Things are moving fast. Just as we've digested punk into our mainstream and started to adapt to post-punk, something new comes up.

Well, not new exactly. A revival in fact. Odd things, revivals. Some months back I went to a gig for an obnoxious band called the Angelic Upstarts who weren't. We turned up far too early, as usual. The thing about small gigs here is that nobody ever seems to know what time things are going to happen. It's a pretty hit and miss affair (the times I've been asleep on my feet only to be rudely woken up by the headline band I can't tell you ...) Staggering into the Railway Hotel, a place which gives lie to its name since where the bands play is small, dark and with the slowest barmen in the world, the audience appeared as usual. In other words a peculiar cross section— still a sociologist's dream. Punks looking fed up; punkettes looking now strangely sophisticated (no roots showing, pink eyeshadow carefully applied, very discreet eyebrows); skinheads apparently testing the floor for signs of strain (bullet necks, cropped heads) but . . . there up by the bar in a group, about six or seven young Mods. Deceptively casual looking, not arrogant but somehow knowing they looked more "contemporary" then everyone else, they kept themselves aloof in their parkas (anoraks with -fur linings and "Tails": pieces that do up between your legs so you can keep the elements out when riding the "mod" vehicle, a Lambretta scooter). „