Mark Rice's Blog: All Things Metallic - Posts Tagged "mods"

A few weeks ago, I received a drunken text from my friend Pete late one Saturday night. From what I could decipher, he was inviting me to see The Poets playing live. At first, I thought this must be one of Pete's magic-mushroom-induced fantasies. The Poets were a staple of the Glasgow music scene of the '60s. Their name - legend around these parts - is whispered with reverence. The local impact of The Poets was vast, yet worldwide fame eluded them. Or perhaps they eluded it: case in point - one New Year's Eve (or Hogmanay, as it's known here in Scotland) in the mid '60s, The Poets, who had a few singles under their belts by then, were invited to perform live on a nationally syndicated US TV show. This was a chance for the band to catapult itself from British fame to worldwide success. So did the intrepid Scots jump at the chance to appear on coast-to-coast US TV? No. Their reason? They didn't want to miss a Hogmanay of hard drinking in their homeland, so they boarded a plane for Scotland, leaving a host of American TV executives dumbfounded. This unflinching Scottishness endeared The Poets to their fan base at home; they were ours. Unlike other British bands The Who, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, who were willing to drop their homeland like a hot potato in order to make an impression stateside, The Poets' hearts remained rooted in Scotland. Staying in the country they loved was integral to the band's creativity, but it did limit their commercial potential. As frontman George Gallacher said, "We never made a bad artistic decision. And we never made a good business decision. But hey-ho, that's the freak beat!"

So on a rainy Saturday night in November 2011, I sat staring at my phone and thinking, Pete must be on a mind trip. It can't be The Poets. They haven't played together in over four decades. I sent Pete a text asking: (a) what psychoactive substances he had ingested in the last few hours; (b) if he was referring to The Poets of '60s legend, the same band who - despite having been and gone by the time Pete and I were born - made waves in the Glasgow music scene that continue to ripple to this day. A few minutes passed, then a buzz announced Pete's reply. Just booze! And aye, it's the same Poets. I'm friends with the singer George, who told me that the band is playing a one-off gig in Glasgow. Even before the gig was announced, all the tickets were accounted for, but I managed to wangle you one. You, me and The Poets, baby! As this sank in, I felt as if I'd been transported back in time to the '60s heyday of The Poets. Literary and music critic Brian Morton once said in a TV documentary, "Unlike all others of the 500 bands in Glasgow at the time, whom people went to dance to, one went to a Poets gig to listen." It was no accident that my friend Robert Fields - a luminary of the Scottish music scene who has been musician, promoter, DJ, manager, club owner and, most recently, author - called his book Minstrels, Poets and Vagabonds: A History of Rock Music in Glasgow. Robert makes a good case for The Poets kick-starting the Scottish rock scene with their incendiary live performances and unique singles. While reading Robert's book, I'd been overcome by a strange sense of nostalgia that predated my birth; I wished I could go back in time to witness The Poets crafting musical legend out of thin air and raw talent. Now, in 2011, that wish was about to come true.

Pete is famous infamous in the west-of-Scotland music scene for his musical talent ability to drink inhuman amounts of alcohol and still play a blinding note-perfect performance. As a child, he was classically trained in clarinet. Then he took up alto sax. Subsequent leanings into ambient electronica led to him buying synths and keyboards, and mastering those instruments with ease. By the time he reached his mid 20s, his eclectic talents had graced orchestras, jazz bands, funk bands, dance bands, rock bands and metal bands. No one from any of those musical outfits ever had anything other than praise for Pete's prodigious abilities or his lovability as a human being. In the music business, that's rare indeed. When the aforementioned Robert Fields was managing a funk-metal band called Dr Pop (with whom Pete was sax player), he organised a gig for the band at London's world-famous Marquee club. Much to Robert's dismay, Pete was nowhere to be found while the rest of the band soundchecked. Moments before Dr Pop hit the stage for their main performance, in staggered Pete...drunker than Keith Richards on a whisky-tasting holiday. Robert erupted. This was the band's biggest gig to date, and the brass section was bladdered! Nonetheless, Pete strapped on his sax, weaved his way onto the stage, propped himself up against an amp, then blew everyone's minds with a barnstorming performance. Having heard the Robert Fields version of events, I asked Pete for his side of the story. He explained, "The other cats in the band warmed up by soundchecking. I warmed up by drinking twelve pints in the pub next door. Same goal, different methods of getting there!" A few months later, during a gig at Bell College, a seriously inebriated Pete spotted me in the front row of the audience. To any other sax player, jumping off a six-foot stage into the crowd while playing a solo might not seem like a wise idea. Not Pete, though. With a short run-up, he launched himself off the front of the stage, pedalling his legs through the air as he descended towards me. He landed bang on target, knocking me (and several others) over like skittles. Somehow, Pete managed not to drop a note. After that night (and a ban from playing Bell College ever again), Pete vowed never to perform drunk, a vow that went on to prove true the words of Scotland's best-known poet, Robert Burns, who quarter of a millennium earlier wrote, 'The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.'

