Rattling around the garage
Of all the ‘youth cults’ over the last 50 years the scooterboy scene of the Eighties – the MA1, cammo pants and dodgy haircuts era – has one unique attribute. Can you guess what it is?
I’ve been giving a bit of thought to those gloriously anarchic days of the early Eighties. I know that will come as a bit of a shock to you as I never usually touch on them (ahem!), but there is one aspect of those days which never seems to be discussed, and it is a hotly contested statement when made. It’s taken for granted that scooterboys came from the loins of the Mod revival. To a very large extent there is a lot of truth in that belief. I think we can agree that the vast majority of those of us who got involved in that scene only got there via an excursion into the Sixties-styled fashion that preceded it. But I offer this thought to you.
It wasn’t Mod that shaped the scooter scene around that 1982-84 period, it was its precursor: punk.
Now before you all start with the righteous indignation of this narky old bigmouth chipping away at one of the cornerstones of the scene, bear with me while I expand a little. I’m not saying there weren’t Mods involved in that generation of rallyists, it’s quite obvious that they were and that the actual route to it was via the revival, but the overarching mindset that made our seaside raids what they were wasn’t one of preening and posing, was it? It was more drinking and acting the pillock. The smart clothes of the stylist generation weren’t for us.
Totally impractical riding gear gave way to slightly less impractical clothes such as flying jackets and horror… leather biking jackets. Tidy haircuts gave way to shaved heads or attention seeking quiffs and mohicans. Does this in any way sound like we were an extension of the Mod scene, or would it be fair to say that it owes a lot more to punk?
It goes further too. If there was one thing we didn’t have much time for, it was authority. How many stories of ‘getting one over on the old bill’ have you heard? Okay, maybe that’s not an entirely punk thing, but it’s certainly one of its hallmarks.
You want more? Music, that lynchpin that holds together any youth cult… I’d be the first to agree that a lot of Sixties stuff was being played back then. The Who and The Kinks were strong favourites, as was Northern Soul and reggae, but it wasn’t the gentle end of the sounds that would fill a dancefloor with all comers, it was the frenetic upbeat sounds of My Generation and You Really Got Me along with R&B stormers from Mitch Ryder, Ray Charles and Dobie Gray that were the biggest sounds around. It’s hardly worth mentioning that punk had previously assimilated reggae, and that both the Mod revival and the 2-Tone sounds drew heavily on the safety pin brigade. Remember, this was before the scooter scene actually accepted the punk, and later psychobilly, influx that swelled our masses a couple of years later, something perhaps made possible by the pre-existing mindset that helped open the doors for those who swelled our masses, at least some of whom we’d been almost at war with not long previously.
I’m not suggesting for one minute that scooterboys and punks were interchangeable terms for the same thing, they obviously weren’t, but in theory I feel we were certainly more kindred spirits than we were with the sharper dressed edge of Mod that was coming more to the fore around that time.
Just my opinion, and maybe I don’t remember it the same way as you do.
Perhaps there were other influences. Who knows? But if you look at it objectively, then I’m sure that you’ll agree that as far as mindset went, we were hardly a million miles apart.
Finally, you’re still waiting for the answer to the question I posed in the introduction at the top of the page aren’t you? Well, the answer is… the basis for next month’s column! You’ll have to wait till then to find out.
It’s hardly worth mentioning that punk had previously assimilated reggae, and that both the Mod revival and the 2-Tone sounds drew heavily on the safety pin brigade.