Oi! is a subgenre of punk rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The music and its associated subculture had the goal of bringing together punks, skinheads and other working class youth.
The Oi! movement was partly a response to the perception that many participants in the early punk rock scene were, in the words of The Business guitarist Steve Kent, "trendy university people using long words, trying to be artistic...and losing touch". André Schlesinger, singer of The Press, said, "Oi shares many similarities with folk music, besides its often simple musical structure; quaint in some respects and crude in others, not to mention brutally honest, it usually tells a story based in truth.
" For instance, "Such Fun", from Oi! Oi! That's Yer Lot!, by The Blood is an extension of the 1977 Sex Pistols song "God Save the Queen" which attacks the abuse of power by those who hold themselves in a royal or religious majesty.
History
Oi! became a recognised genre in the latter part of the 1970s, emerging after the perceived commercialisation of punk rock, and before the soon-to-dominate hardcore punk sound. It fused the sounds of early punk bands such as the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, The Clash, and The Jam with influences from 1960s British rock bands such as the Small Faces, and The Who, football chants, pub rock bands such as Dr. Feelgood, Eddie and the Hot Rods, and The 101ers, and glam rock bands such as Slade and Sweet.Although Oi! has come to be considered mainly a skinhead-oriented genre, the first Oi! bands were composed mostly of punk rockers and people who fit neither the skinhead nor punk label.
First-generation Oi! bands such as Sham 69 and Cock Sparrer were around for years before the word Oi! was used retrospectively to describe their style of music.
In 1980, writing in Sounds magazine, rock journalist Garry Bushell labelled the movement Oi!, taking the name from the garbled "Oi!" that Stinky Turner of Cockney Rejects used to introduce the band's songs. The word is an old British expression meaning hey or hey there!.
In hindsight and calling on the fact that the Cockney Rejects were of Jewish descent there may also be links to the Yiddish 'Oy vey', an expression of dismay or exasperation, often itself shortened to 'Oy'. In addition to Cockney Rejects, other bands to be explicitly labeled Oi! in the early days of the genre included Angelic Upstarts, The 4-Skins, The Business, Anti-Establishment, Blitz, The Blood, and Combat 84.
The prevalent ideology of the original Oi! movement was a rough brand of working-class rebellion. Lyrical topics included unemployment, workers' rights, harassment by police and other authorities, and oppression by the government. Oi! songs also covered less-political topics such as street violence, football, sex, and alcohol.
Some fans of Oi! were involved in white nationalist organisations such as the National Front (NF) and the British Movement (BM), leading some critics to dismiss the Oi! subgenre as racist. However, none of the bands associated with the original Oi! scene promoted racism or far-right politics. Some Oi! bands, such as Angelic Upstarts, The Business, The Burial and The Oppressed were associated with left wing politics and anti-racism, and others were non-political.
Rock Against Communism (RAC) was a partial development from white power/white supremacist movements, which had musical and aesthetic similarities to Oi! Although due to Cold War fears the genre had appeal to some punk rock bands distinct from original Oi! in that they opposed all totalitarianism, but was not connected to the Oi! scene. Timothy S. Brown writes:
Oi! played an important symbolic role in the politicization of the skinhead subculture. By providing, for the first time, a musical focus for skinhead identity that was 'white'—that is, that had nothing to do with the West Indian immigrant presence and little obvious connection with black musical roots—Oi! provided a musical focus for new visions of skinhead identity [and] a point of entry for a new brand of right-wing rock music.Garry Bushell, a music journalist who promoted the Oi! genre, argued that the white power music scene was "totally distinct from us. We had no overlap other than a mutual dislike for each other."
The mainstream media increased its claims that Oi! was linked to far-right racist politics after an Oi! concert at the Hambrough Tavern in Southall on 4 July 1981 ended with five hours of rioting, 120 people being injured and the tavern being burnt down. Before the concert, some audience members had written NF slogans around the area and bullied Asian residents of the neighbourhood. In response, local Asian youths threw Molotov cocktails and other objects at the tavern, mistakenly believing that the concert—featuring The Business, The 4-Skins and The Last Resort—was a neo-Nazi event. Although some of the concert-goers were NF or BM supporters, none of the performers were white power music bands, and the audience of approximately 500 people included left-wing skinheads, black skinheads, punk rockers, rockabillies and non-affiliated youths.
In the aftermath of that riot, many Oi! bands condemned racism and fascism. These denials, however, were met with cynicism from some quarters because of the Strength Thru Oi! compilation album, released in May 1981. Not only was its title a play on a Nazi slogan "Strength Through Joy", but the cover featured Nicky Crane, a skinhead BM activist who was serving a four-year sentence for racist violence (Crane later disavowed his alignment with the far right after revealing he was gay).
Bushell, who compiled the album, insists its title was a pun on The Skids' album Strength Through Joy, and that he had been unaware of the Nazi connotations. He also denied knowing the identity of the skinhead on the album's cover until it was exposed by the Daily Mail two months after the release. Bushell, a socialist at the time, noted the irony of being branded a far-right activist by a newspaper that "had once supported Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts, Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia, and appeasement with Hitler right up to the outbreak of World War Two."
 |
| Iron Cross |
After the Oi! movement lost momentum in the United Kingdom, Oi! scenes formed in continental Europe, North America, and Asia. Soon, especially in the United States, the Oi! phenomenon mirrored the hardcore punk scene of the Late 1970's, with American Oi!-originating bands such as The Radicals, U.S. Chaos, Iron Cross, Agnostic Front, Anti Heros.
 |
| U.S. Chaos. |
Later American punk bands such as Rancid and Dropkick Murphys have credited Oi! as a source of inspiration. In the mid-1990s, there was a revival of interest in Oi! music in the UK, leading to older Oi! bands receiving more recognition. In the 2000s, many of the original UK Oi! bands reunited to perform and/or record.
Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. It is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off-beat. Ska developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm & blues and then began recording their own songs. Some suggest ska dates to earlier times, however.
In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods. Later it became popular with many skinheads.
Music historians typically divide the history of ska into three periods: the original Jamaican scene of the 1960s; the 2 Tone ska revival of the late 1970s in Britain, which fused Jamaican ska rhythms and melodies with the faster tempos and harder edge of punk rock; and the third wave of ska, which involved bands from the UK, other European countries (notably Germany), Australia, Japan, South America and the United States, beginning in the 1980s and peaking in the 1990s.
