(A Love Hate Relationship)
By Callum Warner-Webb
Disclaimer! Before you kit up in your desert boots and circle my house revving up your Vespas, I actually do consider myself to be somewhat of a ‘mod’. The culture took over my life during my mid-teens. I threw out my jeans for some stylish Sta-press trousers, donned the target and a new Mod was born. My new life of rebellion and music had started and i was proud to protect the sacred creed.
I HOPE I DIE BEFORE I GET OLD.
The whole spirit of this inherently beautiful British culture, to be uncontrollable, to live young and to be MODERN. I love all things Mod. All things except the old mod.The retro modernist.
Yes, my problem is with the old Weller clones copy and pasted across the UK funding their sons oasis tribute band, dressing them up like a polite LG that shrunk in the wash.
You see them bobbing around Carnaby St with their wives and squeezing themselves into an XXL gingham shirt. “I had one just like this back in the day” words that echo through the Sherry’s, Perry’s and Shermans of the UK.
The thing that angers me the most about these people is that they have developed a stereotype around us. that all mods are stuck in the past constantly banging on about Quadrophenia and the ‘good old days’.
Yeah I know the sixties were fucking unbelievable, and yeah the seventies, eighties and nineties were obviously pretty bloody wonderful to, but I wasn’t there and i’m fumin. So out of bitterness i’m going to live my generation BETTER. (you hear that pete?). Sod the past. Sod the dads. But most of all SOD THE MODS.
Writing this hurts my Laurel but it is true. It’s time to look where we’re going and not where we’ve been. I’m not like these people (not yet at least) and i’m stripping them of their mod badges. Dishonourable discharge. See ya later.
I want to see more of these old mods celebrating and understanding the importance of the modern mods (The mod mods), Because if they don’t were going to lose mod culture to the past. It will become a sad subculture that once was. Once upon a time there were mods.
I can see it now, the last of the once great mods wiping a singular tear whilst looking over Commercialised Carnaby. Sad but true.
So let’s make mods great again. Mod culture has a rich tapestry of culture and its threads can be found not only in tonic suits but in most modern British music. We’ve got Wolf Alice, Sleaford mods, Arctic Monkeys, Slaves, Idles and many more. Even Skepta buys his socks from Sherry’s you know. Thee artists I have just mentioned might not be suit wearing, big haired and wanted in Brighton but to me, they embody the true meaning of being a mod in the modern age.
Death to the mods. Long live The Mods.
The Good Stuff 