Buzz Buzz with the Fuzz

Lee Harris remembers …

Well I was 27 when the 'mods' came, which was for the mods by 20 you were already too old, it was such a teenage cult and I do not know how I came in touch, I went first to the West End and I was aware at the scene clubs, a whole dance thing, a lot like the Ecstasy generation later.
So you suddenly saw an entirely different audience now?
Yes because what happened suddenly all these, and the age was like 15 to 17, with short hair and the Parkers, a whole lot of young kids, the girls had their hair short and looked like the boys, unisex, the first of the unisex things, and these clubs. A friend of mine ran a club called the Seam club, which Ronin Rahealey ran then, who had another club, Wardour Street and Hen Yard, Wardour Street they had the Flamingo. So already by the early sixties there was the beginnings of this whole new scene, which was the R n B, and the beginning everybody started at these clubs, so Lionel Blake ran the Scene Club, was the principal bouncer, he was later to go to Wormwood scrubs for running a disorderly house when people dropped their pep pills. And that was caused through me, and I will tell you what happened.
So you saw this new scene developing?
I saw this new scene developing, I had left drama school, I had done a bit of acting and I had started writing.
Right, you were living in the West End?
I was living in Earls Court, and I had become a night bird, I would sort of come into the West End at ten at night and leave at five, and sleep during the morning. I mean I was exploring these areas. So suddenly I came to this mod scene, and saw Wardour Street two-three o clock in the morning, hundreds of thousands of kids, and they were drifting into the dives, where in Wardour Muse, which is where the 2/3 famous dives were. And I noticed that they were all chewing gum and big dilated pupils, and started finding out and it was six pence a purple heart, that some of these kids were taking 80 or 90 a weekend, and having amphetamine psychosis, and brilliant dancing, because amphetamine is a perfect stimulant if you want to dance all night. And the clubs would end at five o clock in the evening, and these kids would have nowhere to go, all stoned out of their heads, and the dealers on Wardour Street, were young kids and other people, and also 'pills paradise' was up the road in Goodge Street with Greeks who were selling, and it was a huge big scene. And they were all going in the morning to the seaside, you'd see great gatherings at Waterloo, Liverpool Street, because nobody knew where to go, they all came from Illford and the suburbs, and suddenly huge amounts would end up at the seaside, which was the beginning of the mods and rockers thing. S o it was directly influenced from the amphetamine scene. So that was going quite nicely, and then I bumped into a boy there who was having horrors and bad scenes, and I went to his home and met his father, and he was badly addicted, and I was taping him. How I came to tape him is another story. 63 when this was happening it was the time of Christine Kealer and the Profumo. Now at that time I started smoking cannabis too. I will tell you the story too, because suddenly the Eldorado in Westbourne Grove, Kealer opened up first the cannabis thing, because she used to score the cannabis from in Westbourne Park road, the Eldorado Cafe because that had opened. I suddenly realised that we're in a vast big scene, why I was in the West End, because I was meeting the prostitutes who were involved in the Kealer case, that went to listen to the case, as I had so much free time I would go and queue in Marylebone to listen to Keeler. But this guy Terry Housego and I started smoking cannabis then, but I will tell you, called his MP, who was Ben Parkin, in Paddington, and we thought he said look, Ben Parkin had just made his name exposing Rachmanism, who became very famous because he was the first MP who brought Rachman's activities to parliament, which was an extension of Kealee, so then Parkin said to me, look I do not know anything about pep pills and drugs, there was an interview, I will raise questions in the Houses of Parliament, and then anyone who wants to know, I will give them your telephone number, because I was telling him what this boy's on, this kid's taking 90 pills, this boy his father had.
Is there something you thought was genuinely a problem?
I saw, I'd seen this boy who was having psychosis and going paranoid, kids were starting to get paranoiac, and seeing mice and spiders on the wall, and I suppose I was still an innocent and I was, I do not think I had started cannabis. I was a moralist, a friend of mine said to me, a psychotherapist who was sitting with Ronnie Laing, Sid Briskin said, because I had met Ronnie Laing then too, who had written his book, he said but you are a moralist. Ben Parkin MP brought up the first pep pill things in parliament. I got a call from Anne Sharpley who was a top investigative reporter on the Evening Standard, and did the royal tours and was a Beaverbrook protege, and I became a great friend of hers, and mentioned on her Desert Island Disks at that time 'needles and pins', but she said would you like to show me around the West End, so she was a tall lovely lady, and I said you can not come like that, come looking like this and I am going to take you on a tour of the dives. And I also had, which I had written as a prototype for my plays, a guy I met in 62/63, Johnny Colfer, who is an Irish guy, who not only smoked but was a heroin addict, not a heroin addict then, but was a pep pill addict, he'd take about 80/90 pep pills over the weekend, and chew his teeth, and talk, and when he talked he had a golden gift of the gab. I taped him, I got the tapes now on comedowns and his whole life, on pep pills. I've used them for a abortive book I wrote at the time called 'Living for Kicks', on youth cults, which Panther nearly published, but it was a hotch-botch of a book and liable reasons. but through him, so I introduced Anne Sharpley to him, and he was bubbling and we did a magnificent tour of Wardour Street late at night, where she went outside all the clubs and saw these thousands of young people, and saw the dealers passing the pills, and we went to the dives and that Monday was the heading of the front page of the Evening Standard, beginning of 1964, with a hand with pep pills, 'I See Soho's Pep Pill Craze', and it was the biggest story of the whole week, because the Queen Mothers' operation was the second. So by the Tuesday she had written the story of Johnny Colfer, the boy living on pep pills, the small sad world of, and pills paradise, and blew it open. But that Monday night the West End was deserted, there was not a sixteen year old, though the cops were not busy Monday, Tuesday. Suddenly there were questions in parliament the thousands of pounds the Evening Standard paid for the investigation, which of course I was given free meals and about fifty pounds for. But of course from then onwards I was rung up by Michael Hamlyn of the Sunday Times.
Oh were you in this article?
No, I was the stringer.
Didn't think so?
Yeah because I did not take any drugs, I mean I was a pure moralist, exposing, I was one of the biggest exposes of the time in the press.
That's quite ironic really considering the sort of career path you went to afterwards?
I was implementation, if you see the 1964 Misuse of Drugs Act, I actually when it hit me later and I looked at the Act and I thought 'Oh God I was one of the most important pinnacle in helping to bring forth that which rebounded on my friends.' So there was a terrific hue and cry, it was like the first big drug...Before that when I went with Terry Housego, this guy, to the Hews of the World offices, to see a journalist there, Derek, and look at their cuttings library, he said no, no, we're not interested in a story on mods and pep pills he said because look at the cuttings file, come with me, the only people who take pep pills are housewives in the Rhonda Valley, which the cutting were at that early stage, there weren't any youth associated with pep pills, Because it was not a craze, it all came from Welling Garden City 'Welcome' in Essex, a big factory was stolen, I do not know who was making a fortune.
Well it was a craze apparent?
Yes, it was coming.
The big criminal gains that were letting it happen?
Yes, but suddenly once I had exposed them, in that whole week, and I did quickly take down to the dives all sorts of.
It's probably just as well your name wasn't in the paper?
Exactly, except in the South African papers, I gave an interview that I had questions raised in the Houses of Parliament, I'd seen these kids in terrible, I was like equivalent to a Christian crusader. Though I also was interested in the underground dives, I suppose too, because I was sexually turned on by some of the people there, and had some erotic experiences, which were low life. I suppose coming from this pure prim background I needed to rebel in every way possible, so I suppose it would be inevitable, I decided I did not like pep pills myself, but I loved the dancing in the mod clubs and I loved the R&B and when you went down to the dives in Wardour Muse late at night at that period, it was the best period for dancing you ever saw, by the lesbians, fish dancing and of course all the R&B, all the Otis Redding, My Guy and all that bring memories of me of that period all night, the most primitive, erotic dancing. it was at night in these clubs would come out all these transvestites, all dressed up, and the knives and the lunatics, and everybody. The whole idea of these dives to seven in the morning was you'd dance, and the music, because R&B was in its heyday. what happened in these clubs with the music and these pills, was that all these groups started and I remember going at five o clock one evening to my friend, Lionel ran the Scene Club, to watch the. I forget the name now, who did 'Soot Zoot Suit' and 'I am a Mod' and later the Who, the High Nights with Peter Medin, and I went to the first ever performance at five o clock with our man doing Pete Townsend and his guitar, they had just come, they were going to play there, I mean I met Brian Jones there who is a friend of Lionel Blake, I would go to Brian Jones' flat.
