BLUR, of course, aren't Mods. They're New Mod icons, sure: every time Graham Coxon steps into Blow Up, he's greeted asa homecoming hero. It's them on the peeling posters sellotaped to a million Camden bedsit walls, just above the scattered soul singles and upturned desert boots. Their audiences ore filled with three-piece suits and Fred Perrys, narrow-legged boys and tight-skirted girls.
But most of the kids at Blow Up haven't really thought this one out. Anyone convinced that half these Mods are genuinely sharp kiddies should dig out a recent piece in one of the glossies, in which a member of an up-and-coming Mod combo declared that, "It's really important when you're a Mod to have a good-looking girl on your arm", a teenage modette tellingly claimed she'd "always liked my dad's music", and another made a matter-of-fact announcement to the effect that Mod girls would be unwise to wear skirts "because Mod boys call you a slag" (!!!).
Blur, whatever they originally intended, are Gods of the New Mod -witness the bizarre spectacle of 500 sharp-dressed, self-consciousfy cool lads down at Blow Up, desperately trying to stay stylish and dance to the bouncing, gurning, impossibly uncool oompa of "Parklife" simultaneously!