2 TONE
| 2 Tone (or Two Tone) was a late-1970s ska revival in the United Kingdom led by Jerry Dammers and The Specials. It fused traditional ska music with punk rock attitude, energy and musical elements. Its name came from the record label that Dammers founded, 2 Tone Records, as well as a desire to transcend and defuse racial tensions in Thatcher-era Britain. Although 2 Tone's mainstream commercial appeal was largely limited to the UK, it influenced the North American ska punk movement (also known as third wave ska) in the 1980s and 1990s. | |
|---|---|
History
The Selecter in 1980
Coventry Music Wall of Fame inductees, December 2011
The term was coined by The Specials' keyboard player Jerry Dammers, who—with the assistance of Horace Panter and graphic designer John "Teflon" Sims—created the iconic Walt Jabsco logo (a man in a black suit, white shirt, black tie, pork pie hat, white socks and black loafers) to represent the 2 Tone genre. The logo was based on an early album cover photo of Peter Tosh, and included an added black-and-white check pattern.
Most of the bands considered to be part of the 2 Tone genre were signed to 2 Tone Records at some point. Other record labels associated with the 2 Tone sound were Stiff Records and Go Feet Records. The music was especially popular among skinheads, rudies and some mod revivalists.
Museum
On 1 October 2010, the 2-Tone Central museum, cafe and venue opened in the Coventry University Students' Union building, and by August 2011, it was moved to the 2-Tone Village in Stoke, Coventry. It includes exhibition space, the Coventry Music Wall of Fame, a cafe, a gift shop, a Caribbean restaurant and a music venue. Many of the items on display are on loan from members of The Selecter, The Beat and The Specials.Etymology
 |
| Derrick Morgan |
There are multiple theories about the origins of the word ska. Ernest Ranglin claimed that the term was coined by musicians to refer to the "skat! skat! skat!" scratching guitar strum. Ranglin asserted that the difference between R&B and ska beats is that the former goes "chink-ka" and the latter goes "ka-chink". Another explanation is that at a recording session in 1959 produced by Coxsone Dodd, double bassist Cluett Johnson instructed guitarist Ranglin to "play like ska, ska, ska", although Ranglin has denied this, stating "Clue couldn't tell me what to play!" A further theory is that it derives from Johnson's word skavoovie, with which he was known to greet his friends. Jackie Mittoo insisted that the musicians called the rhythm Staya Staya, and that it was Byron Lee who introduced the term "ska". Derrick Morgan said: "Guitar and piano making a ska sound, like 'ska, ska,"
History
After World War II, Jamaicans purchased radios in increasing numbers and were able to hear rhythm and blues music from Southern United States cities such as New Orleans by artists such as Fats Domino and Louis Jordan. Domino's rhythm, accentuating the offbeat as in the song "Be My Guest", was a particular influence. The stationing of American military forces during and after the war meant that Jamaicans could listen to military broadcasts of American music, and there was a constant influx of records from the United States. To meet the demand for that music, entrepreneurs such as Prince Buster, Coxsone Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems.
As the supply of previously unheard tunes in the jump blues and more traditional R&B genre began to dry up in the late 1950s, Jamaican producers began recording their own version of the genres with local artists. These recordings were initially made to be played on "Soft Wax" (a lacquer on metal disc acetate later to become known as a "Dub Plate"), but as demand for them grew eventually some time in the second half of 1959 (Believed by most to be in the last quarter) producers such as Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid began to issue these recording on 45rpm, 7-inch discs. At this point the style was a direct copy of the American "Shuffle Blues" style, but within two or three years this had morphed into the more familiar Ska style with the off beat guitar chop that could be heard in some of the more uptempo late 1950s American Rhythm & Blues recordings such as Fats Domino's "Be My Guest" (a hugely popular record on Jamaican Sound Systems of the late 1950s). This "classic" Ska style was of bars made up of four triplets but was characterized by a guitar chop on the off beat — known as an upstroke or skank — with horns taking the lead and often following the off beat skank and piano emphasizing the bass line and, again, playing the skank. Drums kept 4/4 time and the bass drum was accented on the third beat of each 4-triplet phrase. The snare would play side stick and accent the third beat of each 4-triplet phrase. The upstroke sound can also be found in other Caribbean forms of music, such as mento and calypso.
One theory about the origin of ska is that Abby Greene created it during the inaugural recording session for his new record label Wild Bells. The session was financed by Duke Reid, who was supposed to get half of the songs to release. The guitar began emphasizing the second and fourth beats in the bar, giving rise to the new sound. The drums were taken from traditional Jamaican drumming and marching styles. To create the ska beat, Prince Buster essentially flipped the R&B shuffle beat, stressing the offbeats with the help of the guitar. Prince Buster has explicitly cited American rhythm & blues as the origin of ska, specifically Willis Jackson's song "Later for the Gator" which was Coxsone Dodd's number one selection and Duke Reid's number-one spin "Hey Hey Mr. Berry", to this day by an unidentified artist and with this given title (in the way Northern Soul DJs used to cover up the identity of records to prevent other DJs from finding copies), the joke amongst surviving Jamaican Soundmen who were there at the time being that "This is the one Duke took to the grave with him".
The first ska recordings were created at facilities such as Studio One and WIRL Records in Kingston, Jamaica with producers such as Dodd, Reid, Prince Buster, and Edward Seaga. The ska sound coincided with the celebratory feelings surrounding Jamaica's independence from the UK in 1962; an event commemorated by songs such as Derrick Morgan's "Forward March" and The Skatalites' "Freedom Sound".
Until Jamaica ratified the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the country didn't honor international music copyright protection. This created a large number of cover songs and reinterpretations. One such cover was Millie Small's version of the R&B/shuffle tune, "My Boy Lollypop" first recorded in New York in 1956 by 14 year old Barbie Gaye. Smalls' rhythmically similar version, released in 1964, was Jamaica's first commercially successful international hit. With over seven million copies sold, it remains one of the best selling reggae/ska songs of all time. Many other Jamaican artists would have success recording instrumental ska versions of popular American and British music, such as Beatles songs, Motown and Atlantic soul hits, movie theme songs and surf rock instrumentals. The Wailers covered The Beatles' "And I Love Her", and radically reinterpreted Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". They also created their own versions of Latin-influenced music from artists such as Mongo Santamaria.
Byron Lee & the Dragonaires performed ska with Prince Buster, Eric "Monty" Morris, and Jimmy Cliff at the 1964 New York World's Fair. As music changed in the United States, so did ska. In 1965 and 1966, when American soul music became slower and smoother, ska changed its sound accordingly and evolved into rocksteady. However, rocksteady's heyday was brief, peaking in 1967. By 1968, ska evolved again into reggae.