Is this Lionel Blake still around?
I have not seen him in years, he was a South African and a bouncer, but I'll tell you through Lionel I met Paul who big groups who played there, and Georgie Fame, I'd go with him, but I ended up doing him harm. The outcome of my hue and cry in the press which I did took ground, different journalists dressed up to show them, it was a big thing then it spread everywhere, is that the clubs were raided. And a lot of police, and people dropped their pills and my friend Lionel was done for running a disorderly house and got twelve months in prison for it. And I went to visit him and gave an 'affidavit', and I felt terribly ashamed that in my zeal I had caused a bit of trouble for people and destroyed a lot of fun and but I do know that there was a lot of dangerous things going on, but people were young, people were having the horrors, but I was aware that as long as it kept down in the underground, or undergrowth it was all right. But suddenly it was all these ordinary young working class and middle class kids, and at twenty they were too old to be mods, it was essentially a youth thing.
You began to talk about Christine Keeler, the Eldorado, and cannabis, just tell me that?
That was among my spring of journalism and my low life thing, which I have tapes, which I'd showed to Dr. Eustace Chesser in his Harley Street rooms. My other interests besides, I suddenly got obsessive about drugs, because I did not know, but the other thing was sex. So the Keeler thing encompassed both. So I'd read a quote from Roger Gelbert in the New Statesmen on a play he'd written that 'male and female are beach heads of the vast unexplored territory.' So I had a big old grundig in 63 and I lived in Bayswater, and I decided because of the Keeler business, and because I met Julie Gulliver who was the last girlfriend of Steven ward, and I knew some of the prostitutes who had been involved in the Keeler thing. And I lived almost in the area. I went and did three interviews with prostitutes. one was a call-girl who lived in Chelsea Cloisters, and I talked to her in between clients, who would come to her room and cry, and tell her that they were sick of being an accountant, they lived with their mother, and one was a lesbian, who had been beaten in torture chambers, who had been abused terribly as a child and sold her virginity four or five times and had lesbian relationships. And the third one was a street girl from the Chinese street, Chinatown, Gerrard Street, who went with the Chinese waiters and 'Duhai' means business in Chinese, 'come to my loom', and take all her expenses off the Chinese waiters. She was a girl who had been abused by her parents in Cardiff, and the father had gone to prison for sleeping with her for five years. I had this extraordinary low life things which I was going to call 'Living for Kicks'. I was going to write my Genet type work, I would be the man who has seen the low life, of seedy London. And I could open the doors to people who did not know of this life for various reasons. So the Kealer thing was the first coming in the open of cannabis, because we were then aware and also the most important thing because of the Keeler thing and all that, in the mod clubs was coming the first use of 'spliff', of 'draw', because many of the mods liked the West Indian culture. I used to know mods who would shave their hair off and wear berets and talk with west Indian accents. So that was the first, besides pep pills, there was a big coming together of weed, draw, there's a whole lot of names.
Why you seem to be saying something, the expose of Keeler and all that had something to do with the growth of the use of cannabis?
Might well have done, the connection, the whole of 63 was Scandal 63, who is the man in the mask, who wore no clothes? Christine Keeler used to go off from Stephen Wards trial in the case and smoke cannabis, or sleeping and smoking cannabis with the Minister of War I think and the Russian Defence attaché and John Edgecombe. The whole Keeler thing broke of course because of this West Indian, John Edgecombe, who I have met through Howard Marks, who was Christine Keeler's boyfriend who used to score at the Eldorado and smoke, And then he got angry and jealous and other things of the news at Baker Street and came there with a gun, and got shot - he got seven years for that - but that opened all the rest of Stephen Wards thing, I mean that was the beginning of it which unleashed and of course Keeler and Mandy Rice Davis were involved with Rachmanism. And Rachman lived in the Grove. Also at that time I became interested in Rachmanism because of my other reporting things in 64 was exposing the housing conditions of the West Indian immigrants, the Irish people and Rachman were shoving them, whole families into one room at a high price, with one toilet, there were whole estates, I remember before the 63 elections.
Did the smoking cannabis bit around Keeler, did that get publicity as well at that time?
I think there was.
Was that part of the scandal?
Well I would have to research it, but it did, the Edgecombe and Lucky Gordon are still around the Grove. The cannabis thing was very big first among the West Indian community, in the dives with white women who went with them, but it was not open to a general public, because there were lots of people in the early sixties it was starting to go.
Why it drifted at that point? You think it's 63, you began to see these kids who were either used to chew pills and were now smoking dope or had been doing both?
Yes, what happened I can explain it from my own experiences. I was 27. Two things, I first wanted to smoke cannabis, and I had some middle class friends and some gay friends doing it who lived in Holland Park, and oh I must try this and I came with my big Grundig tape recorder and it was 63 and I was going to record the experience and it was a great disappointment, not only didn't I get high, but all I got were these two Jewish girls giggling in a corner who were rather droll. It was very disappointing because I what I would capture on tape was an amazing drug experience of cannabis people are talking about which I wanted to try. Only a little later in the West End in Oxford Street did I meet one of the Irish, because throughout 63 I also hung around in an all night dive in Queensway, and I met this Irish labourer guy also hanged around the West End, and this guy said 'would you like a spliff?' Now he rolled it up two o clock in the morning in Oxford Street, we walked along and we smoked it. And for the first time I suppose I got high on it. Now what you did then was you stayed up all night at the club, the big thing is the West Indians were becoming very big on the mod scene, and the saying was 'nice, man, nice' if you were stoned. So I think with the mods and the pep pills was the beginning for me and lots of people of coming into contact with grass or weed.
Because the mods began to get into black music?
Yes, and all the Otis. And suddenly there was all the West Indian culture, it was part. By the early sixties, 63, there was a beginning of a cannabis culture, which was very linked I suppose more with the mod culture and with the West End and the artists, art students, and the people who went to some coffee bars.
So how is it regarded again, it does not seem to me from a historical view, well it was no part of my life, but it still was not anything political or anything like that around at that time. That's from a later period, it began to get associated with the anti-war movement, students and all that?
Very non-political.
So this was just another way to get smashed basically at that time?
Yes, it was a way of getting high and throughout the mid-sixties of course, also what happened another thing in 63, besides the Keeler thing, I come back to because that was the liberating thing of the sixties. Because soon after that came a Carnaby Street, a 'swinging London'. So I am forgetting that the mod period was also 'I was Lord Kitcheners Vallet', the wearing of the uniforms, and the coming of Mick Jagger and The Beatles in 63. So how much was Keeler, how mush was The Beatles is hard to say but I mean 63 I often think was a defining moment - 67 was the next and a great defining moment for youth culture - in fact almost as big as 67 because it was the coming of the whole British - it happened here rather than in America, like 67 was with the Stones and The Beatles and The Yard Birds and Georgie Fame and all those and they were playing live at the clubs where the kids were. so it was a tremendous, though I was much older, the participant observer, I was fascinated because this was the first. the Elvis Presley in 57 was all right but it was not linked with any drug thing, with alcohol might be.
So how did things develop for you and your involvement in the scene, okay we are into the mid-sixties, you wrote this play didn't you?
Yes well I ended up in 64 writing a play, a one act play called 'Buzz Buzz' and the mods and pep pills with some of the tapes and with the lovely lingo 'watcha watcha Sammy Lee', 'How's it?'. What I met in the West End was what I call the mod cons - a group of five/six really nice guys, who were kids, who were hustlers, or they were on the street, the 'kicksters' I called them. They were the first kids I met who were living for kicks, that would outwit everyone, making life hustle, dealing drugs, had a marvellous lingo, the first sort of, I got a play 'Love Play' and Love Play is written in hippie language. 'I cut out, did you?', 'I split the scene, did you?' So in the early part the rhythmic speech.
Have you still got a copy of this?
I've got copies I'll show you. Buzz Buzz won me an Arts Council and the Star Certificate in Taunby Hall, National Association Youth and Jewish Drama Festival won star certificate. it was the first time, because it was ideal at youth clubs, I had sixteen/seventeen year olds to play the mods. So I wrote this play, and then I went, I'd had enough of the West End or because it's like a vice, in 64 I went to the docks and I caught a ship and went for four and a half months to Australia.


