Mod to Suedehead

[Man-of-Mystery]

I used to think I was working class until at University I was friends with two girls from Newbiggin by the sea. Their dads were coal miners. Their rendition of 'Lazy Sunday Afternoon' in Geordie matched our 'Fog on the Tyne' in Cockney

I am now recalling how, in the early 70s, a bunch of us used to sing along to the Scaffold's version of "Liverpool Lou" whenever we put it on the pub jukebox. Any pub jukebox. We used to wave our scarves in the air. Any scarf!
[Actually, now I think of it, there were two scousers, two Irish supporters of Man U, and me. Nevertheless we sang "Liverpool Lou!"]

 

[Bob the Badger]

Just checked that the Oval gig was 1971 not 1970. It was after The Live at Leeds concert. I remembered some of the line up correctly. Mott the Hoople were there as well. Later to record All the Young Dudes Bowie's song. A classic from that era.

 

[Thin White Duke]

Just checked that the Oval gig was 1971 not 1970. It was after The Live at Leeds concert. I remembered some of the line up correctly. Mott the Hoople were there as well. Later to record All the Young Dudes Bowie's song. A classic from that era.

Always thought MTH were over rated. One of those bands with a devout following that seemed to just get completely lost once punk happened. Best version I’ve heard of that song is by Bowie himself on ‘David Live’.
Conversely, best version of ‘Fame’ I’ve heard is a live version on a B-side by Love And Money!

 

[Botolph]

Always thought MTH were over rated. One of those bands with a devout following that seemed to just get completely lost once punk happened. Best version I’ve heard of that song is by Bowie himself on ‘David Live’.
Conversely, best version of ‘Fame’ I’ve heard is a live version on a B-side by Love And Money!

No way man. Such a great band. Check out the “Mott the Hoople Live” album, “Brain Capers”, “The Hoople”, etc.

 

[Thin White Duke]

So I can put you down in the “devout following” category??

Going back to the generation of youth that preceded mine, you’d see the names of these bands inked into desk tops at school or painted onto the flaps of military haversacks used as book bags - Yes, Steve Hillage, Lou Reed, MTH / Ian Hunter, countless others and they all just seemed to get completely swept away when punk happened. Even though I was too young to really understand what punk was all about and by the time it had migrated oop north the Pistols had already imploded, there was still definitely a sense of ‘Year Zero’ and anyone who had been around since before 1976 - with the notable exception of Bowie and Kraftwerk - were just completely written off as yesterday’s men by a huge swath of youth, rightly or wrongly.

 

[Botolph]

So I can put you down in the “devout following” category??

Going back to the generation of youth that preceded mine, you’d see the names of these bands inked into desk tops at school or painted onto the flaps of military haversacks used as book bags - Yes, Steve Hillage, Lou Reed, MTH / Ian Hunter, countless others and they all just seemed to get completely swept away when punk happened. Even though I was too young to really understand what punk was all about and by the time it had migrated oop north the Pistols had already imploded, there was still definitely a sense of ‘Year Zero’ and anyone who had been around since before 1976 - with the notable exception of Bowie and Kraftwerk - were just completely written off as yesterday’s men by a huge swath of youth, rightly or wrongly.

yeah I’m pretty big on Mott.

it’s a shame that happened— so much good music which wasn’t the introverted, jam-band nonsense, was plagiarized and/or overlooked because they weren’t “punk”. I blame the press for trying to foment a new scene, just like two later when punk was considered “dead” and you had all the new romantics nonsense, etc.

 

[Thin White Duke]

yeah I’m pretty big on Mott.

it’s a shame that happened— so much good music which wasn’t the introverted, jam-band nonsense, was plagiarized and/or overlooked because they weren’t “punk”. I blame the press for trying to foment a new scene, just like two later when punk was considered “dead” and you had all the new romantics nonsense, etc.

Yeah it was an interesting period.
Discussing music on another board and someone mentioned ELO - “The band that punk destroyed” - and it’s sorta true. I watched a recent concert live from Hyde Park and more recently from Wembley I think. Both very good even though they went from being very popular to hugely unfashionable almost overnight. Jeff Lynne seemed genuinely knocked out and humbled by the crowd response.

When I was about 13 it was the time when lots of my peers started to get record players for Christmas and began building a record collection. There’d be Jazz by Queen, Out of the Blue by ELO, Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, Meat Loaf etc ... then Never Mind the Bollocks!!

Being 13 can be confusing enough without the rapidly changing tribal scene that was playing out right at that time!

 

[covskin]

Being 13 can be confusing enough without the rapidly changing tribal scene that was playing out right at that time!

In 1976 a gulf opened up between the musical tastes of 13 year olds and 15 year olds that was immense. We were not into anything from before that time, not even stuff like Sweet we had liked in our primary school days

 

[Thin White Duke]

In 1976 a gulf opened up between the musical tastes of 13 year olds and 15 year olds that was immense. We were not into anything from before that time, not even stuff like Sweet we had liked in our primary school days

Yeah that’s EXACTLY how I remember it too! My next brother is only 2.5 years older than me and I thought he was impossibly square being into fat Elvis, Billy Joel, Dire Straits, Foreigner etc.
I recall our keyboard player trying out an electric piano in Rock City in Newcastle and all of us collectively rolling our eyes at some guitar rocker doing Jimi Hendrix riffs and drowning out the piano! We just had disdain for the vast majority of music that had come before and it took some time for me to revive my appreciation for some of those older artists.
Another time I was walking down Hylton Road which is where all the second hand shops are and I ran into a lad I knew who had bags full of LPs from the ‘older’ artists that he was flogging off to make some money. Even then I was a bit baffled thinking ‘you liked them enough to buy them in the first place, how come you don’t like them any more?’ Just wasn’t cool to admit to liking some of those who had so rapidly gone out of fashion.