SKA PUNK
Ska punk (also spelled ska-punk) is a fusion genre that combines ska music and punk rock music. Ska-core (sometimes spelled skacore) is a subgenre of ska punk that blends ska with hardcore punk. Early ska punk combined both 2 Tone and ska with hardcore punk. Ska punk often features wind instruments and especially horns such as saxophones, trombones and trumpets, making the genre distinct from other forms of punk rock. It is similar to traditional Jamaican ska, but faster and heavier.
History
Predecessors and early development (Late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s)
Pioneering punk rock band the Clash incorporated influences from ska alongside a range of other genres on their seminal 1979 post-punk album London Calling. Other British bands that were influenced by both punk rock and ska included the Specials, the Beat and Madness. With both films like the 1981 documentary film Dance Craze and supportive radio stations like Los Angeles, California's KROQ, ska crossed the Atlantic. Many early ska punk bands mixed 2 Tone with hardcore punk. During the 1980s, ska punk was underground. However, Fishbone, one of the earliest ska punk bands, achieved moderate success.
Other ska punk bands from the 1980s and early 1990s include Mr. Bungle, Operation Ivy, Culture Shock, Voodoo Glow Skulls, the Porkers, Sublime, Citizen Fish, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Dance Hall Crashers.
Mainstream success (Mid–late 1990s)
Ska punk broke into the mainstream in the mid-1990s with bands such as Sublime, No Doubt, Goldfinger, Reel Big Fish, Smash Mouth, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Rancid all achieving mainstream success. Sublime's song "Date Rape" became a hit on major California alternative rock radio stations.
However, Sublime did not reach its peak of popularity until 1996 with the release of the band's 1996 self-titled album, which was certified 5x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1999. Because of Sublime's popularity, the band's album 40oz. to Freedom was certified 2x platinum by the RIAA in 2005.
Ska punk band No Doubt performing in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States.
United States
 |
| THJE TOASTERS. |
By the early 1980s, 2 Tone-influenced ska bands began forming throughout the United States. The Uptones from Berkeley, California and The Toasters from New York City — both formed in 1981 — were among the first active ska bands in North America. They are both credited with laying the groundwork for American ska and establishing scenes in their respective regions.
In Los Angeles around the same time, The Untouchables also formed. While many of the early American ska bands continued in the musical traditions set by 2 Tone and the mod revival, bands such as Fishbone, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Operation Ivy pioneered the American ska punk subgenre, a fusion of ska and punk rock that typically downplayed ska's R&B influence in favor of faster tempos and guitar distortion.
Two hotspots for the United States' burgeoning ska scenes were New York City and Orange County, California. In New York, Toasters frontman Robert "Bucket" Hingley formed independent record label Moon Ska Records in 1983. The label quickly became the largest independent ska label in the United States. The Orange County ska scene was a major breeding ground for ska punk and more contemporary pop-influenced ska music, personified by bands such as Reel Big Fish, No Doubt and Sublime. It was here that the term "third wave ska" was coined and popularized by Albino Brown and Tazy Phyllipz (hosts of the Ska Parade radio show) to describe the new wave of ska-influenced bands which were steadily gaining notoriety; and Brown wrote the first treatise on ska's third wave in 1994. The San Francisco Bay Area also contributed to ska's growing popularity, with Skankin' Pickle, Let's Go Bowling and the Dance Hall Crashers becoming known on the touring circuit.
The mid-1990s saw a considerable rise in ska music's underground popularity, marked by the formation of many ska-based record labels, booking organizations and indie zines. While Moon Ska was still the largest of the United States' ska labels, other notable labels included Jump Up Records of Chicago, which covered the thriving midwest scene, and Steady Beat Recordings of Los Angeles, which covered Southern California's traditional ska revival. Stomp Records of Montreal was Canada's primary producer and distributor of ska music. Additionally, many punk and indie rock labels, such as Hellcat Records and Fueled by Ramen, broadened their scope to include both ska and ska punk bands. Asian Man Records (formerly Dill Records), founded in 1996, started out primarily releasing ska punk albums before branching out to other music styles.
In 1993, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones signed with Mercury Records, becoming the first American ska punk band to find mainstream commercial success, with their 1994 album Question the Answers achieving gold record status and peaking at #138 on the Billboard 200. In 1995, punk band Rancid, featuring former members of Operation Ivy, released the ska punk single "Time Bomb", which reached #8 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks, becoming the first major ska punk hit of the 1990s and launching the genre into the public eye. Over the next few years, a string of notable ska and ska-influenced singles became hits on mainstream radio, including "Spiderwebs" by No Doubt, "Sell Out" by Reel Big Fish and "The Impression That I Get" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, all of whom would reach platinum status with each of their respective albums. By 1996, third wave ska was one of the most popular forms of alternative music in the United States. A sign of mainstream knowledge of third wave ska was the inclusion of the parody song "Your Horoscope for Today" on "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1999 album Running with Scissors.
By the late 1990s, mainstream interest in third wave ska bands waned as other music genres gained momentum. Moon Ska Records folded in 2000, but Moon Ska Europe, a licensed affiliate based in Europe, continued operating in the 2000s and was later relaunched as Moon Ska World. In 2003, Hingley launched a new ska record label, Megalith Records.
United Kingdom
By the late 1980s, ska had experienced a minor resurgence of popularity in the United Kingdom, due to bands such as The Burial and The Hotknives, ska-friendly record labels such as Unicorn Records, ska festivals, and a re-emergence of the traditional skinhead subculture.Germany, Spain, Australia, Russia, Japan, and Latin America
The early 1980s saw a massive surge in ska's popularity in Germany, which led to the founding of a large number of ska bands like The Busters, record labels and festivals.In Spain, ska became relevant in the 1980s in the Basque Country by the hand of the Basque Radical Rock, being Kortatu and Potato the most representatives bands. (Skalariak and Betagarri followed their footsteps in the early 1990s and their influence is visible outside the Basque Country in punk-rock bands like Ska-P, Boikot and many others that have taken importance in the Spanish rock and punk rock scene and festivals.
The Australian ska scene flourished in the mid-1980s, following the musical precedents set by 2 Tone, and spearheaded by bands such as Strange Tenants, No Nonsense and The Porkers. Some of the Australian ska revival bands found success on the national music charts, most notably The Allniters, who had a #10 hit with a ska cover of "Montego Bay" in 1983. The 30 piece Melbourne Ska Orchestra have enjoyed great success in recent years, touring internationally, including sets at Glastonbury and Montreux Jazz Festival.
Russian (then-Soviet) ska scene established in the mid-1980s in Saint Petersburg as the anglophone opposition to more traditional Russian rock music. AVIA and N.O.M. were among the first bands of genre. Then the bands like Spitfire, Distemper, Leningrad and Markscheider Kunst began popular and commercially successful in Russia and abroad in the late 1990s.