This is a part of an interview of Lee Harris – done by Harry Shapiro in 1998. No mistakes were corrected … the interview can be found in its entirety here : http://www.leeharris.co.uk/LeeHarris/History/ShapiroInterview.htm ... well, remember - just say NO !

Various pictures by Terry Spencer

Photographer Terrence Spencer worked for Life Magazine photographing youth culture during the 1960s.

1964 'Mods' on scooters, Upper Richmond Road

For a serious 'mod' in the Sixties, the must-have fashion accessory was the scooter. The models to own were the Italian-made Vespa or Lambretta. This photo was taken in a year that saw running battles between mods and rockers. Many of these occurred in seaside towns near London such as Clacton, Margate and Brighton. Terry Spencer photographed this group of mods as they turned from Upper Richmond Road.



1965 Mods' try on Beatle boots at Annello and David, Drury Lane

n the 1960s, Anello & Davide designed a boot for pop group The Beatles. The 'Beatle Boot', with its Cuban heel and distinct style, became a fashion icon of the time. Queues of mods formed outside the Drury Lane shop to buy the essential footwear. Anello and Davide's reputation for high-quality handmade Italian shoes was already strong. Many of their designs were theatrical, including Dorothy's red slippers from The Wizard of Oz.



1969 'Mods', Borehamwood

In the North London suburb of Borehamwood, this gang of youths display the latest 'mod' style. The mod culture demanded that fashions constantly changed, so successive age groups developed their own look that differed from the early 1960s original. These youths have moved into the direction of 'hard mods', who rejected the finery of other mods and the hippies. The photo hints at Black style influences as well as the developing skinhead trend, particularly with the cropped hairstyles of both the girls and boys. There were distinct variations in dress between mods from different areas of London.



all photographs © Terrence Spencer

(source museum of London)

Hard Nut Mods (Jamie Rave speaks Charlie Steel a mod from Pimlico, thanx to Uppers.org and the old police cells museum)

The Sawdust Caesar's of 1964

Jamie Rave has a chat with Charlie Steel, a mod from Pimlico who was present at some of the festivities that fateful weekend
It’s the time of the season when a lot of young citizens thoughts turn to weekends away in the company of their mates, impressing each other with their gleaming Italian chariots, strutting about in peacock suits, looking for a suitably adorned partner to pussyfoot with and take in a change of scenery. These days the occasions are usually termed "Mod rallies" and are held in many countries throughout the appropriate seasons, from Germany to Sweden, France to England, Australia to Japan. Veritable cultural exchanges that owe very little to the original weekend excursions of yesteryear that gave us the term "Sawdust Caesar’s".

I wish it could be 1964 again...
Rallies! A quaint word that evokes images of jump-suited, turbo-charged nutters flying around a forest in Finland. Except the sort of rallies I’m thinking of usually consist of some young hipsters congregating in a seaside town showing off their blue mohair threads and occasionally dancing to a mooonster Mod sound in one of the specially-selected-for-their-Mod-friendly-bouncer type clubs.

Apparently our history lesson begins in 1964. Although the term ‘rallies’ was not heard of then (and the lucky sods didn’t have to put up with the word ‘retro’ either) large groups of youths made their way to resorts like Brighton, Hastings, Margate and Clacton. All snooty little seaside towns with a rabid judiciary and an endless supply of reasons to endorse euthanasia.

Convoys of Lambrettas, Vespas, Triumphs and assorted oily motorcycles scuttled their way to the coast with the intentions of having an ice cream and to make a sandcastle, sorry; to pose, dance, take a few pills and hopefully get laid. Oh, yeah, and apparently have a bit of aggro!



It’s better by ‘bretta
In 1964 a £20 down-payment meant you could drive away a new Vespa or Lambretta. With a kickstart that didn’t break your leg, minimum grease, a polish of those smooth lines and your hipsters stayed as crisp and your DB’s as clean as when picked out of the wardrobe. Besides the sensible extras for your scooter like luggage racks and panniers the Mods found they could also act as an extension of their peacock nature by decking them out in fog-lamps, Jaguar mascots, pennants, all-sorts of chrome accessories, and, quite befitting for the Mods vanity obsessed mind, their reflection in a dozen mirrors.

These elegantly contoured Italian stallions got you out of Hicksville and into the land of bright lights, coffee bars, and girlfriends. Not to mention the coast and it’s piers, crashing seas and salty seafront parades. They weren’t fast, but bloody nippy for the city, and whilst go-faster goodies were available, the Mods preferred their speed in the form of Drinamyl and Purple Hearts.

The quiffed and the coiffed
Legend has it that Mod types set about leather clad motorcyclists and kicked the dinner out of them (and vice versa) in between enjoying a frothy coffee and the odd dance on the pier. These gatherings of the quiffed and coiffed resulted in plenty of overtime for the police and casualty departments not to mention a promising career in fiction for the flock of journalists - who were often not even present - who managed to create a whole new meaning to the term "weekend breaks". Mods may have been the epitome of style and cool and having a nice bookshelf is one thing, but you had to be able to throw a punch.

"Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone" said some long haired hippy type. He must have said it on Brighton beach in 1964 ‘cos the pebbles were certainly flying that day!

I spoke to a sensible chap who was present at some of the festivities that fateful weekend. Charlie Steel, a Mod from Pimlico, who’s now something of a south coast property developer, and asked him to recall a few of the more light-hearted recreational activities they engaged in whilst on a weekend away.

