The Smiling Mod

Smiler in 1985

Frock&Roll are very happy because we were lucky enough to catch up with Reading’s own smiling Mod, Paul Anderson – a Mod expert and the brains behind last year’s runaway hit exhibition 'Reading, Steady, Go!' This was a look at Mod culture in Reading, which we were also involved in.

Hey Paul, give us the low down on yourself

My name is Paul Anderson but I’m better known as Smiler. I was born in Reading and live in Caversham with my wife Lorraine and my beautiful eight month old son, Joe Sonny Anderson.

Give us a brief history of Mod culture, please!

The Mod culture really began around 1958 just after the Teddy Boys had shocked the world that young working class teenagers could dictate fashion. The early Mods adopted styles from America, Italy and France. Bearing in mind this was not really that long after the war it did upset the older generation that youngsters could be so multi cultural especially when they added black Jamaican ska music and R&B and soul music from America as the soundtrack to their lives. The Mods were the first generation not to have national service and that coupled with the rise in hire purchase led to more social time and money for consumer items such as records, clothes and scooters. These kids were clothes obsessed and wanted to get out of the house to dance every night. They were also the first to really embrace colourful clothing in a nation dressed mainly in grey and black. It had initially been the domain of the gay underground scene but Mods took to wearing pink, yellow and other seemingly outrageous colours for the time.

How did you get into Mod culture? What's so appealing?

I became involved in the Mod scene around September 1979 after watching it evolve from afar. At first the entry point was through the revival bands such as The Jam, Secret Affair and The Chords etc. Fashionwise I hadn’t a clue - it was all white socks, loafers and a parka.

In 1983 I started work as a postman and by then lots of the older original revival Mods were getting more into being Scooter Boys. In other words their interest revolved around their scooters so clothes were not that important and their music choices changed. To me being a Mod was always about clothes first, music second and although I always have owned scooters, they really aren’t a necessity. At work I had to wear a uniform so I really appreciated dressing up in my leisure time which I guess is the paradox to businessmen wearing jeans and sports wear in their free time.

By 1984 most local Mods had evolved into the scooter scene whilst I went in search of my Mod Nirvana which I found in London. I discovered clubs like The Phoenix and Sneakers which were full of young kids wearing tailor made suits and 60’s vintage clothes dancing to original R&B, soul, ska, beat and jazz. I found my Mod heaven and that dictated my direction from then on. I was always in search of elusive vintage shirts by Brooks Brothers, Jaytex, Ben Sherman, Brutus, Austins, Jon Wood, Harry Fenton or Arnold Palmer. If you couldn’t get vintage you’d find a good shirt maker such as Katy Stevens who was based at 7 Archer Street in Soho at the time. She’d made shirts for The Beatles and The Small Faces in the 60’s and was the best. Suits and trousers were either vintage or tailor made. We went to a guy called Charlie Antoniou who had a tiny room above a shop in Carnaby Street. He made beautiful mohair masterpieces in three or four buttons or maybe double breasted. You avoided the mass Mod market shops that were dotted along Carnaby Street and were cheap quality and pale imitations. The street fashion by 1984 included Frankie says T shirts, linen one button ‘Miami Vice jackets’ or casual gear such as Pringle, Lyle & Scott etc paired with Farrah slacks. Youth tribes from the period included ‘Boneheads’ (a racist ancestor of the Skinheads), Punks, Psychobillys, Rockabillys, New Romantics, Casuals, Rockers and Scooter Boys. Most hated us Mods but in a way it felt great to be involved in such an underground movement.

Thoroughly modern Mod - Smiler in 1988

For those of us who would like to know more about all things Mod what would you recommend for info and for the feel of the movement?

I would recommend modculture.com as the best website. The Facebook The UK Mod Scene is a good page as well as Original Modernists. On the book front I recommend Mods! By Richard Barnes and of course Mods - The New Religion by me when it comes out next year! The Facebook page for my book is entitled ‘My Forthcoming Book – Mods – The New Religion’ and has over 2,100 followers.

