This is a long read.. I guess I am sharing this because I have a
feeling there are a good many of you out there that have some sort of
unique history. I am sharing mine in hopes that some of you relate..
Actually I am sure all of you can relate to somethings.. Like being a
freak at a really young age. ;) Please enjoy and feel free to share
how you got here.. In this message I am basically going over my
musical progression.. How did I get to Mod. Many times on this list
I feel as though I might have taken a wrong turn. But in life there
are no wrong turns.. its all a new experience.
One thing we do have in common is how did we all get here. I am sure
a couple of you were born into this lifestyle.. but many of us have
skeletons hidden in our closets. How did we all end on the word
"mod".
if its not your taste.. don't respond and move on..
------
So I guess I would like to share how I found out about Mod. Where
did I come from and where do I really want to do with the influences
mod has had on me.
"Johnny boy, the cheese is calling..."
I am currently a 23 year old pushing 24 in 3 months. I was brought
up in the lovely green farm fields of America's Dairy Land. I didn't
really choose this.. but who chooses how they want to be brought
up?!? It just happens and one day I gained a sort of self respect
for myself and started to find my own identity and rebel against the
sailor suits and horrible git-ups mom would dress me in for Church
and preschool.
"Surfs up in Lake Michigan"
Around the age of 10 the Surf style was in. Ocean Pacific was the
hit new thing. Everyone was wearing Jams. Hawaiian culture had
somehow invaded Wisconsin... that most un-Hawaiian place on Earth. I
started to skateboard. As being a "little kid" I was always skating
behind the "big kids". The big kids pushed exposed me to the Smiths,
the Cure, Dead Kennedy's, The Clash, the Sex Pistols.. So bout the
time I was in 6th grade.. I was getting kicked out of my public
school for wearing shirts that had 'ThE SeX PIstOls' and I am sure
many of you have some stories of your own you can tell about the
Mailorder tshirts you would wear to school.
"oi Punk Oi!"
At the age of 14 I was going to a lot of all-ages punk shows in
Milwaukee and sometimes some late nighters that were all-ages. I saw
a lot of bands in my younger years.. Murphy's Law, Exploited, Naked
Raygun, Pegboy, Agnostic Front, 7 Seconds, circle jerks, might
bosstones, and others I can't even remember but at one time had much
importance to me at the time.
"True, true, true till death!!!"
Around the ages of 15/16 I was getting into hardcore and mostly
straightedge. I guess it was that whole 'I need a group in order to
survive this scene' type of mentality. The scene at that time was
very interesting in that all the music subcultures still met in one
place for shows. Sure we had all straightedge band shows at times..
but for the most part.. it was mixed. Getting involved with a group
and slapping on a label I think was more for protection then
anything. I guess with some many demands on you to make so many
political and moral stance statements I went with the one group I
felt comfortable with. Straightedge at that time was still letter
jackets, champion hoodies, and clean living. It fit pretty well with
my life because.. a. I could do it with out pissing mom and dad off.
b. mom and dad didn't worry about me going to shows when they knew I
was drugfree and all that.
I guess the problem was when straightedge got violent.. or when my
puberty rattled hormone levels got the best of me. While I wasn't
the one to fight because I was a skinny fuck.. I was picked on in the
arena a lot. That made straightedge the obvious choice. I finally
had a crew to fight with me. In our scene you know how it is...
Punks hate the straightedgers, straightedgers hate the punks, punks
had the mods, mods hate the skins, skins hate the mods, and everyone
hated the nazis.. (cut, yeah, I got it from SLC punk.. so what).. So
at certain shows there was a lot of tension especially when punk
bands with nazi followings would be around. For the most part.. it
was mostly Punks and Nazis fighting each other and everyone else. So
I guess this was the first time I had ever been exposed to Mod. We
would get about 3 of them showing up at random ska shows but for the
most part.. They didn't exist. I think most of them were beaten by
punks who accused them of being Ronald Reagan's Capitist Army.
"Hardline, and falling"
I went vegan for 2 years.. watched friends burn down fur stores..
watched friends disappear into exile because the fbi was after them.