Japan established its own ska scene, colloquially referred to as J-ska, in the mid-1980s. The Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, formed in 1985, have been one of the most commercially successful progenitors of Japanese ska.
Latin America's ska scene started developing in the mid-1980s. Latin American ska bands typically play traditional ska rhythms blended with strong influences from Latin music and rock en Español. The most prominent of these bands is Los Fabulosos Cadillacs from Argentina. Formed in 1985, the band has sold millions of records worldwide, scoring an international hit single with "El Matador" in 1994 and winning the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Latin Rock/Alternative album.
RUDY BOY
Rude boy, rudeboy, rudie, rudi, and rudy are slang terms that originated in 1960s Jamaican street culture, and that are still used today. In the late 1970s, the 2 Tone ska revival in England saw the terms rude boy and rude girl, among other variations, being used to describe fans of that genre. This use of the word moved into the more contemporary Ska Punk movement as well. In the UK, the terms rude boy and rude girl are used in a similar way to gangsta or badman.
Jamaica
The rude boy subculture arose from the poorer sections of Kingston, Jamaica, and was associated with violent discontented youths. Along with ska and rocksteady music, many rude boys favored sharp suits, thin ties, and pork pie or Trilby hats, showing an influence of the fashions of American jazz musicians and soul music artists. American cowboy and gangster/outlaw films from that period were also influential factors in shaping the rude boy image. In that time period, unemployed Jamaican youths sometimes found temporary employment from sound system operators to disrupt competitors' dances (leading to the term dancehall crasher). The violence that sometimes occurred at dances and its association with the rude boy lifestyle gave rise to a slew of releases by artists who addressed the rude boys directly with lyrics that either promoted or rejected rude boy violence. Starting in the 1970s, Jamaican reggae music replaced the ska and rocksteady music associated with the rude boys. In the 1980s, dancehall became the main Jamaican popular music genre, drawing some parallels with the earlier rude boys in its culture and lyrical content.United Kingdom
In the 1960s, the Jamaican diaspora introduced rude boy music and fashion to the United Kingdom, which influenced the mod and skinhead subcultures. In the late 1970s, the term rude boy and rude boy fashions came back into use after the 2 Tone band The Specials and their record label 2 Tone Records instigated a brief but influential ska revival. In this spirit, The Clash contributed "Rudie Can't Fail" on their 1979 album, London Calling. In more recent times in multicultural Britain, the term rudeboy has become associated with street or urban culture, and is a common greeting. The term rudeboy has become associated with music genres such as ragga, jungle, drum and bass, garage, and grime.DOCTOR MARTENS
Dr. Martens is a British footwear and clothing brand, which also makes a range of accessories – shoe care products, clothing, luggage, etc. In addition to Dr. Martens, they are also commonly known as Doctor Martens, Doc Martens, or Docs. The footwear is distinguished by its air-cushioned sole (dubbed Bouncing Soles), upper shape, welted construction and yellow stitching. The boots have been the choice of footwear among various groups in British culture: in the 1960s skinheads started to wear them, "Docs", being the usual naming, and by the late 1980s, they were popular among scooter riders, punks, some new wave musicians, and members of other youth subcultures.
In 2006, Griggs' 1960 Dr. Martens AirWair boot was named in the list of British design icons which included Concorde, Mini, Jaguar E-Type, Aston Martin DB5, Supermarine Spitfire, Tube map, World Wide Web and the AEC Routemaster bus.
History
Founding
Klaus Märtens was a doctor in the German army during World War II. While on leave in 1945, he injured his ankle while skiing in the Bavarian Alps. He found that his standard-issue army boots were too uncomfortable on his injured foot. While recuperating, he designed improvements to the boots, with soft leather and air-padded soles made of tires. When the war ended and some Germans recovered valuables from their own cities, Märtens took leather from a cobbler's shop. With that leather he made himself a pair of boots with air-cushioned soles.
A pair of classic black leather Griggs' Dr. Martens boots, with distinctive yellow stitching around the sole
United Kingdom
Sales had grown so much by 1952 that they opened a factory in Munich. In 1959, the company had grown large enough that Märtens and Funck looked at marketing the footwear internationally. Almost immediately, British shoe manufacturer R. Griggs Group Ltd. bought patent rights to manufacture the shoes in the United Kingdom. Griggs anglicised the name, slightly re-shaped the heel to make them fit better, added the trademark yellow stitching, and trademarked the soles as AirWair.
Cherry Red and Black 14-hole Dr. Martens boots
The boots and shoes became popular in the 1990s as grunge fashion arose. In late November 1994, a six-storey Dr. Martens department store was opened in Covent Garden in London which sold food, belts, and watches, as well as shoes. At this time the R. Griggs company employed 2,700 people, expected to earn annual revenue of £170 million, and could produce up to 10 million pairs of shoes per year. Dr. Martens sponsored Rushden & Diamonds F.C. from 1998 to 2005. Diamonds approached owner and local businessman, Max Griggs to request sponsorship from his company. A new main stand was built at Nene Park in 2001, named the Airwair Stand. Dr. Martens were also the principal sponsors of Premier League club, West Ham United F.C., renaming the upgraded west stand 'The Dr Martens Stand' until 2009.
In the 2000s, Dr. Martens were sold exclusively under the AirWair name, and came in dozens of different styles, including conventional black shoes, sandals and steel-toed boots. AirWair International's revenue fell from US $412 million in 1999 to $127 million in 2006. In 2003, the Dr. Martens company came close to bankruptcy. On 1 April that year, under pressure from declining sales, the company ceased making shoes in the United Kingdom, and moved all production to China and Thailand. Five factories and two shops were closed in the UK as a result of this decision, and more than 1,000 of the firm's employees lost their jobs. Following the closures, the R. Griggs company employed only 20 people in the UK, all of whom were located in the firm's head office.5 million pairs of Dr. Martens were sold during 2003, which was half the level of annual sales during the 1990s.