"Well yeah, we were up for adapting the rockers wardrobe and often made them wear deckchairs, when you managed to grab hold of one another fave was checking if his leather jacket was waterproof - while he’s still in it - all that was par for the course, tit for tat like, they’d kick us, we’d return the favour, oh yeah, we didn’t bung him in the sea, there’s enough effluent bobbing up and down our coastline, once we came across some hiding in the aquarium and as it was way past the sharks feeding time..., well, being animal lovers we obliged."



So the media was right, it was just a gang of thugs popping down the coast on a weekend for a mass fight? "I was joking Mr Rave. That stuff did happen, but I was interested in more than chasing some greaser about. Of course aggro kicked off, we weren’t going to turn our backs on somebody having a pop at us. Aggro plays a major part of life for kids then as now, but we were older, the main point of going away was to have a chuckle with your mates, we never dreamed that when we went to the seaside we’d end up decking rockers and getting charged by the police, the whole thing was sent way out of control by the press. For us it was just a weekend away from London, actually some of the south coast disco’s were really good."

So how did the idea of groups of Mods going away for a weekend come about? "As far as me and my mates were concerned, we used this old boy barbers in Wardour Street, Antonio’s; he knew his way round a head of hair, and we got what we wanted, which was quite an achievement then, 5 bob for a smart French crew, incidentally, at the same time, my bird was paying 25 bob for a cut at Vidal Sassoon, as he’d take the money off you he’d look you in the eye and say "anyting fora de weekend sir?" We just laughed and occasionally had some johnnies off him, even though he was a catholic he did his bit to stop unwanted pregnancies! Then in the cafe’s... actually, I think the first time we really discussed it was in Heaven and Hell, in Old Compton Street -they did the best cappuccino there- it was like, yeah that’s a great idea, why don’t we pissoff for the weekend? Head for the coast on our scooters, catch a last bit of summer sun, and maybe get rid of some of these bloody johnnies we’d accumulated from Antonio."

So with all the newspaper stories and the general mood of the public towards Mods, didn’t you have a problem finding somewhere to stay for the weekend? "Not at all, this was September ‘63, nobody, least of all us, had an inkling of what was to come. And Danny Golding had an aunt who ran a B&B in Brighton, in the beginning there were a few others besides our crew, just 6 of us were going down, then it grew and come our first weekend there about 20 ended up going, all on scooters, some of the lads took their birds, we couldn’t all stay at Danny’s aunt’s place, she sorted them with a rooming house further up the coast road near Hove."

"It was in ‘64 that loads of day-tripper Mods started to arrive, and those that stayed over usually ended up on a beach."

So what was the catalyst that tempted kids to visit the seaside en masse? London sounds as though it was a pure buzz at that time, with stuff happening all over club, gig, clothes and Mod wise, wasn’t it difficult to tear yourself away from that for a weekend in the country? "Why not take a break to the seaside, a break from those hectic weekends at home? Loads of people did it, our parents did it, when we were old enough to go on our own we did.. We ate whelks and ice-cream and pissed about on the pier. It was a different buzz to the smoke. To be honest we downed so many pills and were full on so often that going away was a welcome break, not that I want to sound old before my time. Even getting there was a chuckle.

We saw rockers there that first weekend, but apart from a few sneers and the occasional banter it was nothing, we were busy poncing about on the beach, the sound of the waves rolling up and the taste, the smell of that salt air filling your lungs, lovely! It was the first time most of us had done anything like that since we were kids, and then it was with our parents, now we could do what we wanted, go where we wanted, and have it all on our own terms.

It was real easy to pull down there, we knew all the latest sounds from the Scene, Discotheque, Last Chance, the local Mods thought we were well way out, which, compared to them I suppose we were. Some of their crew were well handy in a ruck, their club was called the Brighton Scooters."



So tell us something about your mates, we get the impression there were ‘gangs’ of Mods in different areas. "Yeah, that’s true, there were the Ealing, the Croydon, the Stamford Hill, the Ilford, the Tottenham, get the picture? Every area of London had a crew, there were the Cockney Scooter Club, who were from all over East London and Essex and even a few lads from Lambeth sided with them and a crew called the Streatham Scooters, some of them got on, some of them didn’t, I was from Pimlico, but my stomping ground was around Soho, my firm were from all over, I suppose our allegiances were a bit difficult to define, like, our lads may live in Chelsea, Brixton, Leyton or wherever but our work and main club haunts were Soho so that’s where our allegiances lay.

We were up for aggro, it wasn’t the prime mover in our lives, but we got a lot of grief and you had to make a stand. Pete and Ade ended up with The Firm, a group of hard-nut Mods who rarely paid when they went out, but that was to ponced up west end clubs. They started in the days of the Flamingo, they’d do stuff like take all the chairs and tables from the front of a cafe in Soho when they left, just put them in the back of a van! Then when they did a bit of vandalism it was quite arty, like cementing a Hoover to a bath, or burning down the Speakeasy, you had to understand how it worked, like, all the posers who went to that place really pissed us off, so they got some petrol, added calcium carbide, which when you throw it on water forms acetylene, that was great, watching the posers coming out, tears streaming, watching the fire engines, the police, The Firm thought the prices were bad. I must admit, I fancied myself as a bit of a gangster but luckily didn’t get that involved in it, when we were out and about, only a few times at the coast, and we got involved in aggro with some rockers, we were quite vicious, make no mistake, the lines were drawn, them and us you know, it became kind of like of a war, only for a while."

These weekends away became notorious, could you explain for the novice, what happened? "Well, in the space of 6 months of our first scooter trips to Brighton came that Easter weekend, the one where it all went off in Clacton, we were in Brighton at the time, but then surprisingly it didn’t really happen like they said it did, some mates of ours went there, and a lot of others besides, but we’d already booked up with Danny’s aunt and she’d arranged the Hove B&B so we didn’t want to piss her about you know? It was funny how it went, although there would be Mods at most of the coastal towns on a holiday weekend, it was kind of organised in word-of-mouth way, you just knew where everyone was going, I was going steady at the time and, a few of us who were that touch older, decided to miss Clacton. On the Monday we saw the papers, it was mainly about Clacton, where some of our firm had gone, the Daily Mirror had this "Wild ones invade seaside town" headline, comparing it to that Brando movie in which some outlaw bikers take over a town for the weekend. Something that I remember well was how Danny flew into a rage about that headline, he was really pissed off that Mods were being called "Wild Ones", I mean it was alright for the rockers, but how demeaning, comparing us to some poxy scruff.

Somehow all the hysteria was like the Twilight Zone, quite unreal you know? It was the coldest Easter weekend in Clacton since 1884, when we spoke to Stevie, Sawn-off and Mitch afterwards they told us how there were hardly any holidaymakers there, the shops shut early, Stevie, Johnny, and a load of other Mods from London got kicked out of a cafe and had a punch-up with some rockers, who were locals, some kids jumped the turnstile to get on the pier for free, so here was the town refusing to serve food or drink to anyone over 14 or under 25, what do you do when you’re cold and hungry? Hit back! That was it really, then the Monday papers carried the story of riots between Mods and rockers, some of the Cockney scooter club left on the Sunday and word had already spread around the street and it was on the news, so come Monday loads of Mods and rockers from all over went to Clacton, not us though!"

I told Charlie of some of my own research I’d done via archives. I found a piece in a Clacton paper where a council spokesman estimated damage at £500, ten times less than many newspapers were reporting, and he added the press had grossly exaggerated the whole incident and "there was nothing like gang warfare - Clacton was not ransacked". I asked him what he felt when hearing something like that. "Well, I saw a lot of crap in the papers, just like now, they don’t always print the truth, which isn’t surprising. I suppose that hearing something like that now, 33 years after the event, makes me a bit angry. I mean the whole history of Mod was changed after that, life was still good but we had a lot more crap to put up with."

