Steve Marriott Had It in Spades
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WhereWhere thethe actionactionis!is! DFQCD009 CMFCD684 2-CD, DFQDD005 3-CD,CMETD1078 The Mod Generation Immediate Mod Gary Crowley’s Le Beat Bespoké Clean Living Under Box Set Where The Action Is! 24 Tailor Made Cuts Difficult Circumstances CMRCD1105 2-CD, NEMCD973 2-CD, CMDDD697 2-CD, TDSAN004 Small Faces Brian Auger Geno Washington Jimmy James & Ultimate Collection This Wheel’s On Fire My Bombers, My Dexys, My Highs The Vagabonds (The 60’s Studio Sessions) Sock It To ’Em J.J. CFMCD688 CMEDD744 CMDDD604 2-CD CMDDD679 Mods Mayday ’79 The Mod Revival Secret Affair The Lambrettas Various Artists Generation Time For Action Da-a-a-ance The Anthology NEMCD479 CMRCD283 CMRCD535 CMRCD757 CMRCD097 The Go-Go Train Jump And Dance Maximum R&B Ready Steady Stop! That Driving Beat Doin’ the Mod Doin’ the Mod Doin’ the Mod Doin’ the Mod Doin’ the Mod Vol. 1 Vo l . 2 Vo l . 3 Vo l . 4 Vo l . 5 www.sanctuaryrecords.co.uk FOREWORD Ian McLagan SMALL FACES “To tell the truth I’d never been on a Lambretta until a couple of years ago. Kenney Jones and I did a photoshoot on one and laughed about the fact, but I vividly recall what that era meant and what being a mod meant. “Originally it stood for modernist as opposed to trad. I went to art school and you were one or the other. I decided I was mod. I wanted to be part of what was happening. The clothes started coming together and I defi nitely wanted to be part of that. “Certain faces about town led the way. There was a dealer we knew in Notting Hill called Denzel and he always looked the business, so much so that The Sunday Times colour supplement got hold of him and put him on the cover. He had the look. You’d have the look just right, then someone else would arrive in a great shirt. It was one-upmanship. “By 1965 you could go down Carnaby Street and pick the stuff off the racks. The Small Faces had accounts in most of the shops: Lord John, John Stephen and Toppers – we looked very sharp and we were all in competition “Every new generation rediscovers mod. It’s never going away” to get something cool – if you saw someone wearing something you already had, that was it. “We’d take inspiration from anywhere. Even Dick Van Dyke in his series with Mary Tyler Moore. He had the perfect modernist haircut. Lee Marvin in The Killers was defi nitely mod. Booker T & The MG’s when they came over – they had really short, tapered mohair trousers that fi nished four inches above a pair of pointy shoes. They looked fuckin’ great, I’m telling you. “Mod was all about attitude. Steve Marriott had it in spades. It became harder and harder when it became a movement, everyone was doing it so we’d dress down as a reaction. The drugs changed, too – we ran on purple hearts, French blues and double dexys, but acid arrived and messed things up. “But every new generation rediscovers mod. I get ONES-IDOLS/PICTORIAL PRESS emails from Rome and Munich. I meet Texan mods where I live now. It’s never going away.” PICTORIAL PRESS/LFI/COVER J COLIN IMAGES – CONTENTS 6-33 CHAPTER 1 THE BIRTH OF MODERNISM: 1945-1964 8 Introduction by Paolo Hewitt 14 Original Mod Top 100 16 Ready Steady Go! 22 The R&B scene 23 The High Numbers 24 The original mods – caught on camera 34-83 CHAPTER 2 MAXIMUM MOD: 1965-1968 36 Introduction by Paolo Hewitt 42 The Who 44 Spencer Davis Group 48 John Stephen & Carnaby Street 50 Pete Townshend 52 Small Faces 56 The original mods – caught on camera 66 The Action 70 The Creation 72 Geno Washington 73 Jimmy James & Zoot Money 4 NME ORIGINALS 84-131 CHAPTER 3 THE MOD REVIVAL: 1977-1985 86 Introduction by Chris Hunt 90 The Jam 98 Quadrophenia 108 Pete Meaden 114 March Of The Mods tour 120 Secret Affair 126 The Chords 130 The Truth 132-145 CHAPTER 4 A NEW KIND OF MOD: 1990-2005 134 Introduction by Paul Moody 136 Acid Jazz 138 Menswear 140 Blur 142 Ocean Colour Scene 144 The Ordinary Boys meet Paul Weller defunct sister publications Melody Maker and Disc, To all of this we’ve added a selection of newly while for this particular issue, focused as it is on the commissioned writings to place the archive material music of the mods, we have been able to draw on into context, and not forgetting some truly fantastic INTRODUCTION material from the back issues of Rave, the most mod photographic images. So what are you waiting for? NME Originals exists to