A Dr. Martens retail store in Hong Kong (2012)
Dr. Martens in Vaughan Mills
Worldwide sales of Dr. Martens shoes grew strongly in the early 2010s, and in 2012 it was assessed as being the eighth fastest-growing British company. Over 100 million pairs of Dr. Martens shoes have been sold from 1960 to 2010, and in 2010, the company offered 250 different models of footwear. The R. Griggs company opened 14 new Dr. Martens retail stores in the United Kingdom, United States and Hong Kong between 2009 and 2011, and also launched a line of clothing during 2011. In 1999 Dr Martens battled it out in counter lawsuits in US Courts. Dr Martens brand began a number of lawsuits in 2016 based on trademark law primarily
Acquisition
In October 2013, the private equity company Permira acquired R. Griggs Group Limited (the owner of the Dr. Martens brand) for a consideration of £300m.Gallery
-
Distinctive yellow stitching on Dr. Martens shoe. -
Inside of pre-2003 Dr. Martens made in England. -
Inside of post-2003 Dr. Martens made in Thailand. -
Sole of pre-2003 Dr. Martens made in England -
Sole of post-2003 Dr. Martens made in Thailand. -
Dr. Martens logo stamped on the outer side of a boot. -
Floral-patterned Dr. Martens boots
Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor of ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was performed by Jamaican vocal harmony groups such as The Gaylads, The Maytals, The Heptones and The Paragons. The term rocksteady comes from a dance style that was mentioned in the Alton Ellis song "Rock Steady". Dances performed to rocksteady were less energetic than the earlier ska dances. The first international rocksteady hit was "Hold Me Tight" (1968) by the American soul singer Johnny Nash; it reached number one in Canada.
Characteristics
Rocksteady uses some of the musical elements of rhythm and blues (R&B), jazz, ska, African and Latin American drumming, and other genres. One of the most easily recognizable elements, as in ska, are offbeat rhythms; staccato chords played by a guitar and piano on the offbeats of the measure. This offbeat can be counted so that it falls between each count as an "and". Example: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. The perceived tempo became slower with the development of rocksteady than it had been in ska and this led to a number of changes in the music. The guitar and piano players began to experiment with occasional accents around the basic offbeat pattern. This can be heard throughout Jamaican recordings in subsequent years.
Rocksteady, even more so the early reggae that followed, was built around the "one drop" drum beat, characterized by a heavy accent on the second and fourth beat of every bar (or the third beat if one counts in double time), played by the bass drum and the snare together. The snare drum often plays a side stick "click" rather that a full snare hit; an influence from Latin music. This differs markedly from the drumming styles in R&B and rock and roll, which put the bass drum on the first beat (the downbeat) and almost never on the second and fourth beats). Jamaican musicians sometimes refer to the second and fourth beats as the "afterbeat". All the Jamaican styles of kit drumming since ska have incorporated a mixture of influences, including African burru percussion, American jazz and R&B, and Latin rhythms. The slowing in perceived tempo that occurred with rocksteady opened the door for drummers to explore these influences more. With the advent of the drum machine and computer in the 1980s, Jamaican popular music i.e. "dancehall" began to draw on other rhythms such as Kumina and to a lesser extent, American hip-hop so that recent music from Jamaica bears little resemblance to the rhythms and beats of classic ska, rocksteady and reggae.
This slowing that occurred with rocksteady allowed bass players to explore more broken, syncopated figures, playing a counterpoint to the repetitive rhythm of the guitar and keyboards and this new style eventually largely replaced the walking patterns that had been so characteristic of many ska recordings. These new patterns fit very well with the simpler modal chord progressions often used by Jamaican players. Byron Lee was the first ska band leader to have a full-time electric bass. By 1966, the advantages of recording and performing with electric bass had meant most players made the switch to electric. A number of factors led to smaller band sizes and this in turn led to changes in the way the music was composed and arranged. The slower tempo and smaller band sizes in turn led to a much larger focus on the bass line in general, which eventually became one of the most recognizable characteristics of Jamaican music. In rocksteady, the lead guitar often doubles the bass line, in the muted picking style created by Lynn Taitt, a technique that continued on into reggae.
Smaller band sizes and slower tempos also led to a number of changes in the way horn parts were written and arranged. Whereas, in ska, the horn section had often spent much of the song playing the offbeats with the guitar and piano, in rocksteady they favored repeated rhythmic patterns or simply sitting out all together until the lead line.
Rocksteady and reggae are perhaps best thought of and notated as a half time feel, in which case one would count at twice the tempo. This would mean the guitar-piano offbeats would fall on beats 2 and 4, and the "one drop" of the snare/kick drum would fall on beat 3. This also allows transcribers to use the term "swing 8ths" to help notate hi-hat patterns, for example.
Lyrics
Due in part to the heavy borrowing from US soul songs, many rocksteady songs are love songs; e.g. "Sharing You" by Prince Buster, which is a cover of a Mitty Collier original, and "Queen Majesty" by The Techniques, which is a cover of "Minstrel and Queen" by The Impressions. There are rocksteady songs about religion and the Rastafari movement, though not to the same extent as in reggae. At the time of rocksteady’s debut, lower-class Jamaicans were struggling to prevail over the shortage of food, shelter and employment. This suffering set the stage for the emergence of a rebellious subculture known as rude boys. Some rocksteady lyrics either celebrated or criticized the violent lifestyle of the rude boys, and spoke out against political injustice. The rude boy phenomenon had existed in the ska period, but was expressed more obviously during the rocksteady era in songs such as "Rude Boy Gone A Jail" by The Clarendonians; "No Good Rudie" by Justin Hinds & the Dominoes; "Don't Be A Rude Boy" by The Rulers, and many others. Crying was a theme in some rocksteady songs, such as Alton and the Flames' "Cry Tough", which urged Jamaicans in the ghettos to stay tough through the hard times.
History
As a popular musical style, rocksteady was short-lived; its heyday only lasted about two years, from 1966 until spring 1968. Around this time, young people from the Jamaican countryside were flooding into the urban ghettos of Kingston—in neighborhoods such as Riverton City, Greenwich Town and Trenchtown. Though much of the country was optimistic in the immediate post-independence climate, these poverty-stricken youths did not share this sentiment. Many of them became delinquents who exuded a certain coolness and style.
These unruly youths became known as rude boys.
Alton Ellis is sometimes said to be the father of rocksteady for his hit "Girl I've Got a Date", but other candidates for the first rocksteady single include "Take It Easy" by Hopeton Lewis, "Tougher Than Tough" by Derrick Morgan and "Hold Them" by Roy Shirley. In a Jamaican radio interview, pianist Gladstone Anderson said that guitarist and bandleader Lynn Taitt was the man who slowed down the ska beat in 1964 during a "Take It Easy" recording session. Taitt backed this up in a 2002 interview, stating: "I told 'Gladdy to slow the tempo and that's how Take It Easy and rocksteady came about. Rocksteady is really slow ska." The record producer Duke Reid released Alton Ellis' "Girl I've Got a Date" on his Treasure Isle label, as well as recordings by The Techniques, The Silvertones, The Jamaicans and The Paragons. Reid's work with these groups helped establish the vocal sound of rocksteady. Notable solo artists include Delroy Wilson, Ken Boothe and Phyllis Dillon (known as the "Queen of Rocksteady"). Other musicians who were crucial in creating rocksteady included keyboard player Jackie Mittoo, drummer Winston Grennan, bassist Jackie Jackson and saxophonist Tommy McCook.
