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The generation game 

Elisabeth Mahoney
Monday September 2, 2002
The Guardian 

A musical movement was born in a hairdressing moment.
"We went into the barber's as rock'n'rollers," Roger
Daltrey recalled in The Who: Their Generation (Radio
2), "and came out as Mods." Though there was a serious
musical reason to profile the band now (their first
album has just been released on CD, 37 years after it
was recorded, thanks to a long-running legal feud),
what Paolo Hewitt's early history of The Who most
skilfully captured was the cultural context they
emerged from.

Born on the cusp of postwar austerity dissolving into
the self-indulgent times of the 60s when young men
were newly free of National Service, the Mod movement
was all wrapped up in the fripperies of fashion.
"Irish" Jack Lyons explained the sartorial hierarchies
that divided Mods. The best-dressed dudes "knew the
little Italian cobblers who were producing the most
beautiful cycling boots", while their imitators would
stick to high-street shops. Not that this mattered. "A
Mod would never ask another person 'Where did you get
that?'" said Lyons, "because all that you'd get would
be a blank stare. You lost face asking another Mod
where he got something - that was the secret." 


=====
-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
http://www.thewhothismonth.com
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