Saturday 3 November 2012

Freakbeat (Slight Return)

Just as the original sixties mod scene generated its extreme fringe of bands who journeyed further into noise and psychosis than hitmakers like The Who and The Small Faces, so the Mod Revival of the late seventies also produced its avant-garde shadow.

A prime example were The Cigarettes, who bore the same relation to The Jam that The Eyes and The Creation did to Townshend and co. They took Weller's Spenglerian domestic dramas and added a distinct post-punk chilliness. If Weller was absorbed with the personal battles of psychic survival that afflicted the working class of his era, The Cigarettes depicted the inevitably bleak aftermath, as the overpowering forces of the market and the state crushed any individual resistance.



No comments: