Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances: A Life In Mod – From the Revival to Acid Jazz

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It's the phrase coined by Pete Meaden that most Mods, I'm sure, say they live by. Some might say it's the simplest definition of 'Mod'. Yeah, I kinda like it myself. It's simple... yet open to interpretation. The clear-sighted vision, analysis and optimism of a writer like Hatherley shines through when we need it most.”

Eddie Piller: ‘Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances: A Life In Mod – From The Revival to Acid Jazz’. Foreword by Paul Weller.

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A city ashamed of itself is a typical metaphor for Hatherley, who tends to personalise places by assigning them human faces and souls. I remember how baffled I was several years ago on discovering that Hatherley, who grew up in a family of devoted Labour party supporters, described himself repeatedly (see his Wikipedia entry) as a confirmed socialist and even a communist, for I would safely qualify most of his writing as extremely pro-democracy, anti-totalitarian and hence – on my scale of values – rabidly anti-communist! For Hatherley, Hadid’s buildings are to the era of Blairite new-liberalism what Neave Brown or Erno Goldfinger were to the high watermark of postwar Britain’s Wilsonian social democracy. From hedge-fund financed academy schools to commercial temples of the post-industrial age, Hadid’s practice has, in Hatherley’s words, “produced a concrete monument to the demented extravagance of the derivatives-led boom of 1997-2008”. a b Artavia, Mario (2006). "SoCal Mods". South Bay Scooter Club. Archived from the original on 9 December 2008 . Retrieved 11 October 2008.

A brave, incisive, elegant and erudite writer, whose books dissect the contemporary built environment to reveal the political fantasies and social realities it embodies.”

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It's not just the buildings that alert Hatherley's sharp eye and evoke his legitimate anger. One of the punchiest essays in the collection is about the local authority's enforced standardisation of the once versatile and interesting shop signs in the High Street of Walthamstow, one of London's most proudly multicultural areas. They all had to be designed to one and the same pattern, which immediately made the once colourful street look depressing and dull. "The remodelling of the shop signs of Walthamstow is an anal-retentive mistake driven by a total misunderstanding of what makes London interesting," writes Hatherley with characteristically bitter simplicity.

Hatherley is strongest when writing about architecture, its form, history and politics. Strange, Angry Objects: The Brutalist Decades is a case in point. First published in the London Review of Books in 2016, it is part book review, part manifesto. The author uses his discussion of eight publications by architects, critics and enthusiasts to examine the ideas and intentions behind the postwar period’s least-loved building style. Mary Anne Long argued that "first hand accounts and contemporary theorists point to the Jewish upper-working or middle-class of London's East End and suburbs." [15] Simon Frith asserted 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. [16] Steve Sparks, whose claim is 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. [15] Sparks argued that "Mod has been much misunderstood ... as this working-class, scooter-riding precursor of skinheads." The term mod derives from modernist, a term used in the 1950s to describe modern jazz musicians and fans. [9] 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. REDSKINS— The Interview, 1986". Sozialismus-von-unten.de. Archived from the original on 26 February 2010 . Retrieved 31 August 2010.

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This period, portrayed by Alberto Sordi's film in Thank you very much, and in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blowup, [23] was typified by pop art, Carnaby Street boutiques, live music, and discothèques. Many associate this era with fashion model Twiggy, miniskirts, and bold geometrical patterns on brightly coloured clothes. During these years, it exerted a considerable influence on the worldwide spread of mod. [1] United States and elsewhere [ edit ] Miniskirt-wearing woman in 1966