I *had* to reply to this, as strangely enough my friends and I were on the
very same subject the other night..............and I have to commend Dan
Geddes and Katrina Dixon for even bringing it up! It's a great ranting
point.
>It is MUCH easier to be a mod now than when I first got into
>it around '82 or so. MANY more hard to find records have been re-issued on
>compilations, hell, THOUSANDS of records of all types...beat, soul, psych whatever.
I know a a young guy who does a "mod" radio show somewhere in the Midwest
(I'm not going to say where) and while he's a good kid with decent taste, he
e-mails me periodically to tell me of his music "finds" - and they are
mostly reissues, or he "finds" someone who owns the recording and makes
CD-R's of it! I'm no purist, and I understand it's the music that really
matters, but I can't help but feel a little persnickety when it's something
I spent loads of time, money, travel, and heartache trying to find years ago
in its original state. eBay has also become an evil, if useful, tool for
finding music, as I have done. I never gave its instant-gratification
aesthetic a thought until my longtime record-collecting-veteran boyfriend
pointed it out, with a healthy dose of cynicism too. The music we love is
much more accessible now, but some of the 'thrill of the hunt' has been lost
I suppose.
>There is a network of scooter stores across the country now...(they were
all closing
>back then...) Vintage scooter parts are being re-made. You have the
>internet (which we did not then) to meet and converse with people from
everywhere, exchange ideas,
>find out about shows, records, clothes, etc.
Another relevant point. A short number of years ago in the U.S. it would
have been UNHEARD of to have a scooter rally sponsored by the likes of Ben
Sherman or a nearly-corporate scooter shop that actually had enough money to
do so. I'm not knocking clubs that do this - in fact IMHO it's more than
apropos - but things like this, combined with the proliferation of scooters
in advertising, (I saw a GS with a Union Jack paint job parked in a shoe
store at the Mall of America and woefully thought "soul is truly dead") is
more than a little strange and rather sad.
>Most of the time they get it wrong, but people have a vague idea what it is
>now. TIME magazine did an article on the return of scooters and
mod.....Even that super-lame brit-pop
>thing prompted a renewed interest in the Small Faces which produced a bunch
of really cool
>books and that CD set.
Banal and transparent as media's half-cocked interpretations are, I try to
see the positive within; I'm GLAD they 'get it all wrong,' and just laugh
when people direct Austin Powers references toward me, or try to mine
information from me about the new Zombies/Small
Faces/insert-Rhino-reissue-here box sets......because I am at peace with the
fact they are so far off my mark, and hope it stays that way. Just let
people believe what they're force-fed, and you can still bask in
enigmaticism. (Is that a word?)
>NEED I GO ON?......
>It takes MUCH less work these days. And I seem to find lots more cool
stuff than I did back then...
>of course it costs more, but doesn't everything?
Hear hear Dan! Everyone can be a Mod - it's finally on sale at Target!
Miss Becky
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