Fashion-wise, give us the gen on the essential kit for the ultimate Mod look

The ultimate Mod look is a very personal thing and means different things to different folks. Personally I love a well cut bespoke three button suit in good quality material such as Doemeuil, slim lapels, slanted ticket pocket, handkerchief, tab collar shirt, slim tie, cufflinks and tie stud, good quality socks and highly polished quality shoes such as loafers.

What do you think of the modern Mod scene?

It's weird but the scene now is quite healthy but somehow I feel disappointed. In the 80's we were evolving and you spent ages trying to find out about everything from music to clothes to Mod history. If you were sussed back then it stood out a mile. Just about everybody hated Mods and they were quite violent times but hey we were young and you thrived off that! Now we live in the Internet age. All the information is there at the push of a button so people don't have to search for those tiny details so much. Britpop seemed to make scooters and Mod clothing acceptable, so much that now Mods are deemed as British as fish and chips. Anybody can DJ now because if you own a credit card and access to eBay you can own those elusive records. No more trawling through record fairs, building up contacts, finding dealers who put out record lists. DJ'ing is there to anybody with knowledge of tunes and a credit card. CD’s have also made music that was never available years ago quite easy to purchase, so yet again some people DJ off of CD’s but I really don’t care for that at all. On a positive note the internet has made it more possible to view things you'd never see. Hear tunes you'd never hear and basically make the world a smaller place so that Mod is truly international now. Computer technology embraces the true Mod dream of forward planning and the future whilst killing off the other Mod ideal of elitism to some extent. In Reading there really isn’t a Mod scene as such but a few likeminded individuals doing their own thing. I don’t do Club Rude! regularly anymore but there are various Northern Soul nights if that’s your bag and a couple of Moddy and reggae orientated nights but they are not overtly Mod. Next year a friend and me are putting on a few nights of Jazz that we did back in the 90’s. Nobody else is doing that locally so it will be nice to do something that although we did it years ago, seems kind of new again.

What are your fave hang outs?

I still like to get out seeing my friends in London when I can, places like the 100 Club for gigs etc and my mates run a top night called Sidewinder. Manchester always holds dear to my heart and a great night there called ‘No Way Out’ is a great meet up. Just getting out for a few pints with my mates in Reading is good enough though!

Tell us about your exhibition 'Reading, Steady Go!'- how did it come about?

The exhibition came about a few years ago whilst I was looking at an exhibition that Reading Museum put on about the local Punk scene of the mid to late 1970’s. The exhibition was great but as I left I felt I could do a bigger and better exhibition on the local 1960’s Mod scene. I had already done plenty of research for my proposed book on the subject. I also already owned lots of original memorabilia and I knew my friend Damian Jones had a fantastic collection of Mod related items too. When the museum finally agreed to our idea, waiting 2 years for it to happen seemed a lifetime. In reality though the time was needed to prepare it so it actually flew by quickly. To be honest I really can’t believe that it has been and gone.

Flyer from 1988

It was such a fantastic idea and success; it really seemed to fill a demand in Reading - why do you think it worked so well and what feedback did you have?

‘Reading, Steady, Go!’ worked for a number of reasons. There was a lot of hard work from the museum itself. People like Brendan Carr and Catherine Roberts believed in the project so that helped. Also the fact that both myself and Damian wanted to get it right was very important too. Mods are the fiercest critics, as it’s all about the detail. If something was wrong it would have been noticed and we would have been drawn over the coals. We had to make it very clear to the museum that we were not prepared to dilute our idea just to be about the 60’s or The Beatles etc.  It had to be 100% about the Mod scene and the museum relented on some of its ideas and totally backed us up.

Damian’s original 60’s posters stole the show for me. I had smaller items such as membership cards and magazines etc. I wrote the story out and contacted people I knew who could get us essential items like the fantastic scooters from original Mod Dave Ilsley. Damian persuaded Rolling Stones collector Ali Zaire to loan some of his amazing items such as Brian Jones’ (of the Rolling Stones) 1963 jacket, his 1963 Gibson Firebird guitar, as well as two guitars that belonged to British blues legend Alexis Korner. The Ami Tropicana juke box that played throughout the exhibition was the original one from legendary 60’s Mod club The Birdcage in Portsmouth. We both felt that we had done the best job possible and the reaction we got back from the public endorsed those feelings.

