The Mod Revival
Summer 1978 - England: Two years on, punk
has exploded from its roots in grubby Sex
Pistols gigs to shock exposés, hit singles, high street
fashion and cartoon punks like Sham 69.
It has lost its bite.
The Jam, part of punk's first wave, also
appeared to have lost their edge, but as the year wears on, they
emerge with an album that is swiftly proclaimed as one of the
decades finest. The LP launches The Jam on a
journey which made them the UK's most adored pop group.
 The album was of course, All Mod Cons, which was
smothered in the iconography of the 60's cult which had so
impacted on the young Paul Weller three years earlier.
Soon a
clutch of The Jam's most loyal fans took to
copying the band's Mod
dress sense; suits, button-down collared shirts, Fred Perry's and
short, neat hairstyles (such as the French Crew).
By coincidence, probably the most influential Mod
band from the original 60's scene were in the process of making a
film about the original teenage experience - based in their West
London haunt of Shepherds Bush - through the eyes of a Mod.
The Who's Quadrophenia
accurately re-enacted the spirit of Mod London & Brighton for
a generation too young to remember. News filters out, nostalgic
epitaphs to Mod are published and by the time the film is launched
a year later, that army of Jam fans grows
into what will soon be labelled the Mod Revival . . .
Summer 1979 : The Sounds music paper has led the way in
documenting a fresh clutch of bands dressing as Mods. Most of them
are based around London/Essex with a sound that mixes The
Jam's new wave energy with 60's melodies and choice Motown/Who/Small
Faces cover versions.
One of their main haunts is a rough and ready pub in Canning
Town, East London, called the Bridge House, which funds a live
album taped on May 1st - Mods Mayday '79. The album
includes tracks by Secret Affair, Squire,
Small Hours, The Mods and Beggar. It
is the first gathering of the tribes outside a Jam
gig.
 Meanwhile, Paul Weller stumbles across another regular haunt,
the Duke Of Wellington at London Bridge, where he spots The
Chords (pictured at right) from South London - and invites them and a leading Mod
band from Essex, Romford's The Purple
Hearts, to support The Jam on
tour.
By August, most of the revival's leading players have been
signed up. Ian Page is seen on BBC1's Nationwide as the
scene's self-proclaimed spokesman while his band, Secret
Affair, are given their own label (along with Squire)
called I-Spy, by Arista Records. Both had already supported The
Jam.
The Jam's former producer, Chris Parry, adds The
Purple Hearts and Back To Zero to
his Fiction roster of The Chords and the
R&B fuelled Long Tall Shorty.
The Chords link up with Polydor and Long
Tall Shorty to Warners. By Autumn the Mod revival is in full
swing.
 The Merton Parkas break into the
mainstream Top 40 (just) with You Need Wheels, followed by Secret
Affair with the ultimate Mod revival anthem, Time For
Action (followed by the Motown-styled
Let Your Heart Dance, and the more serious My World).
The Purple Hearts and The
Chords enjoy a string of minor hits while The
Lambrettas from Lewes, West Sussex, debut with the excellent Go
Steady, before cracking the Top 10 with an old R&B
favourite, The Coasters' Poison Ivy.
Fuelled by this and Quadrophenia
and running parallel to the Midlands' 2-Tone Ska
Revival, Mod filtered out of London right across the South and
the Midlands (and to a lesser extent, the North). The revival
would ultimately spread to include much of Europe, Australia and
even (albeit to a lesser degree) to parts of the USA.
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