Despite its short lifespan, rocksteady's influence is great. Many reggae artists began in rocksteady (and/or ska) - most commonly reggae singers grew out of rocksteady groups, e.g., Junior Byles came from The Versatiles, John Holt was in The Paragons, both Pat Kelly and Slim Smith sang with The Techniques (Pat Kelly sings lead on "You Don't Care") and Ronnie Davis was in The Tennors while Winston Jarrett was in The Righteous Flames. The Wailing Wailers were similarly a vocal harmony trio (modelled on The Impressions) who came from ska, through rocksteady (though Bob Marley was working in a car assembly plant in America for most of 1967 - which explains why there are few Wailers' rocksteady songs) and became a reggae band with just the one main vocalist. The short-lived nature of rocksteady, its lauded sound and the somewhat haphazard nature of the Jamaican music industry make original recordings increasingly harder to find than those from the ska and reggae eras.
Derrick Harriott patriotically noted, "Ask any Jamaican musician and they'll tell you the rocksteady days were the best days of Jamaican music."
Transformation into reggae
Several factors contributed to the evolution of rocksteady into reggae in the late 1960s. The emigration of key musical arrangers Jackie Mittoo and Lynn Taitt — and the upgrading of Jamaican studio technology — had a marked effect on the sound and style of the recordings. Bass patterns became more complex and increasingly dominated the arrangements, and the piano gave way to the electric organ. Other developments included horns fading farther into the background; the introduction of a scratchier, more percussive rhythm guitar; the addition of African-style hand drumming, and a more precise, intricate and aggressive drumming style. The use of a vocal-free or lead instrument-free dub or B-side "version" became popular in Jamaica – most notably U-Roy deejaying over Treasure Isle rhythms (made by King Tubby).By the late 1960s, the Rastafari movement became more popular in Jamaica and rocksteady became less popular. Many reggae songs became focused less on romance and more on black consciousness, politics and protest. The release of the 1972 film The Harder They Come and the rise of Jamaican superstar Bob Marley brought reggae to an international level that rocksteady never reached. Although rocksteady was a short-lived phase of Jamaican popular music, it was hugely influential on reggae, dub and dancehall. Many bass lines originally created for rocksteady songs continue to be used in contemporary Jamaican music, such as the rhythm from "Never Let Go" by Slim Smith (sometimes known as the answer rhythm) and the Hi-Fashion rhythm from "Bobby Bobylon" by Freddie McGregor.
A photograph of two mid-1960s mods on a customised scooter
Significant elements of the mod subculture include fashion (often tailor-made suits); music (including soul, ska, and R&B); and motor scooters (usually Lambretta or Vespa). The original mod scene was associated with amphetamine-fuelled all-night dancing at clubs.
In England during the early to mid 1960s, mod culture became more widespread. This led to an element of the mod scene occasionally becoming engaged in fights with the other dominant youth subculture of the period, rockers, which led to many news articles. The mods and rockers conflict led sociologist Stanley Cohen to use the term "moral panic" in his study about the two youth subcultures, which examined media coverage of the mod and rocker riots in the 1960s. In the mid-to-late 1960s, the conflicts between mods and rockers subsided, as original mods grew older and moved away from the soul scene and into psychedelia. London became synonymous with fashion, music, and pop culture in these years, a period often referred to as "Swinging London."
There was a mod revival in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s, which was followed by a mod revival in North America in the early 1980s, particularly in southern California, Vancouver, and Toronto.
Etymology and usage
The term mod derives from modernist, a term used in the 1950s to describe modern jazz musicians and fans. This usage contrasted with the term trad, which described traditional jazz players and fans. The 1959 novel Absolute Beginners describes modernists as young modern jazz fans who dress in sharp modern Italian clothes. The novel may be one of the earliest examples of the term being written to describe young British style-conscious modern jazz fans. This usage of the word modernist should not be confused with modernism in the context of literature, art, design and architecture. From the mid-to-late 1960s onwards, the mass media often used the term mod in a wider sense to describe anything that was believed to be popular, fashionable or modern.Paul Jobling and David Crowley argue that the definition of mod can be difficult to pin down, because throughout the subculture's original era, it was "prone to continuous reinvention." They claim that since the mod scene was so pluralist, the word mod was an umbrella term that covered several distinct sub-scenes. Terry Rawlings argues that mods are difficult to define because the subculture started out as a "mysterious semi-secret world", which The Who's manager Peter Meaden summarised as "clean living under difficult circumstances."
History
George Melly wrote that mods were initially a small group of clothes-focused English working class young men insisting on clothes and shoes tailored to their style, who emerged during the modern jazz boom of the late 1950s. Early mods watched French and Italian art films and read Italian magazines to look for style ideas.
Early 1960s
Quadrophenia exhibit at the Cotswold Motor Museum in Bourton-on-the-Water in 2007
 |
| James Dean Beatnik style |
Mary Anne Long argues that "first hand accounts and contemporary theorists point to the Jewish upper-working or middle-class of London’s East End and suburbs." Simon Frith asserts that the mod subculture had its roots in the 1950s beatnik coffee bar culture, which catered to art school students in the radical Bohemian scene in London. Steve Sparks, who claims to be one of the original mods, agrees that before mod became commercialised, it was essentially an extension of the beatnik culture: "It comes from ‘modernist’, it was to do with modern jazz and to do with Sartre" and existentialism. Sparks argues that "Mod has been much misunderstood ... as this working-class, scooter-riding precursor of skinheads."
The Small Faces in 1965.
At these venues, which Frith calls the "first sign of the youth movement", young people would meet collectors of R&B and blues records, who introduced them to new types of African-American music, which the teens were attracted to for its rawness and authenticity. As the mod subculture grew in London during the early-to-mid 1960s, tensions would often arise between the mods, often riding highly decorated motor scooters, and their main rivals, the rockers, a British subculture who favored rockabilly, early rock'n'roll, motorcycles and leather jackets, and considered the mods effeminate, because of their interest in fashion. Violent clashes would often ensue between the two groups. This period was later immortalized by songwriter Pete Townshend, in the Who's 1973 concept album, Quadrophenia.
However, after 1964, clashes between the two groups largely subsided, as mod expanded and came to be accepted by the larger youth generation in England as a symbol of all that was new. It was during this time that London became a mecca for rock music, with popular bands such as The Who and The Small Faces appealing to a largely mod audience, as well as the preponderance of hip fashions, in a period often referred to as Swinging London.
