The liner notes to a recent Northern comp, I forget which one, was reduced
to defining Northen Soul as "that music which fans of Northern Soul like."
I think the same thought applies. What is mod? Mod is that which mods like.
So the question then is: who are the mods? Search me. However I'm quite
willing to burst into a rousing chorus of "you are the mods, you are the
mods, you are you are you are the mods" if anyone's up for it.
>Some questions:
>
>1. Which of the following is actually more like the behaviour of the
>early mods (or a subculture):
>(a) to go out to the same places as their friends were going, to chat,
>dance, drink and pose?
>(b) to agonise over sub-culture and meaning?
>
>2. When talking of 'the mod scene' who exactly are you talking about?
>A particular person? The most stupid mod you know? The best one you
>know? The average of the 'mods' you know?
>
>3. Two mods go to a [insert contemporary music] club. Does this make
>style X mod?
>
>4. Four mods go to . . .
>
>5. 100 mods go to . .
>
>6. A mod goes to a Style X club. Are they still a mod if:
> (a) if he dresses the same as he would at a mod club.
> (b) she dresses as Style X, but says they're a mod.
> (c) they still go to mod clubs as well.
> (d) proclaim style X is the new mod, and cease going to mod clubs.
>
>7. Are they style X, or the new mod, or both, or some hybrid of mod and
>style X?
>
>8. Do they have any friends when they go out?
>
>9.
>What if their friends don't follow them - maybe they get into Style Y,
>or they stick with 'the mod scene'?
>What if despite other differences they all meet up at mod clubs? But
>some of them say they're not mods anymore?
>And then some of them say that this makes them the real mods. And then
>some of them get into Style M and Q, or even more ludicrously they get
>into a more up-to-date yet still backwards looking culture (i.e old
>skool hip-hop) but maintain that this is somehow forward looking, and
>start saying that those into style X and Y don't get it (as well as
>those people just into that 'retro shit', of course). At what point does
>it become ludicrous to even use the same word to describe this group of
>people, let alone the word mod?
>
>10. One of our hypothetical mods has passed through trend X,Y,M and Q,
>and reached a moment of realisation - that they never listened to the X
>or Y records anymore, yet all along they'd enjoyed 60s soul, and that
>maybe it was time to relax and admit what they loved, rather than worry
>about being at the cutting edge, or what their friends on the cutting
>edge may think, or what sociological analysis suggests they should do,
>and that perhaps it was even more radical to be themselves, rather than
>try to prove that everyone else wasn't.
>Is this moment when they cease to be a mod? And if they're not, what are
>they?
>
>11. Does that mean the people who'd stuck with the mod thing for 15
>years and slagged off X,Y,M & Q were right all along, or did they miss
>something too, especially if they're so bitter about it?
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