 

[Botolph]

Fully understand that. When I got into punk, etc., I jettisoned my hard rock/heavy metal records— except that I wasn’t smart enough to sell them. I took the stack into the back yard and put an asphalt pick through the lot of them... then buried them in a shallow grave.

By the way, Rock City... what a fantastic venue. Been there numerous times.

 

[Bob the Badger]

I was friends with the Entertainment Secretary at Leeds University 1972-75 and saw all the big acts of the time. What I remember though is that I missed out on Lou Reed playing at Leeds Poly because I didn't have a ticket and Barclay James Harvest because we boycotted the event after they played South Africa.
I found that prog rock became a bit boring and i welcomed the energy and freshness of Punk. I was already too old for Punk gigs however. What shocked me in later years was when I found out some of the Punk performers were almost my age!

 

[Man-of-Mystery]

@Thin White Duke - I actually saw Hendrix live, twice! LOL.

 

[Swampster]

By the time my contemporaries and I were starting to get into buying our own music, punk was past its heyday but quite a few lads still called themselves punks. A handful did carry on in that scene, wearing mohicans or very spiked hair even twenty years later. Most of the 'punks' segued pretty seamlessly into NWOBR as it became mainstream. When they were 'punks', they had pretty short hair and capped black teeshirts. When they were 'rockers', they had pretty short hair and capped teeshirts. I think the only reason they stopped wearing harringtons or bomber jackets was that they started getting leather jackets once they were getting close to motorbike riding age. There were others in my year who were more obviously into metal, but I think most of them had older brothers that they follwed.
Most of the others I knew listened to two-tone stuff and wore stuff to suit. Harringtons gave way to 'cockney jackets'.

I didn't know any lads who were into disco or 80s soul.

We had a similar generation gap to the one that Covskin mentions. Lads in the year or two above me were far more into the Genesis and Yes type of thing, though only a few had the hair to match. Others were little mods and it was some of these who made an impact on me as I knew them through my brother. Within a year, they had reflected the various fashions that cropped up in the period from around 65 to 75 in both their musical and sartorial tastes - paisley shirts and late 60s music for one, Faces and Rod Stewart music and hair for another, with others going the various Northern Soul or skin (though in its 80s form) etc routes.

Most of my musical tastes were 60s - it wasn't until quite a few years later that I heard much by bands like Mott the Hoople. What I have heard is probably only their singles. Even now, there is relatively little that I listen to from the early 70s compared to 60 or late 70s.

 

[Thin White Duke]

I’m fascinated by this tribal discussion and hope it’s not straying too off topic for the thread title. Some great memories lads and interesting to note a lot of common experiences despite differences in age and location.
I remember a kid in my class around age 14 who considered himself a punk but had ‘Iron Maiden’ stencilled out on his note book so he’d be exactly one of those who transitioned from punk to NWOBR - also got a bike jacket and motorbike a couple of years later but as you say, never grew his hair long like the metal devotees.

I just did a blog post about playing a gig recently with my mate Dave. Known him since we were five but he went to a different school. He got into all manner of long-hair music while after the Mod scene I was into all manner of eighties techno-funk-pop-soul-goth ... whatever! (Did a separate blog post a couple of months ago about my musical memories!)

The common ground on the Venn diagram of our music tastes is that he was mental for The Who (has seen them over sixty times) so has an empathy for the Mod roots and revival scene even though in our teens we’d just nod at eachother from our respective crowds in the pub or have a brief congenial chat, so not exactly Jimmy and Kevin in ‘Quadrophenia’.

Like most I wasn’t into the disco scene back then but grew to worship the sound of Nile Rodgers. When I get together with Dave et al to jam they almost all play classic and/or American rock (Tom Petty, John Mellencamp) and I love to blast them with ‘Good Times’ or ‘Stayin Alive’ or some other disco cheese just to raise their eyebrows!??

 

[covskin]

By the time my contemporaries and I were starting to get into buying our own music, punk was past its heyday but quite a few lads still called themselves punks. A handful did carry on in that scene, wearing mohicans or very spiked hair even twenty years later. Most of the 'punks' segued pretty seamlessly into NWOBR as it became mainstream. When they were 'punks', they had pretty short hair and capped black teeshirts. When they were 'rockers', they had pretty short hair and capped teeshirts. I think the only reason they stopped wearing harringtons or bomber jackets was that they started getting leather jackets once they were getting close to motorbike riding age. There were others in my year who were more obviously into metal, but I think most of them had older brothers that they follwed.
Most of the others I knew listened to two-tone stuff and wore stuff to suit. Harringtons gave way to 'cockney jackets'.

I didn't know any lads who were into disco or 80s soul.

Haha, I was into that soulboy stuff from Heatwave and Southern Freeez to Joyce Simms and early House around 1986 at which point I grew up.

Even at that time I can remember the unbridgeable chasm between the Metal of thrash bands and the Punk of what are now known as grindcore bands, now the two seem to have melded together into a sea of black t-shirts.

So Acid House and Extreme Noise Terror left me behind. I think the last current band I saw was Doom or Napalm Death and only recently realised I saw the drummer of Nirvana several years before Nirvana!

What were cockney jackets?