Interesting.  For me, it was all bound up by around the age of twelve, with hearing David Essex sing about James Dean, Rod Stewart covering 'What's Made Milwaukee Famous', going to the fair and listening to very loud rock n'roll being played.  Fairgrounds tended to be grimmer places then than they are now. 
I thought the 'Mod revival' music was pretty bad: The Purple Hearts and all that.  Some - a minority - latched onto Kevin Rowland fairly early on, wearing those leather coats and woolly hats and drinking builders' tea out of pint mugs.  I preferred Kid Creole, Was Not Was, even Joe Jackson at that point.  But I'd also ventured, by '79, into a Sunday evening rock n'roll session, under the protection of local teds.  The odd thing was, the younger rockabilly kids, in their donkey jackets and boots, were jeered by the older crowd.  But Matchbox by then seemed a good deal cooler than Fats Domino.

I think what grieved me was the way old mates, who'd gone to punk gigs together, suddenly turned hostile towards one another.  Instead of two tribes, punks and teddy boys, there were several.  You and Yuca both remember that, AUS, I'm certain.  It got so you couldn't safely buy a record on a Saturday afternoon.

It was horrible and exciting all at the same time. It was constant Soul Boys, Northern Soul (not the same Soul scenes), Mod, Two-Tone, Skins, Psychobillies, New Romantics, Scooter Boys, Murds (didn't last long, Smiths related), then indie kids, dance etc.  On it went.

Yes I was chased constantly, by almost everyone - including rival groups in the same scenes.  Stupid but it wasn't scenes, it was society - that's were we were. 

The young are dumb and full of energy they cannot channel - same as it ever was.

Cue, If the Kids were United......

Even in the 80s buying Jimmy Smith or Jimmy McGriff was obscure. Me and a mate had a pool of singles and loved the organ stuff - Little Mac and the Boss Sounds, Hank Jacobs etc. But they weren't met with universal acceptance when played at nights, on tape walking around. Even playing anything that wasn't Green Onions by Booker T. and the M.G.'s was off limits. The idea of playing someone like Lou Donaldson was unheard of, just impossible. It was only when Kent/Ace started down that Mod Jazz road that it opened up.  Same with R&B - nobody really wanted much of it, when I'd play Junior Parker, Bobby Bland, B.B. King people would call for it to be taken off - years later it was the latest Mod thing when Hideaway club in Manchester pioneered that sound following Kent's love of the slower soulful R&B.

When I broke Little Mac's instro flip of In The Midnight Hour - that was completely a 'newie', never heard, by anyone. It was mine - but most people just shrugged and asked for Wilson Pickett anyway.

I could talk about the music side of things for days.... and have

Spendthrift - more kids went to their local Astoria or Pallais then ever went to Scene, Flamingo etc as you quite rightly say.  Tottenham Ballroom used to be a key meeting place, the ballrooms were generally the 'go to' place, the nightclubs often for older people or those who could get to central London.

In Nottingham the key venue was the Nottingham Polytechnic old ballroom apparently.  My old boss used to go with Paul Smith.  He said Dungeon and Beachcomber, plus Boat Club all of which are legendary to Mods (especially The Dungeon) came much later kind of 67-69 in the later wave/early Soul scene.  My Dad who was into everything new and not scene affiliated said the same (as an Irish Man with ginger hair and wearing green suits, he said he couldn't take sides and always loved R&R anyway).

So the venues that get all the acclaim later - aren't really often the centre of things.

Wigan Casino at one time had 100,000 members but only 1000 at peak attending each week.  Most will of gone to local venues, discos, youth clubs.

For me, nothing was ever as exciting as the local disco at a school with grown up scooter boys outside, vans of Northern Soul youths coming to do moves, electro breakers, rockers, synth pop etc. Everyone had their 'spot' of a few records, did their bit then looked menacingly at each other.  A brilliant DJ started doing a spot, who was a black psychedelic styled Northern Soul DJ and starting playing stuff like Pschededlic Soul Part 2, the NS version of Purple Haze, The Crow. That guy was like Prince, he blew my mind. He got a following and it became a serious thing to be there for his spot.  No idea who he was but he was kind if you asked about the records and clothing.  Was wearing purple peakcock button downs and hipster coloured jeans with soft shoes. His sense of adventure was exciting.

