Mods and Rockers

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This article is about 1960s British youth subcultures. For the film festival see Mods & Rockers Film Festival
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The Mods and Rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the early-mid 1960s.

Gangs of mods and rockers fighting in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youths, and the two groups were seen as folk devils. The rockers adopted a macho biker gang image, wearing clothes such as black leather jackets. The mods adopted a pose of scooter-driving sophistication, wearing suits and other cleancut outfits. By late 1966, the two subcultures had faded from public view and media attention turned to two new emerging youth subcultures - the hippies and the skinheads.

Contents

[edit] Conflict

Rockers, wearing leather jackets and riding heavy motorcycles, poured scorn on the mods, who wore suits and rode scooters. The rockers considered mods to be weedy, effeminate snobs. Mods saw rockers as out of touch, oafish and grubby. Mods were usually city dwellers, whereas rockers tended to be more rural. Mods sometimes held down office jobs, whereas rockers were often manual workers (although there were many exceptions in both groups). Musically, there was not much common ground. On the one hand, rockers listened to 1950s rock and roll, mostly by white American artists such as Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. On the other hand, mods generally favoured 1960s rhythm and blues, soul and ska by black American and Jamaican musicians, although many of them also liked British R&B/beat groups such as The Who, The Small Faces and The Yardbirds. Fights occurred where territories overlapped or rival factions happened upon each other. Mods sometimes sewed fish hooks into the backs of their lapels to shred the fingers of assailants. Weapons were often in evidence; coshes and flick knives being favoured.

[edit] First Blood (Easter 1964)

The conflict came to a head at Clacton during the Easter weekend of 1964. [1]

[edit] Second Battle of Hastings (1964)

Round two took place on the south coast of England, where Londoners head for seaside resorts on Bank Holidays. Over the Whitsun weekend (17-18 May 1964), thousands of mods descended upon Margate, Broadstairs and Brighton to find that an inordinately large number of rockers had made the same holiday plans. Within a short time, marauding gangs of mods and rockers were openly fighting, often using pieces of deckchairs. The worst violence was at Brighton, where fights lasted two days and moved along the coast to Hastings and back; hence the Second Battle of Hastings tag. A small number of rockers were isolated on Brighton beach where they – despite being protected by police – were overwhelmed and assaulted by mods. Eventually calm was restored and a judge levied heavy fines, describing those arrested as Sawdust Caesars.[2]

[edit] References in Popular Culture

  • The 1979 film Quadrophenia, based on the 1973 album of the same name by The Who, commemorated the Mod subculture and its clashes with Rockers. The album and film are considered by many to be the authoritative historical fiction documents on the subject of Mods and Rockers.
  • The conflict between mods and rockers was the butt of a joke in The Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night. At a press conference, a reporter asks Ringo Starr, "Are you a mod or a rocker?", to which he replies, "No, I'm a mocker."[3]
  • The 1981 song "Rumble In Brighton" by rockabilly band Stray Cats was inspired by the mods/rockers conflict.
  • The American Cinematheque's Mods & Rockers Film Festival in Hollywood — presented annually since 1999 — took its name from the expression mods and rockers, but uses the term in a far broader sense than the common definition. A few of the movies it shows are specifically about the mods and rockers era and feature some aspects of the tribal culture. However, most of the films are included in the festival for being either "mod" (as in modern) or "rockers" (as in featuring rock music.)[4]
  • The mods and rockers conflict was cast into a near-future setting in the graphic novel The Originals, by Dave Gibbons. In the comic, the mods were represented by the Originals, who rode hovering scooters, and the rockers were represented by the Dirt, who rode hovering motorcycles. Gibbons was a mod in his youth, perhaps leading to the less than flattering name given to the rockers.
  • British comedy The Mighty Boosh makes reference to the character of Vince Noir being a mod, particularly in series one episode Jungle, which also mentions another character, Tommy, as being a rocker who journeys down to Brighton on weekends and headbutts mods off their scooters.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ http://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/page_id__8300_path__0p116p167p.aspx
  2. ^ BBC - h2g2 - Mods - 1960's Fun Lovin' Criminals - A707627
  3. ^ the59club.com - Mockers
  4. ^ Mods & Rockers

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Mods
1960s - Blowup - Casuals - United Kingdom - Lambretta - Pete Meaden - Mods & Rockers - Pop art - Quadrophenia (film) - Roundel - Scooter - Scooterboy - Sharpies - Skinhead - Suedehead - Swinging London - Speed (drug) - Twisted Wheel - Union Jack - Youth subculture - Vespa
Music
2 Tone - Acid Jazz - Beat music - Blue-eyed soul - Blue Beat - British Invasion - Britpop - Freakbeat - Garage rock - Jazz - Mod revival - Modern soul - Motown - Northern Soul - Power Pop - Psychedelic rock - Reggae - R&B - Rocksteady - Soul - Ska - Stax Records - Trojan Records
Clothing
Ben Sherman - Bespoke tailoring - Brogues - Carnaby Street - Chelsea boot - Fishtail parka - Fred Perry - Harrington - Levi's - Loafers - Parka - Sta-Prest - Suit