So the aggro that came out of those coastal excursions, it was a real negative thing for Mod? "Definitely, the publicity was very much a defining moment, all of a sudden the beach fights and the crap that started to spring up around Carnaby Street started to drag the Mod thing down, there we were surrounded by a lot of pratts jumping up and down in tacky clothes shouting out they were Mods, they didn’t know anything about the Mod ethos, they just bought some clothes and got a haircut, it was fashionable, much the same way you must feel about it now, I understand all things Mod have become somewhat fashionable again. Although it was still exciting for years after that, the boundaries were blurred, Mod became fairly mainstream, the media and business started to dictate what they wanted to market as Mod, luckily there were still enough creative kids on the edge, not going with the flow, you saw that a couple of years later in bands like The Eyes with their purple parkas and The Creation, what they were doing, playing with pop-art imagery, wearing lary clothes and making feedback, was not at all new, they just played with it in different ways, it was progression and they exaggerated the thing. But I did used to wander how much more creative energy the Mod thing could have produced if it wasn’t tarnished with the fighting." The damage was done. The media expected and desired violence at Bank holidays. At the next Bank holiday, Margate, the police used dogs and horses to keep the Mods and rockers moving up and down the beach.

Mod Squad to the coppers: Didn’t work did it copper?

That Clacton weekend saw 44 arrests, 37 of whom were accused of using threatening words and behaviour, a catch-all the police use when they pick someone out of a crowd, and only one with assault. Yeah, like Mods really committed offences against the law of the land.

Mod Squad to the media: What pitched battle Mr Editor?

That same weekend cars killed 90 people, caused grievous bodily harm to 400 others. Without taking into account the medical or personal loss, the damage to cars and property was over £100,000. It received a helluva lot less coverage than a few kids breaking windows and being violent to deckchairs. The Daily Mirrors reporter was not even in Clacton on that Sunday, Wax lyrical Mr Reporter.

Coppers & Media to the Mod Squad: "What disparity in your treatment Mr Mod?"

So what was important to you at that time Charlie? "Most important to me was my mates, being Mod was important to me. We had a crew, all the stuff we did together, the clubs, the whole scene, the music, the R&B, the soul and some of the jazz, it was real exciting, I’m starting to remember that! We’d spend money on gear and having a real good time out, buying the latest records, even the occasional book! When this stuff with the coast runs started being purely an excuse for a punch-up we let it go. I also really enjoyed the scooters, I wasn’t averse to Vespa or Lambretta, I liked ‘em both, I guess I had my last bike the longest, that was an SX200 with a Supertune set-up, but before I didn’t hang on to them for more than a few months, we’d swap ‘em or trade ‘em in, once I had a GS with coppered panels and all the foglamps were yellowed out, like on the continent, no other accessories on that one, no mirrors, when the panels started going green I swapped it for a GT, that was all mirrored up, but I think Vespa’s looked better with all the accessories, Lambrettas looked better with just a few pieces on.

They were well handy for buzzing around the west end on, gadding about to the clubs and coffee bars, but there were real problems with them getting nicked, some people seemed to spend their waking hours stealing and selling scooters."

If you weren’t going to the coast for a weekend, what clubs did you visit, how did you get your pills and stuff? "London and clubland, most of us popped a few pills, you could get pills nearly anywhere, from people on the street, in the cafes you’d buy a cup of tea either ’with or without’, you’d get some hemp from the spades in Tiles or wherever. It was easy to get hold of drugs, and being Mods, we took loads of them, there wasn’t even a drug squad around until 1967. Sometimes we’d even be checking out the birds!

Saturday morning we’d mosey on down to Carnaby Street or Portobello, The Scene was supposed to shut at 3 on Sunday morning, it didn’t always, if it did we hopped it to the Flamingo or Discotheque and come chuck out time it was off to get a fresh shirt in Petticoat Lane, intersperse that with a bit of pie and mash and the occasional dolly bird and bob’s your uncle. D’you get the picture?"

I reckon I do Charlie. I thanked Charlie for his time and he went off to his quite luxurious house in Hastings.

© Jamie Rave 1997 - 2007

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additional pictures from 18 may 1964 :

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London : Max The Mod

I was born in 1947 in London and Moved to Atlanta, Georgia, USA in 1976. I spent several years of my miss-spent youth hanging around pubs and clubs and got to see some of the greatest performers of all time. I played professionally during 1966 and early 1967 before starting a real career in Advertising for a decent wage of £10 a week! Max The Mod


It all started on December 21, 1963. I went to St. Mary's ballroom in Putney to see the Rolling Stones.

I distinctly remember the Detours as the support band and being amazed at how loud they played! John and Pete were both playing Epiphone guitars, and Roger played some harmonica.

Pete had a tab collar that went right up to his chin. They played an opening and a closing set. This was a double event for me since not only did I become initiated to new music, I also saw Mods for the first time! During 1964 I heard reports of The Who and saw the Marquee posters across London, but never ventured to see them until late March 1965. I was totally in awe as I recognized three players immediately. I saw the band on nine occasions during the course of the year. I hope my personal experience helps you relive the most important period of the band, "The Who London 1965."


THE MOD YEARS


As far as the British Public were concerned there was no such thing as "mod" until the Easter of 1964. A major riot in the south coast resort town of Clacton announced the arrival of a new cult.

Nobody can pinpoint the arrival of the first mods since, for the most part they were invisible other than to themselves however the first so called "modernists" had appeared by 1962.

The abolishment of National Service (conscription) and a low school leaving age contributed to the rapid growth of the youth market in post war England. This new youth society produced young wage earners who were able for the first time to get rid of their parent's influence and create a whole new scene for themselves.

Mod has always been considered more of a lifestyle than a clothes fashion but the wardrobe was essential. The early mods sought out and wore the sort of clean looking fashions that were more popular in Europe. We are talking "mens wear" here since "mod" was primarily a male cult. Suits made from mohair and Italian knotted silk ties were items "de rigeur" and the clothing was often so finely tailored that outsiders were unable to recognise the subtleness. This in itself was a subversity and allowed mods to flourish in the mainstream and work normal office jobs unlike the punks and new romantics of recent years.

All cults have leaders and followers and mod was no exception, there were Faces and Tickets. The Faces were the originators of the fashion styles and the Tickets were followers who ended up wearing the accepted uniform of mod, i.e. Parka coats, mod hats, Fred Perry shirts etc.

Unlike their teenage counterparts, mods were not interested in the new "Merseybeat" music from Liverpool. Mods were interested in contemporary dance music from the U.S.A. such as soul and Motown with a touch of blue beat or ska. There were specialist shops and stalls in the street markets that catered to this new music market.

An automobile was out of reach for most British teenagers in the early 1960's.The generally accepted method of transportation was the motor scooter as it was (and still is) practical and affordable to get around London, which was the Mod mecca. In the early 1960's the pubs would close at 11pm, public transportation shut down and there was not much to do. There were however, a few mod hangouts and "all-nighter" clubs. Scooter transportation helped the mods get around with "speed" being provided chemically by "Purple Hearts"and "French Blues".

These were the mods that invaded Clacton in 1964. These were the Vespa driving, pill popping horders that became to be recognised as "the mods" when in fact they were no more than soldiers in uniform rather than the "faces" who had set the styles. In the Who's Quadraphonia, Jimmy is a journeyman mod. In another era he could have just as easily been a high street Punk or a New Romantic.




