I’m not a nostalgic person but the publication of Enamel Verguren’s I’m Not Like Everybody Else: The 1990s British Mod Scene (Mod Chronicles Vol. 2) has had me riding the Lambretta down memory lane. Flicking through its pages brings back clubs, people, places and events to mind the brain had long filed away. It’s quite something to see a huge slice of one’s life documented in a book: there are references to four clubs I either ran or co-ran; a picture of my fanzine; a flyer for the band I was in; some random quotes from me shooting my gob off in the distant past; and a photograph of a fresh-faced chap pouting in a photo booth. It didn’t feel any of that would be worthy of inclusion in a book fifteen/twenty years later but it is and I’m quietly pleased.

This is the follow-up to This Is A Modern World: The 1980s London Mod Scene (Mod Chronicles Vol. 1) and continues with the jumbled design of press cuttings, photographs, new interviews, old quotes, author’s comment and hundreds of flyers. I’d hoped for a revamp as it is a bit messy and in need of a good tailor but the ethos here is to cram as much in as possible. In that respect, it certainly achieves its aim.

It’s interesting to compare the 80s scene in Vol. 1 to the 90s scene here. They were very different beasts indeed. The 80s was a purist, traditionalist, insular, This Is A Mod Scene For Mod People Only affair. It drew inspiration directly from the original mods and with a few minor alterations and improvements copied the interests, dances, music and clothes. Look at photographs of clubs in the 60s and the 80s and you’ll see, perhaps surprisingly, a smarter turnout in the 80s. As Rob Messer with some justifiable arrogance says, 'What we did was to take the best of the 60s and create our style from the smartest details; we were in a way better than them'. By contrast the 90s was more varied, keener to experiment, more outward looking and eventually A Mod Scene Open For All Comers. Verguren highlights the differences but the reasons it aren’t fully explored. Much of it I’d put down to numbers. It’s difficult to comprehend nowadays how many mods there were in the mid 80s. You’d have pockets of the little bleeders in every town, in every school, and Carnaby Street was awash with them every Saturday.

Paul 'Smiler' Anderson is quoted throughout and he identifies a weekend in February 1986 that he claims for him and others rang the death knoll for that period: Essex band The Scene played their farewell gig in Tufnell Park on the Saturday and Shepherd's Bush club Sneakers closed the following night. I was at The Scene gig but don’t recall any sense of impending doom and I only ever went to Sneakers once or twice so that didn’t bother me. However, being a Virgo and a lover of lists I kept a note of all the gigs I went to; whereas there were two or three a month during 1985 they completely dried up in 1986. For me, the 80s scene ended in September when I saw Makin' Time for the last time (at the Oval Cricketers) and went to the farewell Prisoners gig at the 100 Club. Terry Rawlings and Verguren make the point the scene collapsed without its bands and I'd fully concur. Looking at my gig list after that and the next few include Curtis Mayfield, James Brown and a hokey version of The Drifters, so you can see what direction this mod was heading. There was no symbolic riding the scooter off Beachy Head (didn’t have one then), just a gradual easing away and delving deeper into northern soul, rare groove and, via the James Taylor Quartet, jazz.

The JTQ were extremely influential for a while (bands, you see) and their early period is covered here; although like most subjects only in the briefest of ways. With their Prisoners connection and a ramping up of the Hammond it opened up the road for a more thorough investigation into jazz. Mods in theory liked jazz anyway but it never felt high up the list when compared to soul and R&B. Now it had its moment in the sun and like its band of followers got dressed up in new togs. It got a new name, Acid Jazz, and we got a new wardrobe: early Duffer of St George, Gucci loafers (or copies in my case), Gabicci, Roberto Carlos knitwear, white Levis. It's good to see the article from The Face (1991) reprinted here, as it seemed like vindication at the time and nowadays I’m struck by what a strong look it was. We read The Face then and this was an I-told-you-so moment. But was it 'mod'? I don’t think so. It didn’t feel like it to me, it felt like something new. And was going to see Five Thirty, The Revs and the Manics during the same year mod? Definitely not, but things were already becoming blurred and as the decade progressed finding that defining line would became harder.

