Sexy Intellectual (part of the Chrome Dreams Group)
PO Box 230, New Malden, Surrey KT3 6YY UK
B002L59RG0 $19.95 www.chromedreams.co.uk
Here in the US during the rise of The Who and other British bands, we were rather insulated from a cultural phenomenon that pervaded the UK. We were more concerned with Beatniks and hippies than with what came to be known as the Mods or the modern generation. A remarkable new DVD by Sexy Intellectual called The Who, The Mods and The Quadrophenia Connection offers a detailed history of the rise of this movement and what it meant. The Who, a band associated with the Mods, was really one that caught the coattails of this fad and road them as far as it could. According to the producers, music historians, and biographers of the era, the Mods began in the 50s with the growing popularity of jazz.
The Mods have come to represent youth rebellion among the working classes. They adopted a style of dress (usually a type of men’s suit that had personal embellishments and eventually incorporated what they called a parka, but was more of a oversized jacket of a military color and cut). Music was also a part of that culture, moving from jazz to the boogie rhythms of Georgie Fame and then to soul and R&B. This was at the point that Pete Townsend, principal songwriter and guitarist for The Who, became enamored with the movement and was actually the only true Mod among his bandmates.
The Mod movement moved through punk and was falling away by the time Townsend wrote and recorded Quadrophenia. The movie of the same name that soon followed in 1979 revived the Mod movement briefly
The Who, The Mods and The Quadrophenia Connection details all of this and much more, offering vintage concert footage and home movies of The Who as well as others in the early Mod movement. The DVD also offers reflections from people who knew the Mods and/or The Who best, including Richard Barnes who was a close friend of Pete Townsend, mod experts Paolo Hewitt and Terry Rawlins, Eddie Pillar who was a broadcaster and owner of Acid Jazz records; members of Mod revivalists The Chords and The Purple Hearts, and Alan Clayson, a The Who biographer and 1960s expert. Their insights add color and weight to what could be just a music journalist’s theory.
For those interested in The Who and this most interesting cultural period in the UK, The Who, The Mods and The Quadrophenia Connection is an intelligent documentary that never drags itself into hero worship or fandom.