I think that apart from the fact that plenty of people from the original era wanted to feel nostalgic for those far off days plenty of youngsters were fascinated too. Let’s face it youth culture is quite dire these days. Music is downloaded, clothes are shapeless and baggy and there is no particular defined style. The exhibition showed life before mobile phones, where kids dressed up and had to acquire music via records and a record player. The feedback from young people was as vital as the original Mods telling us their views. Both Damian and I went that extra mile by contacting the right people to help such as Jim Donavon, Mike Ferrante, Dave Ilsley and Gabrielle Scicluna. I spent a long time researching the information for the diary boards which told a year in the fictional character Tony Royal in 1964. The character’s name came from a true life Reading Mod face in the 60’s called Tony Edwards and the Royal part came from the local football team so people could identify with the character. I must also thank my good friend Paul McEvoy who did the graphic design for the story boards and the advertising posters. It helped bring it all to life. We were told later that it was the museum’s most successful and best attended expo ever.

  

What are you up to at the moment?

My current book ‘Mods – The New Religion’ is due out next year by Omnibus Publishing. It was a very long project taking up a few years but it is the book I think the Mod scene finally deserves. It takes in the early period of the culture from 1958 up until 1973. Plus it mentions the Mod revival. It is the Mods own story in their own words but not just from London and Manchester but all over the country. It also takes on the musician’s perspective and I got to interview many of my heroes such as Martha Reeves from Motown, Eddie Floyd from Stax and a whole load of musical pioneers. I’m proud of it and believe it to be a great legacy (apart from my son of course!) to leave behind.

Smiler at the launch of his last book 'Circles: The Strange Story of the Fleur de Lys, Britain's Forgotten Soul Band, 2009

 I’m also hoping to write a few articles that I wish to put forward to magazines and maybe start another book. I have a million and one ideas running around my head … I just need the time to make them materialise! As Joe gets older I’d like to get out DJ’ing again too!

Tell us about the DJ’ing

I first DJ’d at the Horse and Barge in Duke Street in July 1985 which started a DJ career that has lasted until now. At that point Reading only really had Northern Soul nights to cater to scooter orientated people. I was more into 60’s black R&B, blues, ska and jazz so that’s what I based my sets on. Soon I was DJ’ing at do’s all over the south including Bracknell, Oxford and London. In the late 80’s I ran a weekly Mods only club at The Kings Tavern on the Kings Road, Reading. It was attended by Mods from all over Britain and ran for four years. I also DJ’d at all the major London Mod clubs as well as the Mod scooter rallies. I got heavily into jazz and acid jazz and ran several clubs along those lines with my friend Keith Mathews. The Mod scene is really an international affair and has led me to DJ’ing in various places from Amsterdam to Belgium, from Barcelona to Rome; all fantastic!  My R&B collection has led me to DJ’ing for top performers such as Chris Farlowe at London’s legendary 100 Club. These days sadly I turn down many DJ’ing offers as I concentrate on helping my wife with my new son. I had to turn down this year’s Glasgow Mod weekender and a vintage festival in Northampton and was gutted but I still take the occasional job and can be found spinning once a month at Club Rude! on the 3rd Friday of the month at the Queens Arms, Great Knollys Street, Reading. I also co-compile the Rare Mod series of albums and EP’s with Damian Jones for the Acid Jazz record label.

DJ'ing abroad in 1990

DJ'ing at this year's Acid Jazz Boat Party

 And finally ... give us your thoughts on what it means to be a Mod

Top 60’s Mod Peter Meaden was once famously quoted as saying that Mod was all about ‘clean living under difficult circumstances’.

I have also always loved this quote from Oscar Wilde:  

                                     ‘A man’s first duty in life is to his tailor 

                             what the second is, nobody has yet discovered.’

                                                               

Club Rude's Flyer

Cheers to Smiler for taking the time to speak to us. You can catch Smiler spinning the wheels of steel at Club Rude's Christmas do on 20th December.

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