Take for example the Melody Maker Touched By The Hand Of Mod cover feature from 1994 (included here). I was in Brighton the weekend before those photographs were taken and was asked to come along for the shoot. 'Wear a suit or something smart, dress up' they said. I didn’t go. For a start although I was going to gigs, clubs and doing the fanzine, I didn’t see myself as a mod by then, presumably they did, and secondly I didn’t even own a suit. Like many others I was now more into the 60s and garage scenes (instigated for me by The Stairs) and thought I’d look out of place pictured with a bunch of mods. My mind of what such a being looked like was still clad in mohair and Small Faces' cast offs. On publication my first reaction was what a bunch of scruffs. Only a couple of them looked any good (to my mind) and one of those was Sean from The Mystreated who was way too psychedelic for old style modernists. And the issue included desperate bands like Thurman and Mantaray looking for any audience they could find off the back of Blur's take on mod. But that's how it was. Attendances at clubs and rallies would increase but the percentage of died-in-the-wool, traditional mods on the mod scene was decreasing and continue to do so. And things were about to get a whole lot worse with the appearance of halfwits Menswear muddying the already dirty water. An extract from my protest letter to Melody Maker made the next week's issue. From memory it read something like: 'The much maligned word mod has enough problems without seeing the word Menswear near it'. Disgusted of Uxbridge seemingly unaware of the irony of such a missive.

So, you'd have mod clubs attended by people who didn't see themselves as mods, and non-mod clubs attended by people who either were, or looked like they were mods. All rather confusing but not much of a big deal and the atmosphere was positive. To Verguren's credit he includes places like Frat Shack which weren't mod but were brilliant nights. The majority of people I knew didn’t think of themselves as any handily named 'tribe'. We all looked similar but it was a later 60s look than the mod one. It wasn’t too psychedelic, it wasn’t too hippyish, it was just a more '66/early '67 look. These people 'wouldn’t have been allowed into Sneakers' say Smiler. And neither would they have wanted to be.

Some had come from a mod background yet others had come via the indie scene. I never had much time for Blow Up but there’s no denying the club's influence. They weren’t the only ones to mix indie and new guitar bands with 60s tunes but its success in Camden and the rise of Britpop were inextricably linked and their template copied throughout the country drawing a new generation to modish 60s sounds and fashions. And whilst it was a brief fashion for some, others are still around thanks to that summer of '95.

It was this openness that sustained a dwindling scene at either end of the 90s with the major mod promoters quick to encourage those on the fringes into the fold. Rob Bailey of The New Untouchables attracts criticism of widening the scene but even before he split from the original Untouchables organisation they were actively encouraging people from other 60s scenes to their rallies. There are other implied allegations towards Bailey in this book and, love him or loathe him, he is arguably the person who's strived hardest to keep the scene alive. Whether that has been to the lasting betterment or detriment is a matter of opinion. He either wasn’t given the chance to provide his views here or he declined to get involved (unlikely for a promoter), but his absence is glaring and disappointing when striving to provide a complete picture of the times.

That leads to my main criticism of the book (and it's not a massive one): it's all a bit skimmed over and although much is touched upon it is far too fleeting and any relevance or importance missed by an uninformed reader. There's little discussion about why things changed and developed the way they did. And at what point did the scene have to compromise its ideals to survive? Or did it even need to?

Come the 21st Century and the scene would be stretched so far and into such uncomfortable areas a snap was inevitable. Heavy rock, freakier sounds, charmless Euro-psych and outlandish dress all contributed to a messy fallout which would see the arrival of clubs like The Hideaway as a consequence with a return to mod. In effect, the whole thing would go full circle.

I've jabbered on now for far too long. For those still reading or those who've jumped to the last paragraph, is the book worth buying? If you went to any mod related night during the 90s, then absolutely. The clubs you remember and the ones you've forgotten are mentioned somewhere and the memories will come flooding back. It's like the scrapbook you never kept. And that's the best way to look at it rather than expect pages of detailed text. Just the impressive haul of flyers alone makes it a valuable historical document. If you weren't there, or are looking for a thorough account of the whys and wherefores of how the scene changed, then it is lacking in places. But that’s me being fussy. It's like getting a new suit and not being entirely satisfied with the slant of the pockets: it'll do but you'll never shake that nagging irritation of how it’s not perfect. And that is mod.

Mark Raison (courtesy of Monkey Picks)

The book retails for £17 including postage and packing and you can buy it from the author via this page on the eBay website

(First reviewed on 4th March 2010)