I became increasingly excited at the prospect of seeing The Poets. The night before the gig, Pete sent me an e-mail which said, "It might be a good idea to tone down your metalness tomorrow. There will be mods present." Mods? Rockers' old rivals? I didn't think they still existed; hadn't seen one in years. When I was growing up, the rivalry between mods and rockers was brutal. Unlike current-day musical battles, in which tweeted attacks float back and forth in the safety of a virtual environment, mods and rockers used to whack each other over the heads with very real lumps of wood (affectionately known in Scotland as chibs). While the much-publicised rivalry between snot-nosed punks and metalheads was essentially a media-constructed fiction, the animosity between mods and metallists was real, visceral and emotionally charged. Punk and metal were brothers from the same tribe, but mods were the invading enemy who came to burn down our homes and desecrate our families. While queuing outside the Glasgow Apollo for my first Iron Maiden gig, aged 11, I witnessed two mods riding Lambretta scooters down the road next to the venue. When the scooters stopped at a red light, the crowd of denim-and-leather-clad Maiden fans surged into the road, beating the mods to a pulp and stamping their bikes into scrap metal. This was a traumatic event to witness as an eleven-year-old, but it was a lesson; I learned that mods and rockers were enemies. I hadn't the first clue why we couldn't get along, but I decided it would be pragmatic to accept this as fact. In the years that followed, I had to run for my life several times when chased by gangs of weapon-wielding mods in my native East Kilbride. As I grew larger, hairier and stronger, the urge to run from marauding mods faded. I was ready to stand my ground in order to defend my heavy metal faith. Side by side with my fearless compadre DT (whose fighting skills were pure art), I fought many a battle. That, however, is another story...

In the '80s, attending a mod gig dressed in metal garb would guarantee you - at the very least - a serious kicking. But The Poets were around long before the term mod was applied to music. True, The Poets' fashion sensibilities and musical style influenced the mod movement, but the band's active years were earlier, during the era of free love and psychedelic drugs for all. Would this loophole guarantee a metallist an easy ride at a 2011 Poets gig? Would it be peace and love or chibs at dawn? There was only one way to find out!

Pete and I agreed to meet in his favourite Glasgow pub on gig night. I ignored his advice about demetallising myself for the event. Instead, as an anthropological experiment, I went metalled up to the hilt: trusty old motorcycle boots, oil-stained jeans, Judas Priest British Steel belt buckle, metal T-shirt and battle-scarred 20-year-old biker jacket. When I walked into the pub, Pete shook his head. "Holy shit," he quipped, "so much for going incognito. You might as well have worn your horned Viking helmet, bullet belt and Blackie Lawless's buzz-saw codpiece." Smiling, I replied, "I would have, but those items could be construed as offensive weapons, and I don't want to miss the gig due to being arrested and flung in a cell for the night." Pete's expression turned serious. "George is a legend," he grunted. "Do not disrespect him by turning his gig into a bar-room brawl." I replied, "Relax, Pete. Fighting's the last thing on my mind. Even when we were in our teens, I never started fights." Glowering, Pete said, "You never started fights, but you finished them. We'll have none o' that behaviour tonight, no matter what!" Enjoying my friend's discomfort, I posed the hypothetical question, "What if I'm attacked by a group o' feral mods intent on ripping me to pieces? You can't expect me not to lay them oot!" Exasperated, Pete spat, "No fighting, I said! If anything kicks off, get oot o' there. Don't disrespect George. This night's aboot peace and love, cat."