Mid-late 1960s
Swinging London
"Swinging London," Carnaby Street, circa 1966.
United States and elsewhere
A young American woman wearing a miniskirt in 1966.
Decline
Dick Hebdige argues that the subculture lost its vitality when it became commercialised, artificial and stylised to the point that mod clothing styles were being created "from above" by clothing companies and by TV shows like Ready Steady Go!, rather than being developed by young people customising their clothes and combining different fashions.As psychedelic rock and the hippie subculture grew more popular in the United Kingdom, much of mod, for a time seemed intertwined with those movements. However, after 1968 it dissipated, as tastes began to favor a less style-conscious, denim and tie-dyed look, along with a decreased interest in nightlife. Bands such as The Who and Small Faces began to change their music styles and, by the end of the decade, had moved away from mod. Additionally, the original mods of the early 1960s were coming to the age of marriage and child-rearing, which meant many of them no longer had the time or money for their youthful pastimes of club-going, record-shopping and scooter rallies.
Offshoots
Some street-oriented mods, usually of lesser means, sometimes referred to as hard mods, remained active well into the late 60s, but tended to become increasingly detached from the Swinging London scene and the burgeoning hippie movement. By 1967, they considered most of the people in the Swinging London scene to be "soft mods" or "peacock mods," as styles, there, became increasingly extravagant, often featuring highly ruffled, brocaded, or laced fabrics in Day-Glo colours.Many of the hard mods lived in the same economically depressed areas of South London as West Indian immigrants, so these mods favored a different kind of attire, that emulated the rude boy look of Trilby hats and too-short trousers. These "aspiring 'white negros'" listened to Jamaican ska and mingled with black rude boys at West Indian nightclubs like Ram Jam, A-Train and Sloopy's. Hebdige claims that the hard mods were drawn to black culture and ska music in part because the educated, middle-class hippie movement's drug-oriented and intellectual music did not have any relevance for them. He argues that the hard mods were attracted to ska because it was a secret, underground, non-commercialised music that was disseminated through informal channels such as house parties and clubs.
By the end of the 60s, the hard mods had become known as skinheads, who, in their early days, would be known for the same love of soul, rocksteady and early reggae. Because of their fascination with black culture, the early skinheads were, except in isolated situations, largely devoid of the overt racism and fascism that would later become associated with whole wings of the movement in the mid to late 70s. The early skinheads retained basic elements of mod fashion—such as Fred Perry and Ben Sherman shirts, Sta-Prest trousers and Levi's jeans—but mixed them with working class-oriented accessories such as braces and Dr. Martens work boots. Hebdige claims that as early as the Margate and Brighton brawls between mods and rockers, some mods were seen wearing boots and braces and sporting close cropped haircuts (for practical reasons, as long hair was a liability in industrial jobs and street fights).
Mods and ex-mods were also part of the early northern soul scene, a subculture based on obscure 1960s and 1970s American soul records. Some mods evolved into, or merged with, subcultures such as individualists, stylists, and scooterboys.
Late-1970s revival and later influences
Mod graffiti in the Netherlands from 2007.
Mod revivalists in Box Hill, Surrey, England, in April 2007
Characteristics
Dick Hebdige argues that when trying to understand 1960s mod culture, one has to try and "penetrate and decipher the mythology of the mods". Terry Rawlings argues that the mod scene developed when British teenagers began to reject the "dull, timid, old-fashioned, and uninspired" British culture around them, with its repressed and class-obsessed mentality and its "naffness". Mods rejected the "faulty pap" of 1950s pop music and sappy love songs. They aimed at being "cool, neat, sharp, hip, and smart" by embracing "all things sexy and streamlined", especially when they were new, exciting, controversial or modern. Hebdige claims that the mod subculture came about as part of the participants' desire to understand the "mysterious complexity of the metropolis" and to get close to black culture of the Jamaican rude boy, because mods felt that black culture "ruled the night hours" and that it had more streetwise "savoir faire". Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferriss argue that at the "core of the British Mod rebellion was a blatant fetishising of the American consumer culture" that had "eroded the moral fiber of England." In doing so, the mods "mocked the class system that had gotten their fathers nowhere" and created a "rebellion based on consuming pleasures".The influence of British newspapers on creating the public perception of mods as having a leisure-filled club-going lifestyle can be seen in a 1964 article in the Sunday Times. The paper interviewed a 17-year-old mod who went out clubbing seven nights a week and spent Saturday afternoons shopping for clothes and records. However, few British teens and young adults would have had the time and money to spend this much time going to nightclubs. Paul Jobling and David Crowley argue that most young mods worked 9 to 5 at semi-skilled jobs, which meant that they had much less leisure time and only a modest income to spend during their time off.
Fashion
Paul Jobling and David Crowley called the mod subculture a "fashion-obsessed and hedonistic cult of the hyper-cool" young adults who lived in metropolitan London or the new towns of the south. Due to the increasing affluence of post-war Britain, the youths of the early 1960s were one of the first generations that did not have to contribute their money from after-school jobs to the family finances. As mod teens and young adults began using their disposable income to buy stylish clothes, the first youth-targeted boutique clothing stores opened in London in the Carnaby Street and King's Road districts. The streets' names became symbols of, one magazine later stated, "an endless frieze of mini-skirted, booted, fair-haired angular angels". Newspaper accounts from the mid-1960s focused on the mod obsession with clothes, often detailing the prices of the expensive suits worn by young mods, and seeking out extreme cases such as a young mod who claimed that he would "go without food to buy clothes".Two youth subcultures helped pave the way for mod fashion by breaking new ground; the beatniks, with their Bohemian image of berets and black turtlenecks, and the Teddy Boys, from which mod fashion inherited its "narcissistic and fastidious [fashion] tendencies" and the immaculate dandy look. The Teddy Boys paved the way for making male interest in fashion socially acceptable, because prior to the Teddy Boys, male interest in fashion in Britain was mostly associated with the underground homosexual subculture's flamboyant dressing style.
Royal Air Force roundel, a mod symbol
Male mods adopted a smooth, sophisticated look that included tailor-made suits with narrow lapels (sometimes made of mohair), thin ties, button-down collar shirts, wool or cashmere jumpers (crewneck or V-neck), Chelsea or Beatle boots, loafers, Clarks desert boots, bowling shoes, and hairstyles that imitated the look of French Nouvelle Vague film actors. A few male mods went against gender norms by using eye shadow, eye-pencil or even lipstick. Mods chose scooters over motorbikes partly because they were a symbol of Italian style and because their body panels concealed moving parts and made them less likely to stain clothes with oil or road dust. Many mods wore military parkas while driving scooters in order to keep their clothes clean.