THE MARQUEE

In 1965, the Marquee Club was the premier venue in London. Music was featured up to seven nights a week, and there were occasional afternoon sessions on Saturdays. There were normally two bands playing per night and each played two 45-minute sets.

I saw The Who on six occasions during the year, including November and December dates. On these latter dates, The Who played a one-hour set. The procedure went something like this: The support band played a 45 minute set and the headliners played their first set, whereupon the support band went in for their final set, followed by the headliners again. Everything was usually over around 11:00pm, in time to catch the last bus home! The Marquee Club was not "licensed" which meant that alcoholic refreshment had to be obtained in-between sets. I used to go the "Ship" just up the street and Roger and Keith were regulars!

On one occasion in April 1965 there was a taping for a radio Luxembourg radio show. I'd seen several of these tapings before and the featured band normally "mimed"to music. You can rest assured that this was not going to happen at The Who's session. In fact, they never even played "I Can't Explain" during the month of April as they probably wanted to appear as "purists" to their peers in London. I remember hearing a playback of "Daddy Rolling Stone" at the taping which was yet unreleased.

The support bands tended to vary, but often it was the "Mark Leeman Five" and on one occasion it was "Jimmy James and the Vagabonds" who joined The Who on stage for an encore of "Please Please Please".

I distinctly remember the occasion when Pete first used his VOX A.C.100 on stage. It literally self-destructed during the second number and real ozone started to smoke from the back. Pete nonchalantly disconnected the head and chucked the smoking missile in the direction of the band room and proceeded to set up his old stack while the rest of the band kept playing. In keeping with tradition, the show must go on!

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The Clacton Giggle

Where to go for a giggle? In the teen joints of Soho, the word went out: make it Clacton. Like a flock of noisy starlings, more than 1,000 youths buzzed into the dismal North Sea resort for Britain's four-day Easter holiday. The weather was foul—and so, Clactonians decided, were their visitors. Most of the invaders "slept rough" on the beach, warmed only by their "birds" (girl friends) and quantities of "purple hearts" (goofballs). Inevitably, the giggling had to stop, for Clacton's invaders belonged to London's two hostile teen cults: the "Mods" (for Moderns), foppishly dressed youths who drive souped-up, chrome-plated scooters; and the "Rockers," who wear black boots, black leather jackets, drive powerful motorcycles, and scorn the Mods as "queer." The rumble erupted on the second day.

Roving mobs of cold, bored teenagers swarmed over Clacton's pier, smashing windows, overturning cars, stealing liquor. Pistol in hand, one youth used a big storefront window for target practice. When a local type admonished the rioters, he was tossed over a 20-ft. bridge. Clacton police called for reinforcements from a neighboring town, fought pitched battles with the teenagers, many of whom were armed with ax handles and furniture legs. Finally the bobbies restored order: over 60 youths were arrested on charges ranging from burglary to assault.

Wild Ones. The Clacton riot climaxed a longtime rivalry between the sartorially splendid Mods and the hot-rodding Rockers. One British sociologist claims that their hostility is based on class. The Mods are artisans and office workers, he claims, and look down on the Rockers, who tend to be scruffy worker types. As a London Mod explains the feud, "The Rockers are just interested in their cycles. This isolates them. Mods are more aware, fast moving, hip. With us, it's like a club. If you wear the right clothes, you're accepted."

The Rockers have no desire to be accepted. At truck stops outside London, they sit by the hour rolling cigarettes and jabbering intently about motorcycles. Only when a covey of new cyclists roars into the parking lot do they look up to see "who's got a new bike." Though they all look like Marlon Brando in The Wild One, they worry about their reputation as troublemakers, claim gravely: "That film did us a lot of harm." The Rockers do not conceal their disdain for the Mods. "The money we spend tripping around and going places, they spend on clothes," sniffs one. For a Rocker, clothes are strictly functional. "People don't seem to realize that a leather jacket is the warmest thing to wear when riding."

A Mod, by contrast, would rather go naked than don a leather jacket. Mod styles tend toward pastels and velvet, collarless polo shirts with horizontal stripes, and ankle-high "plimsoles" (sneakers) with thick white rubber soles. Mod girls wear no jewelry and no makeup save brown eye shadow and false eyelashes. Hairdos are short; flat shoes are In. Skirts vary from ankle-length to midcalf.
The fashion Mecca for Mods is Soho's Carnaby Street, where a string of shops offers pink denim shirts, crimson leather vests and blazing red tartan pants for ultra-slicks. Most of the shops are owned by a young entrepreneur named John Stephen, who has wholeheartedly embraced Detroit's idea of planned obsolescence. Pants are pegged one month, bell-bottomed the next. "To the person who keeps up," says one of Stephen's clerks, "style can change every week. But some suits are in style for months."

Top Faces. London's top Mod hangout is an ill-lit, black-walled club called The Scene, which boasts 7,000 members; at least 600 can be found dancing there to phonograph music every night. Mods change dances even faster than they change trouser-widths. The "Shake" and the "Bird" are both passe, and only the Rockers would be caught doing the Twist. The current dance craze is some thing called the "Face Twist," which has a tricky hand and heel movement that resembles a cross between a hula dance and a High Noon gun draw. While the Mods are still loyal to the Beatles, they have resurrected Bill Haley, one of the originators of rock 'n' roll, as their idol. "The pop papers said that Bill Haley would never come back," says one Mod. "It just proves they were wrong."

Modland's heroes are called "faces."

Top faces right now are Patrick Kerr and Theresa Confrey, a young couple that demonstrates new dances on a popular TV record show, Ready, Steady, Go. When they got married last month, Patrick, ever aware of his sartorial responsibilities, wore a curly-brimmed grey bowler, velvet-collared thigh-length jacket and a grey velvet waistcoat. The bride wore a "skinny strapless evening gown." "We don't really like to fight," explained one Mod after the Clacton giggle. "Our clothes cost too much."

Source : Time US 10th April 1964

MANCHESTER : THE TWISTED WHEEL - Roger Eagle - the godfather of British soul (thanx to Paul Welsby and The New Breed)

Roger later found fame running Eric's club in Liverpool in the days of the city's post-punk explosion, and later helped numerous Manchester musicians on their way (Mick Hucknall being but one). Over the years he developed a more eclectic taste in music but Roger never lost enthusiasm for his first love, Black American music from the 50s and 60s.

The New Breed carried out this interview at Roger's home in North Wales in February 1999 and because of his poor health, decided to conduct the interview in stages over a period of time. This is a complete transcript of the first interview, because sadly we didn't make a second as Roger's health progressively worsened over the months. This is Roger Eagle's last interview. At the time we never expected it to be a Tribute.



TNB : When and how did you first become interested in Soul and R&B music?

RE : Well I was originally a Rock'n'Roll kid until I heard Ray Charles. The 'In Person' and 'Live At Newport' LPs from around 1958/59 really converted me. Rock'n'Roll died in 1958. Ray Charles was the first to see the possibilities of mixing different types of musics. He mixed R&B, Rock'n'Roll and even country. There were other acts at the time that were a great influence. Fats Domino, a lot of the R&B releases on London Records. Gary US Bond's 'New Orleans'. Arthur Alexander. LaVern Baker. Chuck Willis' 'The Sultan of Stroll' that was a very, very important LP. I love Chuck Willis.

