the Movement #1: some shortfacts

At first lets see what some people think the Mod Movement is really about, some simple datas around the name, start and other trivia...

Mod (or, to use its full name, Modernism or sometimes Modism) was a lifestyle based around fashion and music that developed in London in the late 1950s and reached its peak in the early to mid 1960s. People who followed this lifestyle were known as Mods.Mods were obsessed with clothes and music, including Black American R&B and Soul, Jamaican Ska, and Bluebeat and a select few British groups such as the Small Faces, the Kinks, The Spencer Davis Group and The Who. Mods would gather at all-night clubs to show off their clothes and dance. They would typically choose scooters as their mode of transportation, either the Lambretta or the Vespa. These were sometimes adorned with many lights and mirrors and were intended to gain attention.An alternative youth movement known as 'Rockers' often clashed with the Mods, leading to street battles between the two factions in seaside resorts such as Brighton and Margate. These events led to much anguished discussion about 'modern youth' in Britain during the early 1960s. The conflicts inspired Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange in which the anti-hero is arguably a futuristic Mod. The film Quadrophenia (1979), based on the album of the same name by The Who (1973), also celebrated the movement.

Partly because of the success of this film, the mod movement enjoyed a revival during the late 1970s. Many of these later mods were fans of bands such as The Jam, The Merton Parkas, Secret Affair, and The Lambrettas, and Two Tone groups such as The Specials, The Beat, The Selector, and Madness.The logo of the mod movement was a stylized target. A prime example of this is the logo of British fashion designer Ben Sherman, whose clothes were and continue to be associated with the Mod movement. The band The Jam were highly influenced musically and stylistically by mod culture as are more recent musicians Ocean Colour Scene who often collaborate with Paul Weller, and The Ordinary Boys. Mod Culture also still runs strong in the german Electronic scene: keyboard wizard Erobique and electronic singer/songwriter lotte ohm. are very obviously mods, as is Frank Popp.

Mods made up (and continue to make up) a large proportion of the Northern soul movement, a subculture based on obscure american soul records from the 60's and 70's."Modism is clean living under difficult circumstances" - Peter Meaden. The Mods and the Rockers were two British youth movements of the early 1960s. Gangs of mods and rockers fighting in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youth. They can be seen as a type of Folk devil.The Rockers adopted a macho biker gang image tending to wear such clothes as black leather jackets. The Mods adopted a pose of scooter-driving sophistication. It was believed that Mods were cleaner and tidier than Rockers. They often wore colourful clothes considered outrageous by the standards of the time.In Britain during the 1960s most teenage boys could not afford a motorbike or a motor scooter. These bikes/scooters were a status symbol perhaps equivalent to a car today. The film Quadrophenia also commemorated the movement. The conflict between the Mods and the Rockers was the butt of a joke in The Beatles' first film A Hard Day's Night. In the press conference scene, a hapless reporter asks Ringo, "Are you a mod or a rocker?", to which he replies "I'm a mocker."

taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_(lifestyle)

Mod (or, to use its full name, Modernism or sometimes Modism) was a lifestyle based around fashion and music that developed in London in the late 1950s and reached its peak in the early to mid 1960s, a product of working-class British youth of the mid-sixties, there are many theories and reports about what this group of people were. Quick Background: Brighton beach, a scene that looks like it has been taken directly out of The Outsiders. Where the Rockers (greasers) face the Mods (socs) for yet another violent clash. So what was this culture known as The Mods? Think A Clockwork Orange, think Paul Weller, think scooters. Fashionable, modern and casual with a whole musical genre to its name.So does mod come from "modern"? Perhaps. Another theory stems from the vehicles driven by the two violent factions. The Mods, driving scooters and the Rockers driving the motorbike. The motorbikes of the time having to be "rocked" to get the petrol distribution correct whilst the mopeds had modern technology to circumvent this need. I remain cynical as to the above theory, but it still remains.There were Mods in the late 50s but they were limited to the younger teenagers. When these teenagers grew older, the 60s happened and the mod culture exploded, where it became a culture that included drugs, scooters as well as fashion and music.

The Who became the Mod band of the sixties. But alas - the violence and media coverage ensured the mod movement blew itself out...until the 70s when Paul Weller appeared on the scene, now the culture started to appear in America, as the Anglophile USA craved a replacement for Beatlemania. The US got Punk and Mod. Once again the Mod movement was marred by violence, this time with petrol bombs. Mod(ern) Revival picked itself up off its battered legs in 1989 with the advent of Acid Jazz, and was helped along in the early 90s with the Manchester music scene, the Stone Roses, The Smiths, Happy Mondays, and the Hacienda club (RIP). The Late nineties saw the "indy" scene somewhat work along side the Mod Scene and sometimes they were synonymous, bands such as Blur and Pulp were such borderline bands, who embraced the Mod lifestyle but were labelled as indy. The Mod scene in the 21st Century is somewhat subdued. It's out there, but who knows how it will surface this time? Plenty of British grafitti artists have made it clear it has for the time split into the mainstream and the underground. The RAF "target" symbol that has been unofficially adopted by the movement, appearing in bus shelters throughout the land.

taken from: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=mod