Re: R: RARA-AVIS: british terminology

From: Rene Ribic ( rribic@optusnet.com.au)
Date: 07 Aug 2002


>
> Luca Conti wrote:
>
> > *Golly* is a derogatory term for a Black person.
> > *Charver* is going to bed with someone.
> > *Mods* and *Rockers* were two rival teenage movements fron the early
> > Sixties. Mods used to ride Italian motor scooters (*Vespa*). I'm
> > simplifying quite a lot, in this case...
>
> And Miker, if you want to see the Mods and Rockers in action against
each
> other big time, check out the movie version of The Who's QUADROPHENIA.
>
> TL
>

Just some additional info: the mods & rockers went through a pretty big revival in the 1980's, particularly the mods. The rockers resurfaced as
"Teddy Boys", a later variant of rockers. The skinhead thing originally grew out of the mods, who in the later sixties had splintered into skins
& Carnaby Street types who discovered pot, flared trousers & later the hippie thing. In my part of the world in the eighties, the revived mod movement gave birth to one tribe of (neo) skinheads while from the contemporary punk scene a different tribe of skins emerged. (These guys were pretty much identical to look at & were differentiated by the music they listened to: the mod skins listened to ska & reggae, the other lot punk & some heavy metal. Many skins (& some kids from the other sub-cultures of the '80's) were attracted to neo-Nazi groups, particularly the National Front in the UK, which is where all these sub-cultures originated. (The Australian versions went very much like the UK prototypes. The neo-Nazi group here was the National Alliance. The police surveillance tapes on a NA hang out that incidentally recorded the murder of one of the NA skins by his buds makes for hardboiled black comedy of the sort Tarantino would kill for). Of course, since the 80's, skinhead has become synonymous with neo-Nazi, not just in the UK & Australia but the US & both Western Europe & Eastern Europe as well.
(An ironic footnote: The Who, who's rock opera become movie, QUADROPHENIA, was probably the greatest kick start to the mod revival & the band idolised by the Jam, the band that became the figurehead of the mod revival, were never a true mod band but one of many British R'n'B bands of the day. Their manager had seen many of these kids with a distinctive look & decided to exploit the style. The mods of the 60's listened to US black dance music, particularly Tamla Motown. The big mod band of the day were the Small Faces, who tried to emulate those sounds.)

Rene

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