How did you pursue your interest in this (at the time) very obscure music?
There were various coffee bars in Manchester, like The Cona Coffee Bar (in Tib Lane near Albert Square) where you could take in your own records to play. You would take your own in and also listen to other people's and pick it up from there. There were a few like minded people around and you would bump into them or meet them in places like The Town Hall pub.

As for getting hold of the records, you could get hold of some but it wasn't long before I was importing records directly from the States. I must thank two guys - Roger Fairhurst and Mike Bocock who taught me how to import records from the States. I was getting hold of records from the US even before they had been released there! Tracks like 'You Don't Know Like I Know' by Sam and Dave. I was the first person to play that record in Britain. It even got to such a stage that I was involved in writing sleeve notes on a Bobby Bland LP for Duke Records in the US.

How did you first become involved with the Twisted Wheel?

Before I got the job at The Twisted Wheel, my only DJ experience was taping tracks on one of these reel-to-reel recorders and taking them along to parties to play. One day I received a parcel from the US that contained all of the Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley back catalogue LPs. I took them down to The Left Wing Coffee Bar, just to have a look at them. I was approached by the Abadi Brothers who said 'we're buying this place and turning into a night club - do you know anything about R&B?' so I said 'Yes' and they offered me the DJ job there and then.

To be honest, the Abadis didn't really have an appreciation for the type of music that was popular at the club. They just saw it as a way to get the numbers coming through the door. Only once did they insist that I played a pop record. I argued against it but to prove a point I played it and emptied the dance floor. After that they never interefered again on the music side.

I wasn't a particularly high profile DJ. I didn't have the ambition and I certainly didn't have the patter. I was happy playing the music that I loved. I would play six or seven hours solid singlehandedly - with just an hour or so's break for the band - for £3 a night. I was happy playing the music that I loved but with hindsight I would have appreciated a little more money.

Seven hours of record playing is a long time and there weren't that many Soul and R&B records available at the time so I had to mix in Rock'n'Roll tracks to fill out the time. In fact Carl Perkins was a particular favourite amongst The Wheel crowd. He even played live at the club. In the very early days, when the club first started, we relied very much on word of mouth recommendations. We had the likes of Roger and Mike and their mates from Bolton, we had people coming over from Liverpool and all over the place. I guess it was the start of the whole scene where people are willing to travel to hear the music that they want to hear.

The Wheel was a big scene in the North West, how much did you know about what was happening in other parts of the country?

The only other club anywhere that was playing anything like what I was playing at The Wheel was The Scene Club in London. I used to get on well with Guy Stevens and we used to exchange records. Like I said, I was getting hold of some records before their release even in the States, things like Stax and so on. We weren't conciously trying to create a movement or anything like that. We just liked to have a club that played the right kind of music.

Obviously the music that you played and crowds that you attracted were very much part of Mod culture. Did you class yourself as a Mod? Did that side of things appeal to you?

No, not really. You could say that I tipped my hat towards the things that were happening. But it was the music that came first and was paramount above everything else to me. Of course I dressed in the styles of the day. I was smart but I wasn't at the sharp end style-wise. My money went on vinyl and importing new records. I left the clothes obsession to the kids coming to the club.

Did you set out to make The Wheel a Mod club?

No, as I said before, it just grew and happened. You knew what was going on though. The punters were generally sharp but some were way ahead. I couldn't keep up with them ! I got respect through the records that I was playing. That to me was enough.

Although many people often forget it, The Wheel did have a bit of a reputation for the quality of live acts that played there, many of which were White kids influenced by the kind of music that you were playing.

Yes, we had the lot. I used to be friendly with Steve Winwood. He would come round to my place and listen to records when The Spencer Davis Group played the club. Georgie Fame did some good things - very King Pleasure influenced. The important thing is to take the influence and then add a twist and take it on further. It's important to remember that there is a big big difference between Club Groups and Pop Groups. Eric Clapton was a good friend at that time. I remember one Sunday morning after he had played at the club, he brought a good-looking young Mod girl round to my place and she got completely pissed off because all he wanted to do was listen to Freddy King records.

In 1965, the 'original' Twisted Wheel in Brazennose Street closed down and a 'second' Wheel opened in Whitworth Street. Legend has it that the original crowd didn't move on to the new club. Is that true?

No, that's not true. The music policy at the new club was just the same. I moved over with the club, I spent roughly two years at the first Wheel and a year at the second, roughly.



During 1966, you left The Wheel. Why?

Well, I left because they wouldn't pay me a decent wage. After three years hard graft for maybe £3 a night I asked for a fiver and they said they couldn't afford it. I was also getting bored with the music and there were a lot of pills going on. Kids were in trouble with the pills and all they wanted was that kind of fast tempo soul dance. So, I was very restricted with what I could play and I thought 'I'm not getting paid enough money to do this - I ain't going to do it no more'. So I left and immediately got paid a decent wage by Debbie Fogel at The Blue Note Club. I got a fiver a night for four nights, besides doing other things.

I was able to play the kind of music that I liked. The range of music. Whereas the pill freaks only wanted the same dance beat - which is what makes it so boring. Its okay you know there were some decent sounds but they made it so boring. You're trying to talk to kids who are off their heads all night on pills and its really hard. And the Abadis didn't want to pay me what I felt I was worth.

So you just completely disassociated from them ?

Gone. Yeah. I was a black music fanatic and I had respect for what I was dealing with - I don't think they did.

And then you started the Staxx club. Was that after the Blue Note?

Yeah, briefly. It was at the The Three Coins in Fountain Street. The music policy was similar. It was R'n'B and Soul. But you see I was trying to play funk. Early funk. In fact, 'Funky Broadway' by Dyke & The Blazers was probably the last record I played at The Wheel. It was just starting to change and they didn't want it. They didn't want it to change. It just split. I was progressing to funk, very early funk but they didn't want to go with it.

So when you started the Staxx Club, presumably you were pulling in a different audience to the one that you had had at The Wheel?

I don't know really. They were just people around town. Pill freaks that just popped in and out. You can't look at it with hindsight, at the time it wasn't 'oh we're going to start a movement!' . It was just the place to be. It was the place for The In Crowd...for a while.

And then you moved completely at a tangent to the Magic Village Club?

I just started getting into rock. It was a completely different track. Things like Captain Beefheart, John Mayall, The Nice and so on.

That's just about taken us through your 'Soul Years' but there's just one last question. It's about a story that's become almost an urban myth - and we wondered whether you could clear it up once and for all. It's about the time that The Rolling Stones came down to The Wheel after playing a gig in Manchester...

Yeah. I'll tell you exactly what happened. The Stones came down to the club and they were standing in the coffee bar having a cup of coffee. The kids were standing round them - just looking at them. Not talking to them - just looking. And I played all of the original tracks off their first album, which had just come out....'I'm A King Bee' by Slim Harpo, 'Walkin' The Dog' by Rufus Thomas, Arthur Alexander... They knew exactly what I was doing... I played them in exactly the same order as the LP. It was just me saying..there's a North/South thing. I'm a Southerner by birth - but a Northerner by emotion. I prefer the North. I'm not saying I don't like Southerners, but they tend to be so temporary down there. To me if something's solid then its worth looking after. Whereas they're into it and out of it. Which is really not the Northern style.



I actually got on OK with The Stones. Brian Jones bought a copy of R&B Scene [Roger's own magazine fom the early/mid-60's] from me when I was in London. Mick Jaggger once bummed a cig off me. That sums up The Stones for me. But joking aside, I'm one of the DJ's that publicised the music, but when when The Stones went to The States they got Howlin' Wolf onto primetime national televison. Fucking Hell. That's the thing to do. I admire them for doing that.