Incredible sense of scene community but never went the same way back home to avoid the chasing and beating up.  Some dicey moments and threats, but never got me thankfully.

It's fun to think about all this I guess.

Last edited by An Unseen Scene (2022-02-24 06:11:59)

If it was on Sue - you knew it would be right (generally, the compilation years later say there was a lot of dross, but at the time...buy with confidence).

Yes I'm the same on the longer tracks - Jimmy Smith - The Cat - give me the single version not the album every time.

We're getting dangerously close to Acid Jazz -which really passed me by apart from the original artists they referenced.  By then I was a full-on Househead and Northern Souler in a curious double life.

Last edited by An Unseen Scene (2022-02-24 06:15:14)

Acid Jazz was an amazing time.

We were all 'no soul after '67' mods. Dwindling quickly in numbers. Suddenly it dawned on some of us that you could like Curtis Mayfield, JB's later stuff, funk. It was like the sun coming out. And bizarrely we briefly found ourselves at the cutting edge. Quite a turnaround!

Weren't we talking about leather jackets?

In fact, I doubt if I'd listen to Matchbox now, except on some kind of compilation CD.  But Fats Domino and Little Richard were never great favourites of mine.  Chuck and Bo Diddley were and still are.  My late father was well into the likes of Joe Turner.  But I'd heard people like the Savoy Sultans before leaving junior school - my father again. 
I loathed the musical tribalism of my teenage years.  If you listened to this, you couldn't listen to that.  People would take offence.  But it was odd to attend a local disco in, say, 1975 and hear 'The Flasher', 'Landslide' and 'Jungle Rock' all being played within a couple of hours.

A lot of my friends of that time are still doing the same thing in their respective scenes, in the same venues, no doubt with a lot of the same music.  I don't know how they do it, I admire it in a way (though it isn't for me) - they'll have a sense of belonging and community that is hard to maintain.

Spendthrift - 'In a way I miss tribalism. I’d quite like my boy to get fired up by the possibility of being a (fill in blank here) and take the time to research and learn about it.'

Young people are different animals to when most of us left school. The nearest thing we've had to a tribe in recent years have been the Hipsters and we have joked on here about men with big beards looking like Finnish carpenters. But most of them are guys in their twenties or thirties who had/have a few quid to spend on Red Wing boots and bonkers tattoos. But in days gone by youth cults were driven by those of school leaving age (16) up to their early twenties, getting your first pay packet and blowing it on Mod clothing or whatever was part of your rite of passage. There was an urge to establish your own identity and with any luck, leave home and strike out on your own. Today's young people are more likely to have grown up under the constant eye of watchful parents and being timetabled up to the max with after-school activities rather than be down the park hanging out with their mates and learning how to handle yourself in a group. They are often in further education, have no access to well paid jobs and are compelled (and sometimes quite content) to stay living with Mum and Dad well into their twenties. If you spend a lot of time in your bedroom hooking up with your mates via your X Box and you meet girls online there's not the same need to dress to impress. I don't have any kids so maybe I'm talking out of my arse here?

Young people don't seem to hang around in groups now and when they do they are seen as a threat and it isn't long before security guards, PCSOs or police turn up to disperse them. I'm going to be a bit controversial here but, the exception to this where I live are the offspring of travellers, they meet up in groups because they are isolated in society and the boys go to great lengths to ensure they are well dressed and neatly turned out.

'more Jon Bon Jovi than John Simons'

Even more so nowadays.

It's not often that I agree with the old bongo player but on this occasion he's spot on.  Leather for shoes and belts only.

Oh, and underwear, in Woofboxer's case.

More Weller genuflecting on the JS FB page today, but in amongst an article about Russell St from Vanity magazine is reproduced. The Willis & Geiger A2 refereced by 2RS is mentioned and a great quote from JS at the time ‘We’re not trying to create little Americans, you can mix and match with other styles. We’re just trying to distil the best from the various American traditions.’

So wear your A2 with some cords and trainers …. maybe.