’79 The Mod Revival, Time For Action – Garry Bushell, Red Planet
’79 The Ska Revival, Dance Craze – Garry Bushell, Red Planet
Back in print, with a handful of updates included, is this brace of music-based books, one focusing on the ’79 Mod revival, the other targeting the Two-Tone uprising of the same year. This timely reprint of these two books is just in time for Christmas at a very reasonable RRP of £12.99 (plus p&p) each; they would either stand alone as individual books on the one subject or conversely, as a pair, make decent stocking fillers for Mods, rudies, skins and scooterists alike. Initially, both books were first published to coincide with the 40th anniversary of both musicbased British youth subcultures that were life-affirming for so many youngsters, and some not so youngsters in the UK and further afield during 1979. During the latter part of the ’70s, a younger, South London based, working-class lad, Garry Bushell, was making a name for himself as a writer for Sounds magazine. Alongside two other weekly music publications (New Musical Express and Melody Maker), Sounds was at the cutting edge, reporting on exciting new bands and sub-genres of the music of the time. Garry Bushell was one of the first music journalists to pick up on the ’79 Mod revival – he was a first-hand witness to the rise of the ’79 fusion of ska and punk explosion pioneered by the Coventry-based Two-Tone (and related) label, mentored by Jerry Dammers.
Both of Garry Bushell’s excellent books on the subjects are packed with interviews, reviews and anecdotes from the original ’79-’81 era, chronologically documenting both the Mod revival and Two-Tone explosion as they happened. Delivered with a slice of Garry’s trademark humour, interacting with personal accounts from those who were there, these two books, which kind of go hand in hand, musically cross-pollinate and accordingly complement each other. Hence instead of two separate, individual reviews of the reprinted, revamped pair, a two in one overview. This pair of new, improved (content-wise) books have been treated to a few tweaks and more importantly, both have had many images from the ’79 and post-’79 years included. Both books are available from any bookshop, or visit the publisher’s website: www. redplanetmusicbooks.com
Information contained within the pages of both books is a must for anyone whose formative years were spent during the ’79 Mod revival and Two-Tone era; equally, they provide a documentation of their arrival, meteoric rise and eventual demise for those with an interest but far too young to have experienced them themselves. These two informative books transport readers back to a time when music, fresh and new, or revisited, meant something to those whose lives were shaped by those heady times.
Sarge