I'd be playing tunes in the club and those guys would be listening. You know Rod Stewart and those guys. Pete Stringfellow used to come over and write down the name of every tune that I played. I didn't really know what was going on. I wasn't sharp enough business-wise to realise what I had going. I'm not bitter about it because I am absolutely totally committed to the music. It means so much to me.

I recently met this black American guy who came over to see me. He's at University in The States and he's doing a thesis on Northern British Appreciation of Black American Music. He'd been to see everybody on the Northern Scene...all the Northern DJ's and so on they all said 'go and see Roger Eagle - he started it all'. Eventually he turned up here with a camera and I blew his head off completely. I started playing him tunes...he went away with a cassette - with what you would probably think are fairly obvious tunes on it. His mind was completely wrecked. This guy's in his 40's, maybe 50's and he's a serious man ....and he's never heard Ray Charles! I said, if you want to talk about Northern Soul there's plenty of people better placed than I am to tell you ...but if you want the history about white Northern English appreciation of Black American music you talk to me! I'll straighten it out for you. I did.

I said: this is where it started in the 50's. When it was exciting. I don't want to know about white artists ripping off black artists ...that's bollocks. Everybody covered everyone else! Nat King Cole - one of the most successful black entertainers of all time - he would cover white show tunes, pop tunes, blues tunes - across all boundaries. He didn't care. Ray Charles was one of the first black artists to see the possibilities. I said to this guy 'have you ever heard "I'm Moving On" by Ray Charles? As far as I know it's one of the first cases of a black artist covering a Country & Western song - a Hank Snow tune'. I had to put it on tape...he'd never heard it. I love the train rhythm through the track building up towards the end. As far as I'm concerned a tune this strong ought to be played. I bet you've heard it so many times without really clocking just how strong a track it is. It's a head record. Atlantic were starting to experiment with different instrumentation. Moving away from the basic drum, bass, guitar, sax and piano. They put a distorted pedal steel guitar on it. It's one of my all time favourite records.

Ray Charles is the only artist I've never managed to meet. I was at the Free Trade Hall and he walked right past me. His bodyguards - New Yorkers in pork pie hats and shades - said 'Yeah you can talk to Ray..... in London. Make an appointment son'. I said 'No I want to talk to him here.....'. It's a shame. It was about '63/'64 he had a huge, huge band.....but he'd lost it by then. You know I talk to people about Ray Charles and they immediately think 'Take These Chains From My Heart' and they say 'Ray Charles??'. He was a genius.

This interview was originally published in issue 2 of the Mod 'lifestyle' fanzine The New Breed.

click here for original source

HARD MODS (source John Waters, thanx to The New Breed and Modculture)

Most people's views of 60s mods are of effeminate West End dandies. Original 60s mod John Waters gives us the lowdown on a less familiar side of the Mod coin.

With regard to the Mod scene back in the sixties, to my way of thinking there were two distinct types of Mod within the London area. The first was the familiar scooter boys which has become the generally accepted face of sixties Modernism. However, there was another type of Mod back in those days.

These were the members of the many Mod 'firms'. These were members of street gangs each with their own manor e.g. The Highbury mob, the Archway, Somers Town, Elephant and Castle, Mile End etc. These gangs consisted of anything of between 50 to a couple of hundred in strength at any one time.

Turfs were strictly patrolled and borders laid down. Gang members intruding on other's turf risked a severe beating if caught. Gang members were meticulous in their dress, the order of the day being the mohair suit, velvet collar overcoats and as often as not a 'blue beat' hat. Each manor had its own caff's, snooker halls and sometimes dance hall or club.

I lived in Upper Holloway and therefore was a member of the Archway mob. One of the smaller gangs numbering around eighty to a hundred. We congregated in two or three local cafes and pubs and our main enemy was the Highbury and Mars (Finsbury Park) gangs.

There were many and sometimes violent skirmishes but the odd thing was that on occasions the mobs would align with each other to take on other gangs. I remember one instance that sprang to mind when both gangs combined to 'visit' the rocker enclave at Alexandra Palace.

Members of these gangs would not be seen dead on a scooter there preferred mode of transport being a car. Like most other Mods at the time we were fans of Motown, Soul and the Who, Faces etc. We frequented the pubs of the East End and clubs of the West End. Although we visited many clubs such as the Flamingo, Scene, Whisky and Marquee we tended to stick to one particular club. In our case it was the Discoteque and regarded this as 'home' turf. Again on the annual visits to the coast we would often meet up with other firms and head off, in our case, to Brighton.

My own particular memories of that era are mainly concerning music as an ardent follower of Soul music. Solomon Burke at the Flamingo; robes, crown and all being joined on stage by Dusty Springfield belting out 'Everybody Needs Somebody'. The Who at St.Josephs Church Hall, Archway just after they hit the charts with 'I Can't Explain' and having a few 'sherberts' in The Cat next door with Moon. Friday and Saturday nights up West. First a few pints down the East End at The Green Man or Blind Beggar then off to the Coffee An in a cellar down the bottom of Wardour St. Then up to The Discoteque to dance the night away to some of the greatest music ever to make it on to vinyl. Early next morning meeting up at the all night cafe 'El Passant' on the Strand (what a great juke box). Heady days ! People often find it hard to understand the reverence that the sixties are held in by many. In these days of clubs on every corner, high tech, computer aided music etc everything is pretty much en-passe. The thing about the sixties was that everything was so new. The clothes, music, clubs etc and for the first time we had some money in our pockets to indulge.

I do not live in the past by any means and there is much to be said for the present day but it will never match the absolute excitement of the sixties.

Mod and Rocker (Mike Snow)

I was both a Rocker and a Mod, and was down Brighton during the running battles along the front and on the beaches.

I was 15 in 1965 so I was in that generation that was neither full-on Rocker nor fashionable Mod, the rivalry between the two on the streets late at night or at the weekends was constant.

Rockers loved their motorbikes, leather clad girls, rock 'n' roll music, and, despite their caveman antics, were traditionalists. I was a rocker for two years, hanging out with the local gang, couldn't afford the leather jacket so I wore a blazer, jeans, T-shirt, and desert boots to the clubhouse.

In spite of their image, Rockers were normally quiet, always on the lookout for cheap bike parts, and then used to mount up and go on a "burn up". Many were killed on "burn ups" or horribly injured in all the hell-bent need for speed and adrenaline. But that was their way.

I think there was a motorcycle show down in Brighton either 1965 or '66 when a friend and myself were jumped by a gang of Mods who chased us further along the front to Hove. They lost interest. We waited a couple of hours before going back for our motorbike and the trip home

click here to watch footage

A month or two later I dropped out of the Rockers as the Mods had the better looking girls. I brought my Ben Sherman shirt, Farrah hipsters, a pair of shoes, and smothered myself in Brut Perfume For MEN! Having had the hairdresser re-shape and degrease my hair, I was ready.

Yessir! Saturday night was dancing night!

Those were the great days of Tamla Motown, ska, and dances like the locomotion, funky chicken, and the wa-tu-say. What was .. Steady Go!" that week was in a 1000 suburban disco's and club's the following night.

Like many others I spend some of the weekend wasted on amphetamines and booze.

By 17 I had left the scene behind for good as I was becoming more politically active and socially aware; I moved on to other things

source : BBC and Screen archive South East