Of the deluge of mod releases that came out after the March Of The Mods tour, it was those by Secret Affair which achieved the most chart success. ‘Time For Action’, a rallying cry for the new mod youth cult, almost reached the Top 10, as did ‘My World’, their most completely realised pop-soul hybrid. They went on to release three albums.


Despite all the hype during the summer, The Chords’ debut single, ‘Now It’s Gone’, failed to set the charts alight. The messy production didn’t do the band justice. Played alongside Polydor label-mates The Jam, who were just about to break into the Top 10 for the first time with ‘The Eton Rifles’, they came off second best. Their only album, So Far Away, sneaked into the Top 30, but they never achieved the commercial success predicted.


Sartorial narcissism, incredible self-belief, a clutch of memorable tunes, Who power chords aplenty and punk energy straight from the London clubs; The Purple Hearts displayed all of this in abundance. In his book Mod: A Very British Phenomenon, Terry Rawlings writes, “I’d never seen a band that looked as sharp as the Hearts. They had the whole mod thing off to a tee: East End arrogance, a moody looking singer in Bob Manton and a flashy lead guitar player in Simon Stebbing. They were also all roughly the same height… Another thing that impressed me about the Hearts was their distinct pop art element. Their bass player, Jeff Shadbolt… wore black-and-white pop art patterns with bleached white hair.”


The Purple Hearts drew inspiration from the


original mods, but also built on their punk roots – truly a mod renewal, rather than a revival. Drummer Gary Sparks had acknowledged to Adrian Thrills in his NME article back in April ’79 that “we’re still influenced by punk, especially early Clash and things like that. On the first Clash album they were talking about things that actually meant something in the everyday lives of people like us… We don’t want to recreate and revive the ’60s mod thing. The spirit of the original punk bands is living on in groups like us.”


Their early singles – ‘Millions Like Us’, an anthem for The March Of The Mods, ‘Frustration’, with lyrics that are exasperation incarnate (“I get frustration / I wear it like a suit / But the jacket fits too tightly / And there’s lead inside my boots”) and ‘Jimmy’, described by bassist Jeff Shadbolt in that April ’79 NME article as being “about the frustrations of a kid who gets pushed around at school” and “a Pop – Art – Teen – Confusion – Anthem!” – were all minor chart hits and are amongst the best of the era.


The Purple Hearts’ debut album, Beat That!, should have consolidated their reputation as rock ’n’ roll contenders. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to all the hype and expectation. Wilson Pickett’s ‘If You Need Me’ cries out for a Steve Marriott, Rod Stewart or Terry Reid to give it a rasping white soul delivery. The half-spoken ‘Slay It With Flowers’ is a bit embarrassing and would have worked better tucked away as a bonus track on a B-side. Fortunately, there are at least half a dozen songs which sound like all


the best bits from The Beatles, The Who, The Small Faces and more recent guitar-driven, lyrically astute, melodic punk bands stuffed in a blender and regurgitated with maximum venom by a bunch of 19-year-old lads hungry for rock ’n’ roll success. The review in NME described The Purple Hearts’ sound as “a potent pot-pourri of The Monkees, The Yardbirds, the Pistols and The Clash”. The CD reissue on the Captain Mod label is well worth picking up, as it adds some singles inexplicably left off the album first time


“I’d never seen a band that looked as sharp as the Hearts. They had the whole mod thing off to a tee: East End arrogance, a moody looking singer and a flashy lead guitar player.”


around – including ‘Millions Like Us’ and early B-side ‘Extraordinary Sensations’, which impresses with its updating of The Creation’s pop art experiments.


“Yes, of course The Creation were a huge influence,” admitted Simon Stebbing when I asked whether he’d been inspired by guitarist Eddie Phillips. “I used a violin bow a couple of times live and on the recording of ‘Extraordinary Sensations’, but it was Bob’s fantasy really. I didn’t really want to do all that feedback stuff – too obvious, too already


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