Mods and Rockers

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The Mods and the Rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the early 1960s.

Gangs of mods and rockers fighting in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youths. They can be seen as a type of folk devil. The rockers adopted a macho biker gang image, wearing clothes such as black leather jackets. The mods adopted a pose of scooter-driving sophistication, wearing suits and other cleancut outfits.

1 Conflict
- 1.1 Second Battle of Hastings (1964)
2 In Popular Culture
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Conflict

In terms of appearance, rockers rebelled from without, whereas mods rebelled from within. Rockers looked like trouble, but most mods looked like presentable — if rather arrogant — young chaps. Rockers, wearing leather jackets and riding heavy motorcycles, poured scorn on the mods, who wore suits and rode scooters. The rockers considered mods to be weedy, effeminate snobs. Mods saw rockers as out of touch, oafish and grubby.

Mods were usually city dwellers, whereas rockers tended to be more rural. Mods sometimes held down office jobs, whereas rockers were often manual workers (although there were many exceptions). Musically, there was not much common ground, with the rockers clinging to 1950s Rock and Roll like Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. Mods favoured 1960s soul, Rhythm and blues and ska.

Fights occurred where territories overlapped or rival factions happened upon each other. Mods sometimes sewed fish hooks into the backs of their lapels to shred the fingers of assailants. Weapons were often in evidence – coshes and flick knives being favoured.

[edit] Second Battle of Hastings (1964)

The conflict came to a head on the south coast of England, where Londoners head for seaside resorts on Bank Holidays. In 1964, thousands of Mods descended upon Margate, Broadstairs and Brighton - to find that an inordinately large number of Rockers had made the same holiday plans. Within a short time, marauding gangs of Mods and Rockers were openly fighting, often using pieces of deckchairs. The worst violence was at Brighton, where fights lasted two days, and moved along the coast to Hastings and back: hence the tag the "Second Battle of Hastings". A small number of rockers were isolated on Brighton beach where – despite being protected by police – they were overwhelmed and assaulted by mods. Eventually calm was restored and a judge levied heavy fines, famously labelling the arrested protagonists as Sawdust Caesers. [1]

[edit] In Popular Culture

The film Quadrophenia (1979), based on the album of the same name by The Who (1973), commemorated the Mod movement and its clashes with Rockers.

The conflict between Mods and Rockers was the butt of a joke in The Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night. In a press conference scene, a reporter asks Ringo, "Are you a mod or a rocker?", to which he replies "No, I'm a mocker."

The conflict between Mods and Rockers was cast into a near future setting in the graphic novel "The Originals," by Dave Gibbons. In the comic, the Mods were represented by the "Originals," who rode hovering scooters, while the Rockers were represented by the "Dirt," who rode hovering motorcycles (Gibbons, incidentally, was a Mod, perhaps leading to the less than flattering name given to the Rocker analogues).