shine a fresh light on some of all of the magazines from the swinging ’60s. Ready, steady, go – the magazine starts here! of the more overlooked areas of British music In taking a theme as broad as mod, we have been journalism, reprinting many vintage interviews, faced with the challenge of trying to offer a mere reviews and features for the fi rst time since their snapshot of writings about a musical style that has initial publication in the pages of the New Musical endured for more than 40 years. This magazine does Express, the bible of the British music scene since it not purport to be a defi nitive history, but hopefully it fi rst appeared in 1952. will offer an interesting insight into the bands that In preparing these special editions we have also have been associated with the mods, as seen Chris Hunt had access to the archives of the NME’s long since through the pages of the British music press. Editor TERENCE SPENCER TERENCE NME ORIGINALS 5 CHAPTER 1 THE BIRTH OF MODERNISM 1945-64 THE BIRTH OF MODERNISM rom the ashes of the Blitz a In London, Carlo Krahmer, a half-blind drummer and owner of Esquire Records, is the route into this world. Krahmer speaks in new, indomitable spirit grew clipped sentences, rarely cracks a joke. Humour is unhip, unhip is humour. Every now and then, he receives a message from America’s in London. Coupled with post- bebop land and it comes wrapped in a record. war prosperity, a new breed Krahmer puts out the word and the Soho crowd rush to his house to hear the latest tune. Gathered around his record player, the record is Fof forward-thinking young people played until its magic is soaked so far into these musicians’ skins they know it off by hand and they can now add it to their setlist. developed new styles of music and new Other routines: Monday morning, musicians gather in Archer ways of dressing. Words: Paolo Hewitt Street to fi x work. They buy the jazz rag, Melody Maker, and scour the ad pages. They mingle, exchanging gossip like jazz riffs but, in fact, are hustling for work. It is here on Archer Street that Ronnie Scott and ten others open up London’s fi rst bebop club, the On September 7, 1940, a year into the Second World Club Eleven. All the essentials are present and War, the ’60s started. correct. Drink, drugs, sex and the freshest With great symmetry, German planes fl ew over music that black America can offer. The crowd London on a Saturday night, the night of partying, and party all night to live music and emerge onto began a 57-day bombing campaign of the East End, grey London streets, wide-eyed and wasted, seeking to destroy the capital’s docks and vital centres just as they do today and will do forever. of communication. 15,000 people were killed, 94,086 Nothing is new under the sun. houses destroyed. Yet among the death and the broken “It was always dark down there,” said one buildings, a new spirit of defi ance came into being. customer, “they didn’t put on any lights. The Those who woke to the chilling knowledge that darkness gave the club a kind of illicit feeling. this could be their last day on Earth would now You couldn’t see a damn thing, which was even contemptuously brush aside all social conventions worse for us because, as modernists, we wore and norms. These people would seize the day and sunglasses. At six in the morning, we would all damn tomorrow and this spirit, small in nature at tumble out of there sweating as if we had been fi rst, would gather pace over the years and fuel the swimming all night.” vast social upheaval of the ’60s. Clothes-wise, this switched on minority At the war’s end this spirit had grown indomitable, emulated the dress sense of their American restless. Pretty soon, it moved into London’s Soho gods. This meant suits and ties and shirts and and infected a bunch of young jazz freaks, with names sunglasses and hair cropped short, just like jazz such as Ronnie Scott, Pete King, Eddie Harvey and, player Gerry Mulligan’s. best of all, Tony Crombie. Georgie Fame The suit was nothing new to them. Up until These young blades are at the very source of mod. entertaining the the very late-’50s, the suit was the mainstay of They were the fi rst to shape a life defi ned by their early-mods, 1964 the British male, the cloth representing their music and clothes. They were driven by the idea of the new. The past was a no go area and the future was theirs to shape.