life - the Glory Boys - was being nurtured then. You could see then that there were five or six kids into dressing smart, and they were called something else other than mod. Because once the tag came in, people started saying: If it's called mod, what's it go to do with 1960?" Page: "I would agree. The only thing wrong with the movement is the usage of the world mod. But we know that mod is only an abbreviation of "modern", and our alternative is Glory boys, anyway, and we can't do more than that. We can't help being called a mod band and we can't help sharing a lot of the ideas the old mod bands."
Whattever, they were determined not to get fooled again. Once the New Hearts had split, they saw the makings of the movement. This was 18 months ago, when smart kids in the East End began congregating around places like the Bridgehouse and the Wellington, and scooter clubs in both North and South kept the old traditions alive. Page: "The first bands came about six months later. We set ourselves a two-year plan to try and ensure that we never sell ourselves out. It began with finding our dream band, then setting up our own label through which we'd have complete control over our own records, the packaging and marketing of them, and who we decided to record for the label." " We took it to record companies and turned down all sorts of ridiculous deals - one company offered us a blank cheque with a £200,000 limit - until we found one which would meet our conditions. We signed the label (I SPY Records - through which "Time For Action" hast just been released) to Arista for a lot less, but at least the money we get back will be our own". A firm believer in free enterprise and self-sufficiency, Page is levelheaded, acutely business-minded, and conservative with a small "c" he personifies the American democratic idea of a self-made man who needs nothing but his own hard-earned suss to get here. He's the cocky East Ender made good by strength of his actions and his alone, and has no sympathy for the less motived who can't do it themselves.The new fashion veers away from the left to a more temperate middle of the road, he claims. The misdirected anarchy of punk has been replaced by the "suited subversives".Page says: "Punks speak of individualism, but I don't see it coming about. Just as an observer, you can see it taking place with this band, it's apparent without me even mentioning it."
"You would have noticed the narcissism. The punk bands have to stress it in their interviews, or whatever, but it never actually comes about. Individualism can be quite negative, but I don't think our form is. Their's is. They do it for the sake of it. We do it for a purpose. There are reasons why these kids want to stress themselves - they're rejecting previous values. I'm safe in the knowledge that not eveybody thinks the way we do. We don't plan, not even subversively, to overthrow and change people's ideals, because people's ideals can't be changed like that." The talk comes round to the role smartness plays in the Mod Manifesto. this is the crux of the mod rebellion. "I think it's quite subversive for kids who haven't got a lot of money - which is the case with most of the kids who follow this band - to dress up in a suit and look twice as good as someone who's got three times as much money. It's a social comment for someone to be badly off and insted of glorying like the punks did, in havingno propects, to do the complete opposite, to make a positive statement and say I'm entitled to anything there is in the world and I'll take whatever I can get." "Although the kids have a basic framework, or a fashion to work within, they work very hard to prove themselves in their own right. People can be different from one other as long as they see each other striving to be individual, and that's all that really counts."
In the mod world, the only priority is self. Selfishness, says Page, is a healthy thing - me first, the world second. The Me Generation. "The American Way, it came about through being very well-off anyway. That's why the American situation isn't subversive. but, over here selfishness is, because it's not based on any kind of economic sucess. There's a true desire within to be better than everyone else. I resented them and insited on making my own." "The working-class background and all that entails, the things you are meant to respect, I reject and resent. You're told that you are not very well-off, and this is your basic life pattern. Like comprehensive schools - why do they force youinto manual work? I'm articulate, and I was forced into doing courses like bricklaying, which was wrong. Comprehensives don't accommodate any artistic leanings at all." Any suggestions that mod is anything but supreme is shot down by the we-don't-need-out-siders strategy. Mod was born of it self, and created its own groups long before the press noticed. Page contends that they have a true grassroots following. And, indeed, hardy kids - including one called Frank - follow them round. Despite the supposed live-and-let-live attitude with which the band, and the movement as a whole professes to view the other teen cults, their behaviour is less thab tolerant. As we drew up in the minibus outside the Torquay Town Hall, Page spotted two punk kids on the adjoining pavement."Oh, look at those bastards," he said pointedly slamming the window shut. His inadvertent prompt was immediatly taken up by Frank. "THE DIRTY BASTARDS," he yelled with a warlike display of gestures. realising his mistake, Page immediatly put him in order.
But the attitude is there, and in a movement as narcissitic as mod, the inevitable freeze-out contests take place in clubs and bars, occasionaly erupting into conflict. The SA's genial drummer, Seb Shelton, a trained teacher in remedial English who doesn't drink, smoke or take drugs, achieves an understanding with the tougher kids. He knows it's no good preaching at anyone so instead he ensures that they see the logic of what he's talking about.He says: "It's got to the point now that if anyone of them is out of order, one of our lot will put them back in line - and they'll accept it." I wish he'd been in the changing room after the Torquay gig, when a strange girl wandered in for autographs and jacked up some morphine. As she flirted with consciousness, one SA follower rode her unmercilessly, manhandling her and subjecting her to a tirade of sex slurs, offers and innuendoes, playing up to an assembled multitude who wouldn't tell him to stop. The members of the bandpresent were uncomfortable, but didn't intervene. "This is well out of order," said Dave, and left. Eventually matters were taken in hand by the amenable our manager Rory O'Caroll, who sent the hall manager in to make sure that the girl was okay. This is the ugliest aspect of the New Narcissism. it's low tolerance factor is at its lowest in its general contempt for renes. Mostly it expresses itself in mild jokes, but the sight of a backstage girl in such a depressed state didn't inspore much compassion. The Glory Boys, obsessed with their own anthems, their own pleasures: "Oy. rene. Arm."