As we left the pub, the night's perpetual rain intensified into a deluge that was wild even by Scottish standards. I broke into a run, hoping to avoid a total drenching. The inebriated Pete staggered along at my back, flinging curses at the apocalyptic weather. We soon arrived at the venue, a cafe-bar called Stereo in Glasgow's Renfield Lane. Stereo is housed in a building designed by the city's most famous architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. On a sunny day, I'd have stood outside to admire the structure's telltale Mackintosh lines and aesthetics. Not on this night, though. Eager to escape the wind-driven rain that whipped our faces and soaked our clothes, Pete and I rushed inside. To my surprise, the concert wasn't taking place on the ground floor or a higher one, but three floors below street level, in a subterranean concrete cavern. Strange silvery pipes snaked illogical paths up the walls and through holes in the ceiling, imbuing the cubic cave with a '60s-sci-fi-movie ambience. And yes, there were mods. Everywhere. A wall-to-wall modfest. The males weren't the parka-wearing, Lambretta-riding mods I remembered from my childhood, the vicious bastards with whom I had many a scrap; these were the original mods, dressed in sharp suits, ties and pointed-toed winklepicker shoes. Their haircuts and sideburns were also of the '60s: a mass of straight lines and right angles. From a geometric perspective, I found these odd beings impressive. Not nearly as impressive as the mod women, though. Pete and I stood amid a sea of modelesque modettes in mini-dresses and knee-length boots. Most of them wore their hair in shoulder-length bobs, but some had opted for the summer-of-love style of a waist-length mane adorned by flowers or esoteric jewellery. Perhaps most surprisingly of all, every single one had pert breasts, whether 18 or 70. I turned to Pete and asked, "Have you noticed that every woman in here, regardless of age, has perky tits?" My friend smiled at me and replied, "Actually, I had noticed that. Amazing, eh?" Mirroring his smile, I observed, "At metal gigs, titties come in all shapes and sizes, some boldly defying gravity while others point groundwards like the Hindenburg on the cover of Led Zeppelin's debut album. But these cheeky mod breasts in here refuse to even acknowledge gravity's existence. What do you think's going on there?" Pete scratched his chin, affecting a pose like Rodin's Thinker. After a pregnant pause, he replied, "I reckon it's a special mod bra. These bras must reorganise their contents into a very specific configuration. What we see before us are the fruits of these bras' efforts." Unconvinced by Pete's explanation, I put forward an alternative theory. "I don't buy your bra story. I think there's some kind of mod magic at work. That might sound crazy, but you can't rule it impossible. I mean, think about the myriad ways that music can affect people: it can radically alter mood; a single melody can cause an instantaneous flashback to a time and place decades past; music can inspire; it can annihilate inhibitions; as you know, certain sounds and frequencies - known as the Sounds of Power - can levitate physical objects, neutralising the effect of gravity. The ancient Egyptians knew this. Some folk think these Sounds of Power were used to move the pyramids' massive stone blocks into position with absolute precision. So, I ask you, is it outwith the realms of possibility that mod bands rediscovered these Sounds of Power and incorporated them into their music? Modettes have soaked up these magical sounds and, as a result, have spectacularly perky paps which are oblivious to gravity." Shaking his head, Pete asked, "How is it possible that I'm the drunk one and you're stone-cold sober, yet you came up with that preposterous theory? Maybe you should seek funding to research the subject. You could write a book on it! Mod Women and Their Perky Tits: A Scientific Study."

The violence that had been deemed a possibility never kicked off. Quite the opposite, in fact. A couple of sharp-suited mods, after giving me the once-over, smiled and patted my shoulders, an action which I interpreted as, we respect you for opening your mind and coming here to enjoy a different sonic brew. Several other male mods nodded at me, indicating their approval.

When The Poets hit the stage, the modettes began to dance, swirling and gyrating, lost in waves of psychedelic sound. As the women moved, their hair captured variegated colours from overhead stage lights. Mod magic. One wild-haired comely blonde rubbed her mini-skirted bottom against my thigh. I noticed that her hair smelled like salt 'n' vinegar crisps (make that 'chips' if you're American). Not only did she look delicious, she smelled it too! More mod magic. I wrote off the brushing of beautiful buttocks against oil-stained thigh as an accident of dance, and so did nothing to dissuade the salty-scented goddess from continuing her hypnotic movements. She pirouetted and leapt, tossing her hair as she glided through the air, a perfect fusion of athleticism and joy. Then she floated backwards once again and - very deliberately this time - rubbed her posterior up and down my leg. I glanced over at Pete, whose eyes widened upon seeing what was happening. The dancer became more brazen, grinding her bottom into my crotch. In the interests of peace, love and mod/metal relations, I didn't object. Pete's eyes, meanwhile, looked ready to pop out of his head. After a couple of minutes, the modette moved away and resumed her delicate balletic movements. I flashed a smile at Pete. "Don't flatter yourself," he shouted into my ear. "She probably had an itchy arse and - since you're the roughest-lookin' thing in here - decided to scratch it on you." We both laughed so hard that tears rolled down our cheeks. While The Poets scorched through all their singles, B-sides and a couple of cover versions, the blonde minx alternated between flamelike ballet movements in open space and animalistic grinding against me. Each time she drew close, a waft of salt 'n' vinegar infiltrated my nostrils. It had been nearly twelve hours since I'd eaten, so my hunger grew with every sniff. A well-fed me might have given the flirtatious ballerina's bottom the attention it seemed to be craving, but the ravenous me wanted only to devour the biggest bag of salt 'n' vinegar crisps in the known Universe. At the gig's end, as a courtesy (it would have been rude not to), I gave the modette's bottom a single smack, after which Pete and I ascended from the depths and popped out onto the rainy streets of Glasgow. I drove us at breakneck speed a law-abiding velocity to a 24-hour Asda supermarket, where we stocked up on snacks before heading back to my house to feast.

It was an honour to witness The Poets playing live. George Gallacher and Fraser Watson were as energetic onstage as they had been in their '60s heyday. The aura of peace and love in that dark subterranean cavern was truly special. And - contrary to all my expectations - I had felt like a warmly welcomed part of a scene that once bred rockers' enemies. If you're unfamiliar with the violent rivalry between UK mods and rockers in the '70s and '80s, check out the movie Quadrophenia, which is a pretty accurate representation of that time. I'm happy to announce that those times are past. My anthropological experiment revealed that mods and rockers can co-exist in the spirit of peace, love, mutual respect and mini-skirted ballerina seductresses with hair that smells like snacks.

And guess what? Since that Poets gig, my tits have never been perkier!