How Cool is Cool?: Why the Mod Revival Matters
Post-punk is cool. Everyone agrees. Gang of Four, The Au Pairs—anything with jagged guitars and art-school angst gets the thumbs-up. The more obscure, the better. Even the unlistenable stuff Jon Savage digs up for his compilations has cultural cachet.
But one part of the post-punk era remains resolutely uncool. It’s rarely discussed, never celebrated. Not even Jon Savage will touch it.
I’m talking about the mod revival.
Which is strange, because back then, I never met anyone who called themselves post-punk. That label came later, slapped on a set of wildly different bands who didn’t think of themselves as part of a movement. But I knew plenty of people who were mods. Even in a small place like Durham, there were dozens of us. It was the biggest youth scene I ever saw—bigger than punk, bigger than metal—and the one with the longest shelf life.
Punks and metallers might still play the records, maybe wear a band tee now and then, but mods? Most of us never stopped. We might not still ride scooters or wear fishtail parkas, but the music, the clothes, the attitude—they stayed with us.
And yet, the mod revival is still doesn’t get the love it deserves from music fans.
Which is a shame, because it produced some of the best music of the era. Those bands took the sound of The Who, The Creation, The Kinks, The Small Faces—and gave it a shot of punk energy. That made sense: punk had already borrowed heavily from the original mods. The Sex Pistols covered The Who and Small Faces live. Don Letts, the coolest mad in punk, sold mod suits at Acme Attractions. The Buzzcocks looked like mods, and Why She's A Girl From The Chainstore could easily be a Purple Hearts B-side.
Two things lit the fuse: All Mod Cons by The Jam and Quadrophenia, the movie. All Mod Cons was The Jam’s first masterpiece, the clearest vision of how 60s pop could be filtered through punk and new wave to create something vital. Quadrophenia was the best coming-of-age film ever made—awkward, furious, confused—and it landed like a bomb in the imagination of every working-class kid.
Truth is, mod-influenced music had been bubbling away since punk started to deflate. But “mod revival” was a term lazy journalists used to corral a bunch of bands, some keen to jump on the bandwagon, others trying to escape it.
That’s the central tension with the mod revival: it was never just one thing. Some bands wore the badge proudly. Others recoiled from it.
To make sense of it, I’ve broken it into three waves—based entirely on when I was into them, not on any scholarly system.
- First wave: Born out of punk. The Jam, Secret Affair, Purple Hearts, Squire. A revolt into style
- Second wave: Edging into indie territory. The Prisoners, Makin’ Time, The Truth. Less likely to call themselves mods, but shaped by it.
- Third wave: Mod and Britpop start to blur. Oasis wasn’t a new thing—they were just the latest revival.
Really, the gap between the original mods and the ‘79 revival is so short that “revival” might be the wrong word. Mod has always been more than a trend. It’s an aesthetic, an attitude, a way of being. Each generation reinvents it.
This flies in the face of the English Heritage version of mod: a static scene of ageing parka wearers and scooters preserved in plastic.
For me, mod wasn’t just the music—it was the clothes. A glorious mash-up of vintage finds, tailoring, and sheer invention.
We got what we could. Mail order from the last surviving Carnaby Street boutiques—chiefly Melandi, run by two blokes called Mel and Andy.
Some was scavenged or re-purposed. A corduroy cap from an old man’s clothes shop, a vintage suit from a second hand store. Sometimes we could afford something tailored, or more likely vintage stock that was taken in. My brother worked in a clothes shop and with his wages earned from selling stone washed jeans and Podsto causals he bought some elaborate tailored hipsters. I had a brown tonic mohair suit found in a junk shop that was remade by a tailor my dad knew in Newcastle. I bought a prison issue striped shirt and I pestered my mum to sew buttons onto the collar to make a sharp stripe button down. A cream Mac in the style of Harry Palmer or Paul Weller A Paris came from an aged relative. My dad had a collection of black polo necks he used to wear to impress them ladies while driving his rover SD1 and I would steal them.
We raided Army surplus for parkas and Doc Martens, a treasured a Londsdale t-shirt from the original boxing wear shop off Carnaby street with the raised felt letters. MAIs for riding scooters on a cold day.
Loafers; tasseled or penny, with segs. Oxblood DMs shone with brown polish to give a richer colour. Elaborate cycling shoes in primary colours which today look a bit ridiculous. Jam shoes.
But above all desert boots and bowling shoes. Des boots came from army surplus in tan, bowling shoes were for dancing and going out. Chelsea boots for smart.
Phaze in Durham was upstairs from Volume Records and had all kinds of clothes mainly punk and new wave. I bought a pair of black watch tartan trousers there that I wore with a thin black sweater and I thought I looked boss. A skinny check bum freezer jacket whose checks clashed with the trousers, but I wore anyway. I also bought some black and white striped jeans there that I wore with a black polo neck and big black shoes hoping to look like I had come from Sunset Strip in 1966. I suspect I looked foolish.
