The Sharper Word: A Mod Reader - Softcover

Hewitt, Paolo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1900924102 ISBN 13: 9781900924108

Publisher: Helter Skelter Publishing, 2000

Synopsis

Paolo Hewitt, celebrated rock journalist and biographer of Oasis, The Jam and The Small Faces, has collected some of the best writings ever on mod: the music, the fashions, and the entire way of life.

About this title

About the Author

Hewitt was a key writer at the NME and is the highly respected author of many books, as well as penning the sleevenotes for Oasis' What's The Story Morning Glory.

Reviews

As portrayed in the Who rock opera Quadrophenia, the mods were a working-class British youth cult in the mid-1960s preoccupied with mohair suits, dance clubs, scooters, and amphetamines. Rock journalist Hewitt borrows short snippets from Richard Barnes's standard Mods! (Plexus Pub., 1994), fiction by Tom Wolfe and Samuel Selvon, scholarly accounts by Stanley Cohen and Dick Hebdige, and oral histories. More obscure mod-related pieces, including an interview with top mod Pete Meaden, a 1960s article by fashion queen Mary Quant, and an unpublished eyewitness account by mod pioneer Irish Jack are also included. Though he somewhat neglects the mod drive for upward mobility after the lingering postwar economic squalor, Hewitt provides marvelous descriptions of mod trappingsDthe fashion, the music, the drugs, the clubsDthat clearly demonstrate the roots of Britpop and Austin Powers. Recommended for anyone interested in social history, youth movements, Carnaby Street, and rock'n'roll.DDave Szatmary. Univ. of Washington
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Helter Skelter Publishing
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1900924102
• ISBN 13: 9781900924108
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224