Watched friends come and go. Then it was my time to go. When I was
18, in college, I was handed a bong.. I took a hit. Then I hit a
balloon of N2O. Well that was it for straightedge. I was sorted..
"I am raving all night long"
With the blow up of midwest rave parties in the years of 92-94 I was
trying to forget all the crunch crunch "I am going to kill you!!"
Earth Crisis and Integrity tracks as fast as I could. I started to
hang out at a youth club where they would play a lot of Manchester
and Britpop stuff.. Happy Mondays, Blur, Stone Roses, and all that
shit. Which easily can be traced right in the early '92 breakbeat
sound you can hear in tunes by Two Bad Mice, Sons of da Loop da loop
era, Prodigy, Altern8, Acen, and many many others that were putting
choons out at that time.
From there I just followed the rave.. I dabbled into some dutch
hardcore..but I ended up on the English tip buying mostly UK
Breakbeat. UK Breakbeat I suppose can be summed up as the following
"rave genres": 'ardcore, happy hardcore, jungle, drum n bass,
techstep, ragga jungle, and on and on. Basically I was into the
breakbeat sound.
"Look Mom I am a DJ"
I worked really hard to get somewhere in the rave scene. When I was
18 I started spinning records. I have been spinning breakbeat for
close to 4 years now. At one time I was playing at raves and getting
300-400 per gig.. but it got old and I stopped.. I was bored of the
music.. So I went to the roots..
"G'won back inna roots, rudebowy!"
I started collecting a lot of rare old pressing of breakbeat. In
particular the dub influenced and piano tunes from 92-93. At that
time breakbeat when from a very happy chipmunk voice piano tunes to
some really rough dark amen horror movie tunes. Some really good
rushing stuff on there.
I continued to learn more about the music through exploring my roots
of music. UK Breakbeat has always been created by speeding up
sampled drum breaks from early soul classics. The most famous beat
has to be "Amen Brother" by The Winstons (ref: straight out of
compton - I am serious ;). You have other very well known breaks
like "Funky Drummer from James Brown", "Hotpants from James Brown",
the "Pleader", the "apache", and others. So there is some real "mod"
influences in modern day electronic music.
As I went deeper into the music I started to read a lot about the
Jamaican sound systems. This is where most of the Drum n Bass sound
system behavior comes from. If you did now know.. Only in Drum n
Bass do we 'Rewind' tunes. Basically the same "Selector behaviors"
carried from Dancehall to Drum n Bass. I was looking for reasons why
we did the things we did that separated us from the normal rave crowd.
I watched a lot of movies, listened to a lot of tapes, and talked to
a lot of people about Jamaican sound system culture.
"Jamaica meet England.. How do you do sir? Wicked inna place badbowy"
Tracing Jamaican sound system culture back to the West Indie
migration to England in the 50's brought me to MOD. MOD attracts my
mind because it was so fucking smart.. The original thinking behind
the movement (yes we can argue that too) grabbed me. It was really
an institution of reverse psychology on a generation. Rather then
rebel like punks.. they one upped their parents generation in: dress,
style, mobility, and almost everything. You could easily say that a
Mod probably did and experienced more in a single day then his
parents had in their entire cookie cutter working class lives.
I find that Mod is one of the "missing links" between white and black
cultures. I find the role it played within our pop culture was so
critical. I am not going to go into detail since there are books
dedicated to this subject.
"What does mod mean to me"
So there are my roots. As someone did say to me at one point "look
to the speakers in the past.. oh buddy I have.. maybe not in the
traditional sense you may have.. but I have gone full circle.
"The full circle"
Punk to britpop/shoegazer, britpop/shoegazer to rave/breakbeat,
breakbeat to jungle, jungle to dancehall/ragga, dancehall/ragga to
ska/rocksteady, ska/rocksteady to mod/soul and rare groove,
soul/raregroove to rock, rock to punk.. and wow.. look where we are..
Back to PUNK! haha.
Fucking interesting if you ask me.
So this is how I ended up on the fucking mod list. :)
john
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