'King Mod: Peter Meaden, The Who, and the Making of a Subculture' - Hardcover Published on 23rd November

 

In 1975 author Steve Turner interviewed Peter Meaden - the man who discovered The Who. A small part of the interview was published in NME during1979, a year after Meaden's death, and was instrumental in the first major revival of mod culture in the UK. 

Quotable lines in the interview include 'Mod living is an aphorism for clean living under difficult circumstances' - which now regularly make it onto T-shirts, posters and mugs as well as being used as book and compilation album titles. The full interview has never been published before and what makes it so captivating is not just what Meaden says, but the way he says it. He was like a saxophone player blowing words into the ether. High on medication of some kind he followed word associations to the bitter end - and in doing so unlocked fresh parts of his imagination. 

That interview is the core of King Mod - and has been extensively footnoted to expand on all the key references - and its wrapped around by two other sections that help complete the picture and provide historical context. The first introduces the history of mod and the background to the interview and the second is a potted biography - drawn from extensive interviews with family, friends and colleagues (over 40 of them) as well as medical records, school reports, newspaper accounts, letters and other archive material. 

There is no individual in the mod firmament who attracts more interest than Peter Meaden - who is seen to embody the spirit, passion and purity of the movement - and this book hopefully captures the essence of the King Mod.