Paisley shirts in headache inducing patterns. I bought a new one 10 years ago from Etro in the Quadrilatero made from 1960s dead stock fabric.
Dogs tooth suits so tight they ran the permanent risk of splitting across the crotch like PJ Proby.
A stall in the indoor market that only sold badges and sew on patches. How anyone made a living for that baffled me now, but I still can’t see a jacket without wanting to put some pins in it.
But mod wasn’t just about how you looked—it was who you were with.
The bar at the student union, the weird thrill of colonising a place as fancy as University College in Durham Castle. Bonding over vodka tonics and lager-and-lime. Trying—and failing—to explain to girls why this scene mattered so much. Why life’s frustrations suddenly made sense with the right shirt and the right tune.
Mod night at Klute, with Dominic Cummings on cloakroom duty. All-nighters at the Mayfair after the metallers cleared out. The rowing club disco, underage and carrying your prized single, hoping to bribe the DJ into slotting it between Duran and Spandau. Ripping it out of punks and goths who hadn’t seen the light.
Mod ages well. Punk doesn’t. Old punks look tragic. Goth only works if you're a willowy aesthete with knife-edge cheekbones. Rockers with t-shirts stretched over beer bellies look sad.
But old mods? Stylish. Distinguished. Timeless.
A few years back I went to a Get Carter preview at the BFI in Newcastle. Among the media types were a few heavier characters—blokes who’d hung around the Pink Flamingo in the 60s, some with scarred knuckles and hard stares. But the suits, the cut, the way they carried themselves—immaculate. You’ve seen that clip of Bill Nighy talking about how to dress? What he’s really saying is: be a mod.
So why does the mod revival get ignored?
Maybe it’s because there was no mystique. Post-punk bands vanished into legend. You never met them. You could imagine them drinking absinthe and reading Baudelaire. The reality? Probably working for DWP and living in a Barratt home.
Punk claimed to be democratic—but those who made it big legged it to LA or New York, putting oceans between themselves and the crowd that got them there.
Mod revival bands didn’t do that. They stuck around. They hung out. They were fans, not just stars. Too accessible. Too normal. None of them OD’d in hotel rooms. They just got on with it—happy, content, still obsessed.
That’s why mod stayed with people. Long after the music stopped, the scene endured. People stayed in touch, even when the scooters got sold and the parkas stashed away.
A magnificent British obsession.
And finally… the music.
The hardest part of writing this was picking the tunes, trying to trace the evolution of the mod revival through a limited number of tracks. I’ve broken them up into 3 waves, but that reflects my own dodgy memories rather than any complex musicology.
I make no apologies for picking the tracks that trigger my memories rather than trying to edit my past to appear cooler than I really am.
The first track had to be The Jam. One of the greatest bands of all time, and one of Britains greatest song writers. All Mod Cons was the album which set the mod revival alight, but Sound Effects was my favourite. Boy About Town captures the swagger of being a teenager, dressing right, and walking the city streets with your mates. That gig at Whitley Bay Ice Rink was the best I ever saw.
Squire were the first pure mod revival band with single out , Get Ready To Go. They had been going for a few years before songwriter Anthony Meynall joined them. Although they were pure mod revival they had a softer janglier sound at times which prefigured the Stone Roses, and indie.
There is a big debate about whether to include early Joe Jackson in with mod stuff. People who saw him live at the time tell me he wore parkas and stuff, and was happy to associate himself with the mods. All I know is this is a blistering track, and he was a great song writer - the first band I was ever in played “Is She Really Going Out With Him” at a Belmont School disco to great indifference.
I could have picked any number of Purple Hearts tracks. Beat That is a perfect album from start to finish. I first heard it on a ghetto blaster with terrible sound quality, but I still loved every single note. For anyone who loves music from the late 70s early 80s do yourself a favour and buy a copy if you don’t already have one.
The Lambrettas got some stick after they appeared on Top of The Pops with their cover of Poison Ivy. It was just a bit too cheesy for some. But Beat Boys In The Jet Age is really great album, and this is a superb pop tune.
Another band who weren’t quite fully aligned with the mod revival, and I can never really get my head round the lead singers mullet, but the were managed by Bruce Foxton and produced by Vic Coppersmith Heaven. New Clear Days is a joy to listen to, crisp, aggressive production, great songs, great performances.
And the final lines of this song are the perfect expression of being a teenager “I’m gonna fight wars/I’m gonna die young/So don’t keep saying like father like son/I can’t hear you”. I played it to my own kids when they were rebellious teens.
