Funk Babblings

I'm among the last people who still haven't seen that movie everybody's talking about (we'll finally go tonight), so instead I'll say a little about my reactions to the OLD movie I finally saw a couple weekends ago....

Quadrophenia was released in 1979, based on the Who's concept album that was released in 1973. The story of both takes place in the 1964 British Mod scene, in which the Who spent the early part of their own career as icons.

I'd first heard the album in high school, dismissed the music as part of the Who's 70s decline (already preferring their earlier Mod-era music), but never really got the whole Mods vs Rockers thing at the time. In the late 90s I ended up a fan of a lot of the original Mod music (e.g. early Who, early Kinks), as well as young Columbus bands influenced by the Mods. In particular was The Pop Quiz (see Break-Up Records), who consciously styled their look and sound after what they saw in Quadrophenia; after the band dissolved one of them even ran a scooter dealership for a while. When I saw the movie I was amazed at how much the protoganist, Jimmy, looked like the frontman of The Pop Quiz, Poul Anderson Gault. Not only that, many of the club and party scenes (remember, taking place in 1964 and filmed in 1979) reminded me very much of going to Bernies around 1997-1999.

One really odd thing about what the film depicted was that these kids that were quite fussy about looking clean-cut, and had a bouncing sing-song "We are the Mods" chant (one of my favorite parts of the movie), could then get so violent against their rivals. A bit disturbing, though I still like Mod music.

Oh, if you watch the movie, watch the first minute or so of it again after it ends, or else you'll totally misunderstand the ending. Though I think that ending is somewhat diminished by the fact that Sting's character is going to be really pissed....