I grew up in a town, in the mid 1980′s, where you either had to be a “mod” or a “rocker”. I look back on my town now and wonder how stunted the development of its young actually was in the 1980′s when a conflict from the 1960′s was the be all and end all for the lads growing up.
Being a bit of a geek, and following an illuminating trip to Dublin where my cousin introduced me to The Cure and The Smiths, the whole mods versus rockers thing didn’t take my fancy at all – particularly as I had friends in both camps.
My musical taste did take a step backwards, but only a few years, when in 1988 New Order released a remix of “Blue Monday”.
This led me to Joy Division, and the Substance compilation, also released in 1988. I remember particularly a family trip to England with my new (yellow) Sony Walkman where I listened to Joy Division on the ferry on the way over, and Disintegration from The Cure on the way back.
Yes, I see some of you now are seeing where I get my moody disposition from. But honestly, I was a happy teenager, mostly.
Very bizarrely, in the last 2 weeks, two different tv programmes I’ve been watching have both featured the very same Joy Division track that I became familiar with from that 1988 Substance album – namely Atmosphere.
The first was during a scene in the new series, The Trip (not recommended). It’s played as the two main characters (Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon) are driving through the north of England.
The second was in the UK tv series Misfits (highly recommended – The Inbetweeners meets Heros). This was in episode 2 of season 1 (reviewed here).
Both times the music was perfect for the onscreen action and events.
Atmosphere, according to this Wikipedia entry was deemed “the greatest song of the millennium by listeners of John Peel’s Radio 1 programme”. Huge praise indeed!
You can listen to the track here from Youtube. It seems to be associated with some sort of 2012 “end of world” predictions thing – so ignore that and just close your eyes and listen.
ValueIreland Blog Posts
}
3 Comments
Mark
Ah memories.
It wasn’t really based on the ’60′s Mods and Rockers thing, the Mod side was influenced mostly by the Mod revival of the eighties (think of The Jam, and in Ireland, the mighty Blades), and the British Ska scene (Madness, Specials etc.), and punk and new wave, while the so-called Rocker side was actually composed of Heavy Metal fans (Sabbath, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden et al.), “Greasers” we called them. Remember?
I was big into the mod fashion for a while, still love the style, never cared much for the music (I was more of a US Punk/Hardcore fan at the time). Actually I never cared much for religious wars over musical genres (so serious at the time, that’s cliquey teenagers for you), if it sounded good I grabbed it no matter where it came from. Funnily enough I think that was common, I don’t think we were as stunted as you make out. I recall Mods head banging to Black Betty in the Town Hall and the Smiths/Cure/Joy Division and all that later “indie” stuff (not to mention grunge) were way more popular than mods and metallers. Mods and metallers just stood out because they were so visible in their dress code.
I had kind of grown out of the Smiths by the time I was fifteen and didn’t really warm to Joy Division ’til my late twenties. They’re a bit hyped in my opinion (Hannett made them) although Atmosphere is a classic that I can’t listen to anymore because of the shivers it sends down my spine.
Great site by the way, I’ve been following for years. You were two years behind me at school.
11 Jan
valueireland
Thanks for the comment Mark, and the compliment about the site.
I remember Greasers now, yes.
I’m not sure, though, that you’re being fair saying that I was describing the cliques back then as stunted. I was really only trying to point out, what I consider now looking back, to be pretty strange reasons for sides to be taken.
I do take your point though on the different origins for what effectively still was the same split in affiliations.
All though, as you say, down to cliquey teenagers.
11 Jan
valueireland
Comment e-mailed in by VI reader –
I was a ‘Curehead’ myself and still love them – thanks for sharing, makes a change from the dry business stuff – I stand co-accused of the latter!
17 Jan
Leave a Comment