In fact, the violence that followed the movie forced me off the streets and into my bedroom.  I began to read and think a bit more.

As someone who tends nowadays, via a long fascination with US Garage and UK Freakbeat and psychedelia*, towards an appreciation of the heavier/damaged/fried end of early 70s rock, I certainly view that LP in a very different light than when I first encountered it, in the mid-80s as a 13 year old mini-mod. Then, i was struck by how incongruous with what was postulated in Barnes' 'Mods!' book those pictures look. Not long after I managed to lay my hands on a VHS copy of the film and, with all the conviction of youth, felt that it captured Mod far better (however, even then i was puzzled by how Sting could be considered a 'face'. I mean, that coat. And the hair!).

20-something  years later, and with more musical 'suss', I think the 1973 version is epic. Not musically, at least not in a good sense, but as a whole package. I don't know if any of you are familiar with the new micro-genre of hauntology, but I think that record, particularly the booklet, captures the spirit behind that aesthetic perfectly: that mixture of dread and alienation, the power of memory refractured through the splintered mirror of the great Acid Comedown of 1969 makes it quite successful. Post-Psych you might call it (analogue to Post-Punk).

The film also captures some of that and evokes powerful memories in me, but these are of the late 70s and 80s when the film was made, rather than the period it attempts to portray. It belongs to the same genre as 'Bronco Bullfrog' or the like.


*Yep, I can't stand Soul unless sufficiently 'polluted'- a result of being force-fed purist Northern Soul throughout my teenage years.