Mod book

[ruben]

Judging by avatars and photos there seems to be a sizable coletion of "mods" here.

I'm just now learning about the whole Mod thing (odly enought after years of being a Who/Kinks/Weller/Sm.Faces fan).
Can anyone recomend a good book on the whole Mods thing? I'd love to find out more about it.

 

[RJman]

Ready Steady Go! features a discussion of the beginning of the Mod movement.

Today There Are No Gentlemen is one of the best books written about that period and its clothing, but good luck finding a copy, unfortunately.

 

[johnapril]

I thought Mod meant you had fucked up hair yet wore impeccable clothing.

 

[Alex Roest]

This'll do nicely :

http://www.modculture.co.uk/books/review.php?id=2

 

[Get Smart]

The Richard Barnes "Mods!" book Alex linked is a good starter. Great pics and some good text. Easy to order.

other essentials:
-Mod: a British Phenomenon (one of the easier books to find and very large with LOTS of pics and text inside covering the blues/jazz origins up thru the revival)
-The Way We Wore by Robert Elms (no pics but it's an account of the author's involvement from Mod to skinhead to new romantic). Avail on amazon
-Tokyo Mods Grafitti 1985-2005- awesome photobook of the Japanese revival scene in mid 80s til now. *very* hard to get but worth it if you can find.
-Soul Stylists by Paolo Hewitt (pretty much any book by Hewitt is good for a bit of modernism)
-This Is A Modern Life...this is another hard to find book about the UK revival scene in the late 70s to early 80s. great photos never seen anywhere else and good accompanying text about this particular era

related interest:
-Skinhead by Nick Knight (my avatar)...mostly skinhead related but has its roots in mod and has a good "fashion" section that details some of the gear that was popular in the [skinhead - suedehead - casual] scenes.
-Spirit of 69 by George Marshall. The pandoras box of skinhead books....a great book that covers mod but it ended up ruining the skin scene with freshcuts citing everything in this book as "the absolute truth". The photos are amazing inside.
-25 years of Jazz - awesome photobook that goes heavily into the period of modernist jazz that spawned the mod movement in the late 50s.
-Haircults....has a few pages on mod but the book traces subcultures defined by their specific haircuts from the 40s thru the 80s

 

[DocHolliday]

Originally Posted by johnapril

I thought Mod meant you had fucked up hair yet wore impeccable clothing.

So I'm a mod??? Why didn't someone tell me?

 

[Alex Roest]

Originally Posted by DocHolliday

So I'm a mod??? Why didn't someone tell me?

Simply because it couldn't be further from the truth : a Mod haircut is always ( relatively ) short and *neat*.

There's also a lot of confusion about what a Skinhead haircut really is BTW : originally people in the UK wore their hair in a short college boy style ( around '66/'67 ) and later went to a number 2, 3 or even 4 crop ( Peanuts they were still called then ). The idea was to look sharp and, again, neat and NOT like a knobhead

 

[Get Smart]

yea the No1 crop didnt come about until the punk-era skinhead

here's a cool lil youtube blip about original skinhead/suedehead

 

[The Doctor]

Try this, Scooter Boys by Gareth Brown

 

[Chris H]

The Look by Paul Gorman is well worth picking up. It deals with UK youth culture over since the end of the Second World War and its interaction with popular fashion and rock music. There is a extensive section on the modernist /mod/skinhead styles with some good pics.

http://www.amazon.com/Look-Paul-Gorm...e=UTF8&s=books

 

[EELredux]

I second the Elms book "The Way We Wore." Great read. And don't forget the liner notes to The Style Council's albums. Were they penned by Conte or Weller? At any rate, The Cappuccino Kid's musings are wonderful.