Here come the mods

Some will tell you at length that a mod is nothing more than a battery tube, this normally precedes an ensuing comment about how all tubes should be dirt-cheap. The same people will also use the ‘tube argument’ to justify what they refuse to buy. I’m not really sure how the full argument goes as I’ve either fallen asleep or got drunk to blot it all out.

The film ‘Quadrophenia’ was not appreciated among my friends in the main. Bikers in 1979 still held outward appearances left over from the British rocker scene (as depicted in the film), my mates hated anything connected with a scooter or a snorkel parka. If you’d pressed them they’d have been unable to give you anything approaching a coherent reason why. The same would have gone for why they wore those white socks poking out of their boots.

It was OK for me to like it, not that I sought approval. Punks were fortunate in that we straddled many different subcultures, having been born from one or another of them. Most spikey-haired people I knew had a copy of The Who’s ‘My Generation‘ album in their collection and The Dickies cover of Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’. Radio wasn’t closed off to all-bar one weekly Tommy Vance none-more-metal show, we had John Peel’s pic’n’mix.

Thing is, thinking back, despite outwardly exclaiming to hate all things in the remotest bit mod-like, it was amusing to note how many would nod approvingly at the mention of Leslie Ash up a Brighton back alley. There’s no accounting for taste but taste in metal tubes is just the thing we’ve discovered more about this year. Just look at the sheer range and volume of mechs being designed and produced in the Philippines as a case in point.

Now I know you shouldn’t criticise someone’s taste but

When it comes to motorbikes there have been a rash of hideous things pumped out of late. Combine that with the utter indifference you encounter when walking into a bike shop and you could be forgiven for thinking there was no recession and we’re all wealthy now.

For me, I’d rather have my eyes gouged out by spoons than have to set eyes on the new Stingray X and if I hear a second mod ever referred to as a ‘competition mod’ I may have to fetch the machete.

But what has irked me more than just being repulsed is the plastic rebellion encapsulated in the “Anarchy mod”. I guess this may figure on your shopping list if you are a fan of the insipid Green Day but no self-respecting punk could consider this for one second. When Wattie from The Exploited sang, “I believe in anarchy” I am blooming convinced he never envisaged that this is what it would turn into.

If I lived in Brighton I’d seek solace in an alleyway but as this is a landlocked village I’m off to shudder in a corner.