When I was writing this I asked around for people’s memories of the mod revival and this one came up, particularly among the younger mods, who too young to have seen the Jam and Secret Affair.
Talking of which… Secret Affair had their own label I-Spy which was part of Arista. When the mod revival broke they were marked out as the ones to hit the pop charts, and some of their late records sounds like they were produced for radio not for clubs. Like Polydor with The Chords Arista lost interest when the mod revival stopped being on the front pages of the music press. They made 3 albums all of which contain some great tracks. I love the video, which captures the mood of the time, the excitement. Whatever happened to the kid with the mod lip tattoo?
The Chords were championed by Paul Weller and Jimmy Pursey, Weller in particular was a fan of the songwriting of Chris Pope. They ended up signing to Polydor, which maybe didn’t do them any favours because it marked them out as the next Jam. There is no doubt that So Far Away is one of the stand out albums of the era with consistently strong song writing. Every track is essential, every note full of urgency.
Another band who were adjacent to the scene, if not always part of it. Most of their albums are full of RnB and pub rock, but Third Degree is a classic, and their appearance on the Young Ones was jaw dropping.
Part Two
As most people will know this is a very young Mike Peters, who sadly died this week. 68 Guns is a guilty pleasure of mine. I think Seventeen supported the Jam a few times, what better track to listen to on a Bank Holiday Weekend?
The Prisoners never really admitted they were mods, but there isn’t really any mod music, just music mods like. The Prisoners were an explosion, living in a time and world of their own. If they had emerged a few years later during Brit Pop they would have been massive, but because they went under the radar a bit they were able to hone their craft over a few albums, rather than a major label demanding pop hits straight from the start. Their music benefited from that time to brew.
There was a darker side to the mod revival, which involved fighting with rockers, skins and casuals. Sometimes the police. I will come back to that in another blog, but just to say the Ramones/Prisoners gig at the Mayfair was the most violent gig I have been to.
This is one of the first records ever released on Creation records, and features Alan McGee himself. Creation would of course bring out loads of records with a massive 60s influence, but who can resist a band called Biff! Bang! Pow! On Creation records?
I lost track of the number of different names Ed Ball recorded under, all of them great. This features Dan Treacey, who went onto the TV Personalities
I was really tempted by “I was a Mod Before You Were A Mod” but this is a much better tune. TVP went under the radar a bit as well, but consistently turned out great singles and albums, taking the same mix of influences as the mod revival but assembling them in different, and sometimes more interesting ways.
A great pop record, and the debut of the amazing Fay Hallam on organ. Makin’ Time and the Prisoners are part of the same Brit Pop family tree that gave us the Charlatans.
For some reason I have every single The Truth ever released. This is Dennis Greaves again from Nine Below Zero with a much more confidently mod line up. I met Dennis backstage at a miners benefit gig and was probably a bit star struck.
BSA evolved out of The Directions, and were one of the acts Paul Weller promoted as part of his Respond records label. Me and my mate Phil saw them play at Newcastle University and both had an instant crush on Julie Hadwen. I always knew deep down she would choose me over Phil given the chance.
Part Three
By the time The Boys Wonder came around I was at Uni, and didn’t see as many of my old mod mates. They had a cartoon Carnaby Street look, and were the forerunners of Brit Pop.
BritPop was so close to the mod revival that some of the songs felt like covers. Maybe if the music press hadn’t turned on the mod revival and labels had got behind it a bit more it would have had the same cultural impact as Brit Pop. Blur were photographed on scooters and featured Phil Daniels on their anthem Park Life, Oasis nicked every mod riff they could get their hands on. But talking to people around the industry some bands were more mod than others
Another band happy to be photographed with scooters, and who made some of the most mod records of Brit Pop. This is written in a syncopated 6/4 rhythm which I am still a bit suspicious about.
Corduroy evolved out of the Boys Wonder. I haven’t talked about the Acid Jazz scene, because for me it was something different, even though I saw lots of the same faces at Acid Jazz nights that I saw at mod gigs a few years earlier.
Part of the same rock family tree as Makin’ Time and The Prisoners. One of the most loved Brit Pop band among mods.
Mods, but their record label didn’t let them admit it
And it could only end with Weller again.
His first few solo albums contained some of the best song writing I have ever heard. In fact all of his solo albums.
Not all of the people who I danced with, went to gigs with, rode scooters with made it this far. By the time Stanley Road came out I reached the point in my life where I read more obituaries than wedding invites.
Post Covid my hair is a bit longer and I have a beard. Sometime during lockdown I decided to stop trying to live my life like it was 1966 or 1979 forever. Maybe I’m a bit more 1968 these days.
But the mod attitude and aesthetic will always shape my life.
Thanks to everyone who chatted with me about this article, in particular Alan May from Glory Boy Radio!