Many female mods dressed androgynously, with short haircuts, men's trousers or shirts, flat shoes, and little makeup — often just pale foundation, brown eye shadow, white or pale lipstick and false eyelashes. Miniskirts became progressively shorter between the early and mid-1960s. As female mod fashion became more mainstream, slender models like Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy began to exemplify the mod look. Maverick fashion designers emerged, such as Mary Quant, who was known for her miniskirt designs, and John Stephen, who sold a line named "His Clothes" and whose clients included bands such as Small Faces. The television programme Ready Steady Go! helped spread awareness of mod fashions to a larger audience. Mod-culture continues to influence fashion, with the ongoing trend for mod-inspired styles such as 3-button suits, Chelsea boots and mini dresses. The Mod Revival of the 80s and 90s led to a new era of mod-inspired fashion, driven by bands such as Madness, The Specials and Oasis. The popularity of the This Is England film and TV series also kept mod fashion in the public eye. Today's mod icons include Miles Kane (frontman of the Last Shadow Puppets), cyclist Bradley Wiggins and Paul Weller.
Music
The original mods gathered at all-night clubs such as The Flamingo and The Marquee in London to hear the latest records and show off their dance moves. As the mod subculture spread across the United Kingdom, other clubs became popular, including Twisted Wheel Club in Manchester.
The British R&B/rock bands The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds and The Kinks all had mod followings, and other bands emerged that were specifically mod-oriented. These included The Who, Small Faces, the Creation, The Action, The Smoke and John's Children. The Who's early promotional material tagged them as playing "maximum rhythm and blues", and a name change in 1964 from The Who to The High Numbers was an attempt to cater even more to the mod market. After the commercial failure of the single "I'm the Face / Zoot Suit", the band changed its name back to The Who. Although The Beatles dressed like mods for a while (after dressing like rockers earlier), their beat music was not as popular as British R&B among mods.
Amphetamines
Dexamphetamine tablets
Wilson argues that the significance of amphetamines to the mod culture was similar to that of LSD and cannabis within the subsequent hippie counterculture. Dick Hebdige argues that mods used amphetamines to extend their leisure time into the early hours of the morning and as a way of bridging the gap between their hostile and daunting everyday work lives and the "inner world" of dancing and dressing up in their off-hours.
Scooters
1963 VBB Standard 150
Vespa with characteristic collection of mirrors
Hard mods (who later evolved into the skinheads) began riding scooters more for practical reasons. Their scooters were either unmodified or cutdown, which was nicknamed a "skelly". Lambrettas were cutdown to the bare frame, and the unibody (monocoque)-design Vespas had their body panels slimmed down or reshaped.
After the seaside resort brawls, the media began to associate Italian scooters with violent mods. The media described groups of mods riding scooters together as a "menacing symbol of group solidarity" that was "converted into a weapon". With events like the November 6, 1966, "scooter charge" on Buckingham Palace, the scooter, along with the mods' short hair and suits, began to be seen as a symbol of subversion.
Gender roles
Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson argue that compared to other youth subcultures, the mod scene gave young women high visibility and relative autonomy. They write that this status may have been related both to the attitudes of the mod young men, who accepted the idea that a young woman did not have to be attached to a man, and to the development of new occupations for young women, which gave them an income and made them more independent. Hall and Jefferson note the increasing number of jobs in boutiques and women's clothing stores, which, while poorly paid and lacking opportunities for advancement, gave young women disposable income, status and a glamorous sense of dressing up and going downtown to work.Hall and Jefferson argue that the presentable image of female mod fashions meant it was easier for young mod women to integrate with the non-subculture aspects of their lives (home, school and work) than for members of other subcultures. The emphasis on clothing and a stylised look for women demonstrated the "same fussiness for detail in clothes" as their male mod counterparts.
Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferriss claim that the emphasis in the mod subculture on consumerism and shopping was the "ultimate affront to male working-class traditions" in the United Kingdom, because in the working-class tradition, shopping was usually done by women. They argue that British mods were "worshipping leisure and money ... scorning the masculine world of hard work and honest labour" by spending their time listening to music, collecting records, socialising, and dancing at all-night clubs.
Conflicts with rockers
In early-1960s Britain, the two main youth subcultures were mods and rockers. While mods were seen as "effeminate, stuck-up, emulating the middle classes, aspiring to a competitive sophistication, snobbish, [and] phony", rockers were seen as "hopelessly naive, loutish, [and] scruffy", emulating the motorcycle gang members in the film The Wild One, by wearing leather jackets and riding motorcycles. Dick Hebdige claims that the "mods rejected the rocker's crude conception of masculinity, the transparency of his motivations, his clumsiness"; the rockers viewed the vanity and obsession with clothes of the mods as immasculine.Scholars debate how much contact the two subcultures had during the 1960s. Hebdige argues that mods and rockers had little contact with each other because they tended to come from different regions of England (mods from London and rockers from rural areas), and because they had "totally disparate goals and lifestyles". Mark Gilman, however, claims that both mods and rockers could be seen at football matches.
John Covach writes that in the United Kingdom, rockers were often engaged in brawls with mods. BBC News stories from May 1964 stated that mods and rockers were jailed after riots in seaside resort towns on the south coast of England, such as Margate, Brighton, Bournemouth and Clacton.The "mods and rockers" conflict was explored as an instance of "moral panic" by sociologist Stanley Cohen in his study Folk Devils and Moral Panics, which examined media coverage of the mod and rocker riots in the 1960s. Although Cohen acknowledges that mods and rockers had some fights in the mid-1960s, he argues that they were no different from the evening brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, both at seaside resorts and after football games.
Newspapers of the time were eager to describe the mod and rocker clashes as being of "disastrous proportions", and labelled mods and rockers as "sawdust Caesars", "vermin" and "louts".Newspaper editorials fanned the flames of hysteria, such as a Birmingham Post editorial in May 1964 which warned that mods and rockers were "internal enemies" in the United Kingdom who would "bring about disintegration of a nation's character". The magazine Police Review argued that the mods and rockers' purported lack of respect for law and order could cause violence to "surge and flame like a forest fire". As a result of this media coverage, two British Members of Parliament travelled to the seaside areas to survey the damage, and MP Harold Gurden called for a resolution for intensified measures to control hooliganism. One of the prosecutors in the trial of some of the Clacton brawlers argued that mods and rockers were youths with no serious views, who lacked respect for law and order.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário