A rather disjointed narrative of the California mod scene(s) 1980-1983
"Nothing's more glamorous than a lost cause." --San Diego mod Jimmy "Rooster",
looking forward to the 80's
In the Fall of 1981, a couple of years before there were squadrons of Vespa P200E's roaming the streets of L.A., an older San Diego mod had a conversation with a punk rocker, the words of which were transcribed into a 25-cent reader called "Be My Friend". The mod, named Jimmy Rooster of the mod-R&B group The Roosters, hoped that the local mod revival would not develop into a popular, accessible fad but rather a few small independent outfits, struggling against extinction. I wonder what Jimmy Rooster thought in 1983.
The San Diego mod scene, while related to the one in L.A., existed separately and evolved independently. At any rate a few kids in parkas started appearing in San Diego by the summer of 1980 and by '81 there were more, and some scooters as well; the mod interviewed above, estimated in the fall of 1981 that there were about 50 or 60 "hard-core" Mods in S.D. at the time. Kevin Long and Terry Ellsworth, members of the L.A. band the Untouchables recall playing at house parties in San Diego in the summer of '81; both of them recalled that the SD kids, while probably larger in terms of participants and dedicated mods, had no nightclub associated with them and relied upon parties. Conversely, an ex-SD mod was later quoted as describing a scooter run from S.D. to the L.A. area which took place in the summer of 1983. He stated that two years earlier, the runs went the other way since S.D. had the better scene and that older L.A. mods confirmed this. However, as Ellsworth pointed out, a scene is not a scene without a particular affiliated venue, which San Diego didn't have early on. One thing is certain--S.D. had the better bands.
The San Diego scene very quickly became 60's psych and British R&B-flavored and could be distinguished from the L.A. scene which was largely power-pop and ska oriented, at least in the beginning. Some great bands came out of SD, notably the Crawdaddys and Tell-Tale Hearts (they weren't mod bands but mods liked them). All had a few records. A few of the S.D. bands have somewhat of a cult following; the current garage/psych scene in Spain has been influenced by them.
Somebody in S.D. coined the obscure term "Craw Mods" to describe
the preponderance of S.D. mods, as opposed to "Ska Mods". That appellation
probably stemmed from an Untouchables song--a clunker by the name of "Ska
Mods" which, despite the band's popularity, is best forgotten.
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In the Bay area, a dozen or so Mods appeared by 1979; many of them lived in a house in the Sunset District of San Francisco and had come out of the early punk scene. Known as the Happy House Mods, most had scooters and dressed in traditional early '60s mod style. One of the bands they played in was known as Central File. By 1982, the older Happy House Mods began to leave the scene and by then a second generation of mods had appeared.
In the East Bay a few "mod nights" began to appear there in early 1983 at Ruthie's Inn in Berkeley, hosted by one of the new generation, an 19-year-old San Franciscan, Liz Pepin. The first show featured Noonday Underground, New Breed and the Untouchables. Pepin and a friend subsequently created the mod fanzine Wha-a-am! in reaction to the LA -based mod fanzine which was deemed too artificial. Her name became synonomous with the SF-area scene.
Other San Francisco bands were the above-mentioned New Breed (not to be confused with New Jersey's New Breed) and the Uptones (ska); Start was a three-piece hailing from Palo Alto.
In Central California, no mods appeared in any numbers until sometime after
the summer of 1983.
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In Los Angeles, the die was cast when a handful of clean-cut kids declared themselves mods and decided to dance to Ska, Soul and Skinhead Reggae down in Silver Lake.
The L.A. mod scene started around the time that the Untouchables (or UT's) was formed. In 1980 there were a few kids in the city defining themselves as mods; some had met in Hollywood at the Starwood night club while dancing to 60's soul records spun in a small side room on Monday nights; while no group identity as such yet existed this was the genesis of the L.A. scene. It was at the O.N. Klub, a gritty hole-in-the-wall venue in Silver Lake which largely catered to Jamaican music adherents, that a few of them decided to form their own band, the Untouchables.
Originally an Asian eatery, "Oriental Nights" (still reflected as such on the business license which the owner was unwilling to change) the club's manager, English ex-pat Howard Paar abbreviated the name to initials in order to avoid any semblance of connection with Madame Wong's or lack of originality. Shortened to "O.N. Klub" (pronounced "on") the black-painted 1914 facade had recently hosted acts such as Geno Washington and his Soul Revue, the Specials and impromptu performances by members of the Clash and the Beat. Paar had had an understanding with the few underage patrons that they not attempt to buy drinks while at the club; the more popular the club became however, this became impossible.
One of the bands that the future Untouchables had seen both there and at the Starwood was a local group which recently had re-invented itself as a sort of ska outfit, the Boxboys. While not a mod group, this New Wave Ska band with the female lead had more influence on them than any British act, and was the main impetus behind their decision to form their own band. Kevin Long came up with the name "Untouchables" as a droll reference to the vanity of rock groups. After appearing at a few parties, the new septet played their first gig at the ON Klub on September 30, 1981. Opening for Ska Cha Cha, they performed souped-up covers of Whatcha Gonna Do About It, We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet, and Stepping Stone among others to an enthusiastic crowd on what was supposed to be a slow Wednesday night.
Though up to this point Reggae had held open the doors of the ON Klub, Paar noticed that the tide was turning and began to allow more Mod Revival-related music into the mix on certain nights in a club which was theretofore dominated by Reggae and Ska, and Mod and Ska became cemented. That the L.A. mod scene would have such a Ska characteristic is due to its birth at the ON.
While there have been wry judgments of the L.A. mods' seeming preoccupation with ska, it was not necessarily the preferred sound by all L.A-area mods; it was prominent at all times at the ON however and was enough to distinguish the L.A. scene from the others. Original Jamaican Ska/Blue Beat/Rocksteady had been played on most nights in the very beginning of the ON ('80-'81) and was important in influencing the first few L.A. mods; it diminished when different types of artists began to be booked at the club. 2Tone (a very finite playlist to begin with) and older Reggae are in reality what is usually meant when the all-inclusive "ska" is used in the context of the L.A. Mod scene in general. Also it must be pointed out that Jamaican Ska was an important facet of the original British scene. Finally, the L.A. scene was more musically diverse than that of San Diego or San Francisco, both in scene-related bands and records played.
Around the first week of February 1982, when the ON's Thursday "Mod Nights" started being advertised, the L.A.-area mods numbered probably little more than 200. By that time affiliation with the ON was regarded as a badge of honor by mods, especially the younger kids who managed on occasion to sneak in.
One-inch wide ties were the norm as were broagues, the ubiquitous tasseled loafers and of course Fred-Perry-and-desert-boots. No self-respecting L.A. mod would be caught dead wearing winklepickers or Beatle boots although that would change. Close-cropped hair was the norm and true back combed mod haircuts with "triggers" were not quite as prevalent in L.A. Pork pie hats were popular. With girls, ski pants were common and many wore short hair or hairbands. Ben Sherman shirts really never made their appearance although the American style that they were derived from was already heavily in use, and while many mods chose to wear contemporary clothing from places like Brooks Brothers, Atkinson's or Talbot's (to the point of being labeled "preppy" by outsiders), the preponderance of L.A. area mods were content with "vintage" clothes or suits purchased at second-hand shops; however dedicated many were, there was not quite the level of fashion fanaticism as with their 60's British counterparts and their ever-changing scene. The L.A. mod revival revolved not so much around fashion as it did with belonging to an esoteric revival subculture. This facet underscored the California scenes in general.
Orange County, living in the shadow of L.A., soon spawned its own mods who, although small in number, were just as dedicated and probably (later) disproportionately larger. They were immediately subjected to hostility from the general population and part of the reason for their scooter clubs was for self-defense. Although geographically close to L.A., there often times was a chasm between the two groups.
In the late summer of 1982 mainly due to complaints from nearby residents, the LAPD decided to pay a visit to the ON Klub complete with tear gas and a paddy wagon (a la Quadrophenia) and in the ensuing weeks attendance dramatically dropped and as far as the mods were concerned it faded to a shell of its former self. A few venues opened up after that summer-- a few lackluster nights at Gino's and at Moody's (soon a mainstream club renamed 321), but as the scene expanded it was the Bullet at the Lhasa Club which emerged in the wake of the ON as a true mod club. After an aborted start in the last weeks of 1982 it revived in early 1983 and was the dominant club. At the Bullet, Northern soul began to be added to the mix although Ska and Power Pop continued to fill the dance floor.
Since December of 1982 the Untouchables had taken residency as the house band at the Roxy on the safer and brighter side of Sunset Blvd. than that which the diminutive, un-ventilated ON occupied, giving the city an opportunity to discover what the band and its scene was all about. For the band, while their music was finding a much larger audience, it was seemingly at the expense of their earliest and most ardent supporters. Whether they were conscious of it or not, the more successful the band became, the further it would grow from its origins. Kevin Long: "Perhaps we were naive to think that the original L.A. mod scene could persevere beyond the walls of the room that gave birth to it. If so, we were wrong."
The scene exploded (complete with its own short-lived periodical, "Twist" which was deemed too commercial by hard-core mods), and shortly thereafter a lot of the originals packed it in. By mid-1983 the number of kids in L.A. and Orange County who considered themselves mods was at least 3,000 according to estimates of the time. New people often were scorned by the old guard to the point where it became fashionable to mock other mods; such a large infusion of teenagers looking for a fad had diluted the L.A. scene to the point that its "poser" element became well known. Dave Lumian, publisher of Twist, stumbled into the truth when he bemoaned mods' tendency to greet new arrivals with putdowns: "Like it or not the ON Klub days are over." Although Lumian was not a mod nor a teenager, this underscored the status quo such as it was in the summer of '83.
The irony is that although 1983 was the high water mark for L.A. mods, it also essentially was the end of the scene.
--Michael Page 2006