Mod Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances

*** 'Eddie was there very early doors. His story is of the many.' Paul Weller 'A total riot! Takes me right back to the 70s. A Superb book' Mani, The Stone Roses 'What a wonderful book. Mod isn't about what decade you lived in, it's about your attitude, and this book has tons of it' Kenney Jones, The Small Faces 'A charismatic storyteller, witty and unpretentious, he is at once an engaging protagonist and an indisputable authority, giving a live-wire, visceral perspective on mod life in that short flash of time. He manages to create a welcoming space in this rather exclusive world while never losing his formidable edge as a narrator' - The Big Issue 'Buy it on sight. You won't be disappointed' - Louder Than War 'Eddie's book is really good!' - Robert Elms 'Akin to being in the company of someone with plenty of entertaining tales to tell.... the comradery and spirit of like-minded souls is inspiring.' - Paul Ritchie, Shindig! Magazine WITH A FOREWORD BY PAUL WELLER This is the memoir of a teenage mod from the East End of London. A journey of discovery for a schoolboy dabbling with punk, funk, record shops, discos and clothes, and then... WHAAAM! An unstoppable wave of like-minded kids fall headlong in love with 60s mod culture, revived and reformatted for the 70s and 80s generation. Eddie Piller was one such kid. His life was changed forever. Written with humour, passion and attention to detail, CLEAN LIVING UNDER DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES is perhaps the ultimate mod memoir, taking us from meeting the Small Faces as a toddler, to the 1979 Mod revival, through the more purist 1980s mod scene and eventually to Acid Jazz. A born storyteller, Eddie takes us evocatively into a world of scooters, clothes, and music. We run with the crowd to decaying seaside towns, East End backstreet boozers and sweaty teenage gigs, all fizzing with an uncontainable excitement and often exploding into violence. Once mod touched your soul it changed the way you looked at life, unexpectedly broadening your horizons. In Eddie it awakens a can-do attitude that sees him setting up a fanzine, putting on club nights, hustling jobs in the music industry, and eventually setting up a record label. It even takes him to Ireland at the height of the troubles and to Australia where the local mods take him on a military exercise... Visceral and always entertaining, CLEAN LIVING UNDER DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES is a stand-out memoir that relives the thrill of the 70s and 80s, and the movement that helped make mod the most enduring and successful British youth culture of all time.

How to make a fairer, more just city From the grandiose histories of monumental state building projects to the minutiae of street signs and corner cafés, from the rebuilding of capital cities to the provision of the humble public toilet, Clean Living under Difficult Circumstances argues for the city as a socialist project. This essay collection spans a period from immediately before the 2008 financial crash to the year of the pandemic. Against the business-as-usual responses to both crises, Owen Hatherley outlines a vision of the city as both a venue for political debate and dispute as well as a space of everyday experience, one that we shape as much as it shapes us. Incorporated here are the genres of memoir, history, music and film criticism, as well as portraits of figures who have inspired new ways of looking at cities, such as the architect Zaha Hadid, the activist and urbanist Jane Jacobs, and thinkers such as Mark Fisher and Adam Curtis. Throughout these pieces, Hatherley argues that the only way out of our difficult circumstances is to imagine and try to construct a better modernity.

This rare collection of photographs provides a sensitive portrayal of Britain's Mod community from the past decade and a unique insight into the diversity of the contemporary Mod scene.

The sixties were possibly the greatest decade of last century – an exciting time for music and youth. No other youth culture has personified this more than the Mods, who emerged in the early years of the decade as followers of fashion and soul music and who became the style leaders for this new youth culture. This lavish pictorial history contains over 150 photographs of the original Mods, celebrating their thrilling and unique way of life.

From the grandiose histories of grand state building projects to the minutiae of street signs and corner pubs, from the rebuilding of capital cities to the provision of the humble public toilet, Clean Living in Difficult Circumstances argues for the city as a socialist project. Combining memoir, history, portraits of particular places and things, Hatherley argues for those who have tried to create and imagine a better modernity, both in terms of architecture, such as Zaha Hadid or Ian Nairn, in terms of the urban space, like Jane Jacobs or Marshall Berman, and the way we see the world more widely, like Mark Fisher or Adam Curtis. Together, these outline a vision of the city as both as a place of political argument and dispute, and as a space of everyday experience, one that we shape as much as it shapes us.

