To the mods...

[d_rawk]

I, for one, happen to love shallow pop culture

[Jaimoe]

I, for one, happen to love shallow pop culture

There really wasn't much substance to the mod movement. No political agenda or purposeful youth-driven angst.

I too love the mod scene for what it was: cool fashions and some great bands, including my all-time favourite: The Who.

[TheGoodRev]

Er, if it's worth anything, I read something about The Who and their alignment with mods, whether the supposed alignment was imposed upon them or they chose to do so, I'm not sure. Roger Daltrey's pronounced stutter throughout My Generation is supposed to me either a nod or a jab at the mods, whose drug of choice was speed, causing them to stutter occasionally.

[Jaimoe]

And I can see Rog giving the mods a jab too. The Who weren't fully Townshend's band at the time of the recording of My Generation, and Roger wasn't a drug user.

Also, The Who's record company, management and perhaps the music media to some extent wanted The Who to embrace the mod scene.

[h]

hmm, so for the sake of discussion - lets explore the difference between the mod scene of drugs, friends, fashion and music to say... the jamband scene.

1, 2, 3 Discuss

[hamilton]

At least mods bathed whilst rebelling against the man, unlike some members of the jamband scene...

[SaggyBalls]

if you're looking at time period, bebop had its heyday into the mid 50's...that was the beginnings of the beat era. of course, 15 years was still fresh, but as far as the beats go the west coast 'cool' sound was a lot more beat. lent itself to poetry more.

bebop is for sure punchier and quicker...but not the same flow.

if you're not picky...'jazz' was the sountrack...

[d_rawk]

Awesome, thanks for the clarification Canned Beats.

I guess I was thinking of the music inspiring the core group in their early work, references to 'wild horns' and such in their manic pursuit of extreme experiences, etc..

As far as the soundtrack to the subsequent scene or subculture - especially the public readings and performance aspect of it all (snap snap snap) - yeah, cool jazz makes a lot of sense.

[Edited to add:]

I can't believe this thread hasn't gone down the Beats/Cassady->Merry Pranksters/Cassady->Grateful Dead route yet ...

[StoneMtn]

I think it just did ...

... and the speed-freak, Neil Cassady (who wrote at least two fairly bad books about the era; one being a diary while he was in prison) was one of the original Beatniks, who was also the driver of the Furthr bus. That, of course, was the bus that drove around the United States with Ken Kesey (author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and the Merry Pranksters, spreading the (then legal) LSD to the youth; holding the "Electric Kool Aid Acid Tests". The Dead (at that time called The Warlocks) played those "acid tests" and those were some of the first Dead shows...

How's that?

[d_rawk]

How's that?

Excellent. You da man.

`There are going to be times when we can't wait for somebody. Now you're either on the bus or off the bus. If you're on the bus, and you get left behind, then you'll find it again. If you're off the bus in the first place--then it won't make a damn.'

[bokonon]

i already knew a little about the beatniks from doing a project on ginsberg in highschool. i really love the poetry that came out of that era, and all of the prose i have read too. i just thought that the mods in england were almost the same thing, just that they were in england. but now i am starting to get a clearer picture that this is not true at all. i still think it's a bunch of people trying to form their identity around something that isn't real. i mean, you can write like a beat as much as you want but you don't have to dress that way and hang out with other beats to be able to write good poetry. it's just conforming with a group that's different from the mainstream. it's still conformity no matter how you colour it.

[d_rawk]

Hiya bok --

I know what you mean, I think. I hang out with the jamband crowd often and love the music and just about everybody in it, but feel more comfortable with new york chic than tiedye -- resulting, at times, in that feeling of being the new kid at school.

I don't think the writers of the beat generation all dressed the same (consciously, anyways. I'm not sure that they had the money or inclination to care what they were wearing) and I'm not sure it wasn't real (mythologized, certainly, but they largely lived it). I do see what you're saying about the stereotypical group of kids that developed a subculture around them ... but I still feel as stated in a post above ... it's pretty high praise, and people tend to form their identities around the things that influence them, and those identities shift in interesting ways as the influences do. *shrug*

And sometimes you just need a place to dance and blow off steam with like minded people.

Anyways, I'm gonna crawl back into lurk mode for awhile so I can get some stuff done.

[For you bokonon:]

Cassady

Dean Cody Neal

silver plate of every photgraphic memory

of long Frisco nights

swaggering home at dawn after hours of

digging mad cats blow wail bop high

on wine benny T

glazed-eyed Bodhisattvas

philosophizing about the moon

having found IT

of San Jose pulling Southern Pacific brakie jobs

broke

hopping freight trains in Nogales, Arizona

blanket 'n bottle of whiskey for warmth

wrapped shivering in miles of tracks gone by

lulled by hopeful murmurs of hobos

hitching rides in Shittown, Tennesse, Oklahoma, Utah

New York to Frisco

back an' forth

of cloudy nights in Denver

when you'd slacken your step

flick the last of your cigarette

high into the air watch it explode

scatter burning tobacco 'cross avenue asphalt

so you could see stars

i had peyotl-laced visions of you me

two northern California rancheros

milking the dusty land

wild crazy wives and beat visitors

Allen Lucien Bill

getting mad kicks digging jazz

zigzagged on the floor

i dreamt of growing old together

small hut in Mexico

composing Proustian masterpieces

times change we both know

no longer side by side you at the wheel

i'm in the backseat of your car

silent you read the road

as i watch you glide over it

and all that twisting road and rolling land

looks like a rift now

'tween two tempered seas

[For the rest -- neo-neo-mod:]

http://www.modculture.co.uk/index1.php

Nobody start a glam rock thread without me ::

[bokonon]

don't go back to lurking, your posts are interesting and fun! lurking's for squares

thanks for the poem, that's great stuff and reminds me of some great (and not so great) nights of my own.

[bokonon]

hey phishy-k, sorry for hijacking your thread!! :: :: :: :: :: ::

[PhishyK]

hey phishy-k, sorry for hijacking your thread!! :: :: :: :: :: ::

LOL! I think it's awesome, actually ;-)

hehe