gigs were played supporting a band called The Inmates who, in my mind, were the best white R&B band of all time, especially Bill Hurley. We played on the old pub-rock circuit at places like The Hope & Anchor. The Inmates liked our music because it was rough R&B compared to their smooth style.”


Simon Stebbing remembers those early gigs, before the media attention, as being “great fun, and all the bands seemed to look after each other and check each other out. We had a private little underground scene. Most of the bands were totally unmemorable, doing fourth-rate Jam and Who impersonations – minus any fire. Southend’s Speedball were good, and The Inmates of course should have been huge. They took us under their wing and got us playing in London, bless ’em.”


Squire, a trio from Woking in Surrey, had already been around for a couple of years. Their clean ’60s sound had more in common with the powerpop revivalists of the year before, but they are generally credited with releasing the first mod renewal single, ‘Get Ready To Go’, in May ’79. Also in May, an all-day mod festival (“the first of its kind since the ’60s”, according to the gig flyer) took place in Bishops Stortford. The Purple Hearts headlined supported by, amongst others, Squire. A month later, The Killermeters organised a Northern mod night at Huddersfield Polytechnic and played alongside Secret Affair.


In July, a mod band finally made it into the charts when The Merton Parkas’ chirpy and decidedly lightweight ‘You Need Wheels’ scraped into the Top 40 and earned them an appearance on Top Of The Pops. A quote by Brett Ascott, drummer with The Chords, in Terry Rawlings’ book Mod: A Very British Phenomenon, sums up the feelings of many: “I don’t blame The Merton Parkas, I blame the people who bought it. I mean, come on – ‘You Need Wheels’, was that really our ‘Anarchy In The UK’?” It would be cruel, however, to pigeonhole The Merton Parkas as the mod renewal’s Freddie & The Dreamers. They were at their best in a sweaty club performing a mix of powerpop originals and crowd-pleasing covers like ‘(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone’ and ‘What’d I Say’.


Other bands were getting ready to try to follow The Merton Parkas in to the charts and on to Top Of The Pops. John Peel broadcast a BBC Radio One Session by The Chords in July and the following month they were on the cover of London’s listings magazine Time Out. And Secret Affair, The Purple Hearts and Back To Zero spent most of August on “The March Of The Mods” tour, as they prepared to put out their debut singles. The Arista-funded I-Spy label had been set up to showcase Secret Affair; Squire were also given a one-single deal with the same label. The Purple Hearts and Back To Zero had been picked up by a new label called Fiction, set up by former A&R man Chris Parry, the man who’d signed The Jam. The Chords had signed with Polydor. The live album Mods May Day ’79, which came out in August, and included contributions by Secret Affair and Squire, helped to ratchet up further attention from the music press.


38


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