Compared to the calculated but engaging chatter of Page, who is very easy to warm to, the rougher, ruder Purple Hearts at first don't really look like they'll live up to their co-headlining status. As I mentioned earlier, their first gig before a sparse crowd was not a good one, and they offered no competition to the Secret Affair in Plymouth. The following night is a lot different, however. The SA play an exceptionally strongs set before 400 mods, punks and punters, winning them over completely. "Thank you. Thanks a lot. Ta," Page mutters at the end. The SA have a showbiz respect for their audience. It's a winning quality.I am prepared for the Purple Hearts to miss out badly. Instead, they revel in the competition and, if at first they look anxious, they turn in a strong, powerful set which strengthens a hitherto shaky alliance at the top of the bill. The Purple Hearts are closer to what outsiders like myself would expect from a nouveau mod band: tremulously sustained chords over Moonstyled thrashing and spidery bass crawl. Their previous punk connections show, and the spike-tops respond by pogoing enthusiastically and hailing singer Bob Manton with a barrage of gob. He's got a booming voice, a bobbing stance and a bellowing approach to his paeans to punky frustration. Some song titles are: "Frustration", "What A Shame", "I Can't Stay Here" and "Perfect World", alongside a radical reworking of Davey Jones and the Lower Thirds' "I Can't Help Thinking About Me" and a more obvious thrash through "Stepping Stone". Both their best songs to date will be available on their first single in September. The A-side will be "Millions Like Us". "Beat That" is the flip, telling of a doomed youth sucked into marriage early on, regretting it later, ending with a warning toothers to keep out. Well, it sounds better in the singing than the telling. The writers, Simon Stebbing (guitar) and Bob Manton, spend more time than is immediately apparent on their material (they are all around 18), and make a point of telling me so.Simon asserst cockily: "We're artists. Onstage it might be all energy and effects, but people are going to be very surprised by our records." His voice rises when he defends the care which they invest in their writing. It took them months to write their first song, he says. When I point out the punky tendencies of theur music, things degenerate into an entertaining, larger-than-life, Pythonesque reiteration of cliches, both punk and mod. Simon: " If there's any comparison to be made, it's in the energy and aggression." Bob: "I've always been into mod and Sixties music - even before I was a punk. That sounds like a cliche, but it's true. When I was young I used to go down to the local record shop and look at the sleeve of "Quadrophenia". That's all I could afford to do." "Mod's an attitude more than anything, really. An attitude to life. Take working. You've got to have a job, but many people haven't ans still manage to live. But the thing is to accept it, and not to think about it, and not to be a slave to it. You have to get money to look cool, get the clothing, enjoy yourself."
I observe that the Purple Hearts are not so sartorially blessed as the Secret Affair."I think we look better," Bob insists. "We get our clothes from jumble sales, which is more creative. The clothes are one thing, for a start, which makes mod different. it's a subtle subversivity instead of the blatant rebellion which punk was." Simon and Bob obviously have a few ideological differences. Bob: "People think 'Oh, look. There's a smart young lad'. But this lad's not going to take any shit. I want middle-aged people to be really offended by it. We're angry... all that repression., old people putting younger people down. It's got to be said again and again. It's got to be said today." "If we were all one cult, the power of youth would be incredible. we could just do what we liked, we could smash up a town and the police wounndn't to be able to stop it..." Sensible Simon worriedly interjects: "But that's pretty negative... The power of youth is incredible." Bob continues, "but it's in the interests of society to keep them divided, which is why mod is the nearest you're gonna get. People are repressed, fucked up, don't know what's going on.."The Purple Hearts are not as crass as Bob's rantings make them appear. Their first single will be released on Chris Parry's Fiction records. Something of a godfather to mod, it was he who recorded the Jam and the Jolt a few years back By the time this story appears, the March of The Mods will be midaway through its nationwide campaign. Its attractions are obvious, its inherent dangers less so. The name SHAM 69 crops up a lot in both the Purple Hearts' and the Secret Affair's interviews. Like Sham, they share a tough, roosty audience, but unlike the Hersham Boys, the Glory Boys revel in looking good, and in the good-time ethic.Ian Page is very much aware of his ability to articulate the experiences of his fellow East Enders and like-minded people around the country, and he's going to capitalise on it."The next step in the plan is to get everybofy using Glory Boys insted of the word 'mod'," he admits. He claims that the opening of the Quadrophenia movie was brought forward a few weeks to coincide with the MOTM tour, because the film's distributors thought they were going to miss out on the mod explosion, at first labouring under the delusion that they were going to create it. But the film will undoubtedly increase the movement's momentum.Mods thus mobilised, Page will soon be calling the shots in the marketplace, his small 'I SPY' enterprise will grow, and the affair will no longer be secret. Don't doubt that Secret affair will experience the sweet taste of succes. When they do, Ian Page's revenge on the business which spurned his New Hearts will be complete.
Article from Melody Maker- August 28th 1979.
