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#1 2011-11-04 09:15:38
- Andy_B
- Ivy Realist
- Posts: 2097
In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
Youngish, former teddy boys? How much real interest did they have in art and design? Was it more of a Pepsi-Cola/froffy coffee/dank cellar kind of existence? I guess Colin M provided many of the cues and clues. Is it a phenomenon our American friends can get a handle on? How big a part did Soho play - and why?
Sorry if anyone thinks this is a rehash. I just set these things up as they pop into my head.
#2 2011-11-04 09:22:23
- Andy_B
- Ivy Realist
- Posts: 2097
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
Anyone come across the case of Francis Forsythe? He kicked another man to death in 1959 - wearing 'Italian' shoes. But he and his mates were - more or less - teds.
#3 2011-11-04 09:39:34
- Liam Mac
- Ivy Avenger
- From: Beyond!
- Posts: 4789
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
The best shoes for kicking a man to death, if you ask me...
I'd like to hear about this from real authorities on the subject. Soggy might have a good idea?
#4 2011-11-04 09:49:52
- Yuca
- Member
- Posts: 8543
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
He's an authority on kicking people to death?
some sort of banal legitimacy
#5 2011-11-04 09:50:44
- Andy_B
- Ivy Realist
- Posts: 2097
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
I think we should be told, don't you?
#6 2011-11-04 09:56:31
- Yuca
- Member
- Posts: 8543
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
Particularly relevant to those of us living in the Midlands. I even share the same tailor as Simon as it happens.
some sort of banal legitimacy
#8 2011-11-04 10:03:57
- Yuca
- Member
- Posts: 8543
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
The tailor? He's reliable.
some sort of banal legitimacy
#10 2011-11-04 10:07:30
- Yuca
- Member
- Posts: 8543
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
Agreed.
some sort of banal legitimacy
#11 2011-11-04 10:08:47
- Harpo
- The Best In The West
- From: West Wales
- Posts: 3394
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
Have you met my tailor? He's called Simon.
Randy lower-class trifler
#12 2011-11-04 10:09:19
- Andy_B
- Ivy Realist
- Posts: 2097
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
I know it's going to fit...
#13 2011-11-04 10:47:11
- Hard Bop Hank
- Ivy Soul Brother
- From: land of a 1000 dances
- Posts: 4923
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
Last edited by Hard Bop Hank (2011-11-04 10:55:45)
“No Room For Squares”
”All political art is bad – all good art is political.”
"Would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemisms?"
#14 2011-11-04 10:53:39
- Andy_B
- Ivy Realist
- Posts: 2097
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
And their likely background?
#15 2011-11-04 10:56:34
- Hard Bop Hank
- Ivy Soul Brother
- From: land of a 1000 dances
- Posts: 4923
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
the hooligans you mean?
no idea...
“No Room For Squares”
”All political art is bad – all good art is political.”
"Would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemisms?"
#17 2011-11-04 11:04:09
- Chris_H
- Ivy Original
- From: Watford
- Posts: 1654
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
Working and lower middle classes......back when those descriptions meant something.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/hardyandjohnson/
#18 2011-11-04 11:04:12
- Andy_B
- Ivy Realist
- Posts: 2097
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
Lads like John Simons must surely have been rare, circa 1955. Out of the East End.
#20 2011-11-04 11:29:40
- Simon
- On A Mission
- From: Dean Swift's wardrobe
- Posts: 693
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
I think the roots of it are really lost in time aren't they? Was it really jewish kids? Or kids from Italian backgrounds? Out & out jazz fans I don't think they were. Much talk of the scene playing a part but that didn't open until 1962. I think that the first mods would have spent time in Soho as it was the type of area to accept people that were a little different, amonst the sex trade, gays and musicians. Maybe they were gay? Howard Baker offers a good look into the clothes in his book Sawdust Ceasars, the book is fiction, never very good really, he was a mod in the early 60s, before the term mod was coined. He says their was a lot of Soho sex workers who thought the mods were gay. Theres some great references to the clothes in the book and theres a really great bit in the book where the main player is walking past a shop on Carnaby st. and sees a pair of pink trousers in the window. "I knew my pink trousers were dead". Marc Bolan said he saw a man dressed very differently to everyone else and he copied the style. Jeff Dexter interview http://www.djhistory.com/interviews/jeff-dexter Dexter and Bolan went on to become best friends, Dexter himself is gay. Theres so many stories been told hasn't there? I putting up the gay theory mixed with Jeff Dexters and covered in a whole lot of Colin MacInnes suss.
Last edited by Simon (2011-11-04 11:30:52)
Blatant Modernist.
#21 2011-11-04 11:31:52
- aljazz
- Ivy Original
- Posts: 117
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
Chris is right,if my experience was typical. Possibly tending to the lmc.
The distinction to be made between mods and modernists is not merely one of differing musical and sartorial tastes but one of group size, for want of a better expression. The mod movement was a mass movement to which large numbers subscribed. The numbers of modernists was always small, then and now. I rarely saw anyone else wearing the look in the early 60s and I spent most of my spare time in the West End. Modern jazz has always been a minority interest; likewise the clothes that went with it, if that was your route in.
As for geography, I grew up in NW London, as did Chris, I believe, and that was where I met the two guys who introduced me to IL. However ,one of them was from Edmonton. I don`t think there was any kind of geographiical determinism. The common area would have been the West End and Soho in particular
#22 2011-11-04 11:39:25
- Simon
- On A Mission
- From: Dean Swift's wardrobe
- Posts: 693
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
Blatant Modernist.
#23 2011-11-04 11:49:43
- Staceyboy
- Ivy Archivist
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Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
http://thetownoutside.tumblr.com
#24 2011-11-04 12:15:01
- Harpo
- The Best In The West
- From: West Wales
- Posts: 3394
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
Nice link Stace, I've just spent a good while reading that - Christmas Humphreys, eh! Who'd have thought it? Some of those photos are fantastic.
Randy lower-class trifler
#25 2011-11-04 14:01:13
- Staceyboy
- Ivy Archivist
- Posts: 936
Re: In The UK, Just Who Were The Modernists?
Glad you enjoyed it. 
I've whiled away many a 'working' moment at my desk giving it a good read. Some interesting Soho/sex/drugs/scandal material contained within its pages. It's a shame that it's not updated more often. Christmas Humphreys eh? Yes, an interesting character to say the least! A few years back I started gathering material relating to him in relation to a murder that took place on the levels between Newport and Cardiff in the 1950's. Ultimately curtailed as I ended up scrapping that particular chapter.
Staceyboy
http://thetownoutside.tumblr.com