If the style appeal of Fifties Teds and Sixties hippies depends heavily upon nostalgia, Mods - always the essence of cool - looked hip from the start. Terry Rawlings' book perfectly captures the look and soul of Mod. Tracing its roots back to London's Soho of the Forties, he unearths every impulse and expression of the only surviving British youth movement that can be looked back on "without embarassment".

Mod may have been born in the ballrooms and nightclubs around London but it soon rampaged throughout the country. Young kids soon found a passion for sharp clothes, music and dancing, but for some it was pills, thrills and violence. The original Mod generation tell it exactly how it was, in their very own words. First hand accounts of the times from the people who were actually on the scene. Top faces, scooterboys, DJs, promoters and musicians build up a vivid, exciting snapshot of what it was really like to be with the in-crowd. Packed with rare pictures, ephemera, art and graphics of the era. Featuring interviews with Eddie Floyd, Martha Reeves, Ian McLagan, Chris Farlowe and many more.

Summary: "This book provides a fascinating insight to the vibrant street style of the "Sapeurs", the elegant and immaculately dressed dandies from the heart of the Congo. The Sapeurs today belong to 'Le SAPE' (Societe des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes, or the Society of Tastemakers and Elegant people) - one of the world's most exclusive clubs. Members have their own code of honour, codes of professional conduct and strict notions of morality. It is a world within a world within a city. Designer brands of suits and accessories are of the utmost importance to Sapeurs - Pierre Cardin, Roberto Cavalli, Dior, Fendi, Gaultier, Gucci, Issey Miyake, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Versace, Yohji Yamamoto - are their patron saints. Unlike some US hip-hop gangs who are dressed in similar fine threads, there is no bloodshed here - here your clothes do all the fighting for you, otherwise you are not fit to be called a Sapeur. The result is a unique and inspiring style, that has captured the imagination of people all over the world - the sapeurs are now truly the kings of elegance"-- Publisher's web site.

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2009 im Fachbereich Kulturwissenschaften - Europa, Note: 1,2, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Seminar für Volkskunde / Europäische Ethnologie), Veranstaltung: Jugendszenen als Hort der Unruhe, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Die Mod-Kultur im England der 60er Jahre gilt gemeinhein als eine der wichtigsten Keimzellen moderner Jugendkultur. Das Mod-Phänomen ist Ausdruck und zugleich ein treibender Motor der umwälzenden Kräfte, die in jener Zeit das bröckelnde Empire erschüttern. "Clean Living under difficult circumstances" - dieser Ausspruch von Peter Meaden, dem früheren Manager von The Who, bringt den Lebensstil der Mods auf den Punkt. Die Arbeit beschäftigt sich deshalb nicht nur deskriptiv, sondern vor allem in kultur- und sozialwissenschaftlicher Analyse mit der Entstehung, den Eigenarten und nicht zuletzt der Musik dieser spannenden und immer noch nachwirkenden Szene.

Welcome to the world of the sharp-suited ‘faces’. The Italianistas. The scooter-riding, all-night-dancing instigators of what became, from its myriad sources, a very British phenomenon. Mod began life as the quintessential working-class movement of a newly affluent nation – a uniquely British amalgam of American music and European fashions that mixed modern jazz with modernist design in an attempt to escape the drab conformity, snobbery and prudery of life in 1950s Britain. But what started as a popular cult became a mainstream culture, and a style became a revolution. In Mod, Richard Weight tells the story of Britain’s biggest and most influential youth cult. He charts the origins of Mod in the Soho jazz scene of the 1950s, set to the cool sounds of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. He explores Mod’s heyday in Swinging London in the mid-60s – to a new soundtrack courtesy of the Small Faces, the Who and the Kinks. He takes us to the Mod–Rocker riots at Margate and Brighton, and into the world of fashion and design dominated by Twiggy, Mary Quant and Terence Conran. But Mod did not end in the 1960s. Richard Weight not only brings us up to the cult’s revival in the late 70s – played out against its own soundtrack of Quadrophenia and the Jam – but reveals Mod to be the DNA of British youth culture, leaving its mark on glam and Northern Soul, punk and Two Tone, Britpop and rave. This is the story of Britain’s biggest and brassiest youth movement – and of its legacy. Music, film, fashion, art, architecture and design – nothing was untouched by the eclectic, frenetic, irresistible energy of Mod.