Mods and Rockers

Mod (or, to use its full name, Modernism) was a lifestyle based around fashion and music that developed in London, England in the late 1950s and reached its peak in the early to mid 1960s. People who followed this lifestyle were known as Mods.

Mods were obsessed with clothes and music, including Black American R&B and Soul, Jamaican Ska, and Bluebeat and a select few British groups such as the Small Faces The Spencer Davis Group and The Who. Mods would gather at all-night clubs to show off their clothes and dance. They would typically choose scooters as their mode of transportation, either the Lambretta or the Vespa. These were sometimes adorned with many lights and mirrors and were intended to gain attention.

An alternative youth movement known as 'Rockers' often clashed with the Mods, leading to street battles between the two factions in seaside resorts such as Brighton and Margate. These events led to much anguished discussion about 'modern youth' in Britain during the early 1960s. The conflicts inspired Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange in which the anti-hero is arguably a futuristic Mod. The film Quadrophenia (1979), based on the album of the same name by The Who (1973), also commemorated the movement.

Partly because of the success of this film, the mod movement enjoyed a revival during the late 1970s. Many of these later mods were fans of bands such as The Jam, The Merton Parkas, Secret Affair, and The Lambrettas, and Two Tone groups such as The Specials, The Beat, The Selector, and Madness.

The logo of the mod movement was a stylized target.

The punk rock band The Jam were highly influenced musically and stylistically by mod culture as are more recent musicians Ocean Colour Scene who often colaborate with Paul Weller.

The Mods and the Rockers were two British youth movements of the early 1960s. Gangs of mods and rockers fighting in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youth. They can be seen as a type of Folk devil.

The Rockers adopted a macho biker gang image tending to wear such clothes as black leather jackets.

The Mods adopted a pose of scooter-driving "sophistication". It was believed that Mods were cleaner and tidier than Rockers. They often wore colourful clothes considered outrageous by the standards of the time.

In Britain in the 1960s by no means all teenage boys could afford a motorbike or a motor scooter. These bikes/scooters were a status symbol perhaps equivalent to a car today.

The film Quadrophenia (1979), based on the album of the same name by The Who (1973), also commemorated the movement. The conflict between the Mods and the Rockers was the butt of a joke in The Beatles' first film A Hard Day's Night. In the press conference scene, a hapless reporter asks Ringo, "Are you a mod or a rocker?", to which he replies "I'm a mocker."

See also:

External links

http://www.photonet.org.uk/printsales/past/teenage/teenage.html
http://www.stthomasu.ca/~pmccorm/modsandrockers1.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A707627