THE HISTORY OF BRITISH STREET CULTURE LIVES ON IN THOSE ALREADY CREATING THE FUTURE The style tribes and individuals who laid the foundations for generations to come, their legacy is what keeps the cycle moving forward. From Mod to Grime, Stamford Bridge to the Haรงienda, the beat goes on. They were us as we are them.
GAZELLE IS BACK
THE GAZELLE TAPES To celebrate the re-release of the adidas gazelle, scotts and Sabotage Times combined to create the gazelle tapes, a series of short films documenting the way the past continues to influence the present and future. A collection of musicians and creatives from across the generations came together over two days to
discuss the unbreakable bond between music and style. Current acts making an impact on the underground sat alongside icons of our time to share their stories. Turns out they really do still make ‘em like they used to‌.
The Old Queens Head LONDON
GRANT FLEMING PHOTOGRAPHER
“The constant has always been looking sharp. Not being afraid to show it. Being a bit of a peacock, you know.”
ELF KID
GRIME ARTIST “I want everyone to feel this is a proud moment right now, and if the whole UK can stand behind our artists we can do something amazing”
MICK ROBINSON ACCENT
“There’s something in the British and English psyche that makes kids want to dress up a bit”
TOM WATSON REAL LIES
“It’s all about building a lifestyle and a subculture out of your friends”
SHAUN RYDER MUSICIAN
”Just as important to us was living the life, as much as making the music”
THE LOST TAPE During filming, Happy Mondays frontman and national treasure Shaun Ryder dropped in to chat with The Farm’s Peter Hooton. The two legends of music had no difficulty in getting reaquainted, discussing the relationship between music and the terraces, UK fashion in the ‘80s and key moments in their careers.
SHAUN RYDER: At the time we didn’t see anybody that looked like us in a band, never mind on telly or in the magazines. The nearest you got was Bernard from New Order and Terry Hall. Then these lot, The Farm, turn up on the Oxford Road Show. It was a great tune, Hearts and Minds. Even though they were Scousers.
Due to a technical problem, perhaps ghostly mischief from the spirits of music past, the audio from the tape was distorted. Only this transcript survives from what has become known as ‘The Lost Tape’.
PETER HOOTON: Well it was Working Class culture from both the cities. That’s what it was, wasn’t it? What we were dressed in was just what people wore on the streets. It wasn’t contrived, it was just what we wore.
JAMES BROWN: Did people ever try and tell you to wear different stuff?
no one in the magazines that looked like us ‘til James [Brown] turned up.
SHAUN: Imagine Top of the Pops at the time. You’ve got Howard Jones, Boy George - fantastic, Modern Romance and all this lot. Then someone comes to Salford from London to see us, and we’re there with the sideys (points to head) and the cagoules and the trainers. You never saw anything like that. The guy from London said “yeah there’s something there with the music but you’ve got no image”.
PETER: That’s what we got all the time. We had a meeting in the mid ‘80s with Bill Drummond. He said “look I’ll be your manager but I want you to wear tracksuits and go on stage with hard dogs”
PETER: We got that all the time. No image. SHAUN: You’ve got no image! Well wait a minute, there’s no one on telly that looks like us, there was
SHAUN: hahaha! PETER: I said “who do you think I am?” We had a meeting in a pub in Lime Street. He was a genius but I couldn’t take him seriously. He said ‘if you do what I say within a year you’ll be all over Top of the Pops’. I just said Bill, no chance. Absolutely no chance.
SHAUN: Well Frankie Goes To Hollywood must’ve listened to that! PETER: Maybe, because it was around the same time, but I just said Bill - no chance. JAMES: Where did you get your clothes from? SHAUN: Tweed jackets we got from all the old people shops. PETER: Yeah that’s where we got ours. There were massive similarities between Liverpool and Manchester fashion at that time. SHAUN: And there was so much rivalry though. I don’t think kids nowadays can get this today, but if I went to Liverpool in 1975 or 1981 with three other pals, we’d have had our c**ks cut off. Wandering around and going to that Las Vegas place by the train station, we’d have been killed and vice versa. JAMES: Peter, what did you think when you saw them? SHAUN: He hated us! haha.
PETER: No no no that’s not true Shaun. That was all stuff for the NME. At the time we just thought, we’ve been telling people for years this is the greatest image anyone can have, but the record companies, publishers, managers couldn’t see it.
"IT WAS REVOLUTIONARY STUFF. YOU WERE TRYING TO GET STUFF NO ONE ELSE HAD" SHAUN: Do you know what the funny thing about all that was? We were the Casuals, or whatever you want to call it - Scallies, Perries - we were what was happening at the time, but because the media didn’t get it, they said “let’s bring back Mod!” So 1979 everyone’s walking round in pork pie hats, but we’d created something new. PETER: It was around the Quadrophenia time as well. We had a few lads who went to the match who started to get a bit more Mod-ish. SHAUN: But that was for people who didn’t get onto the Casual culture, who only got their influence from a magazine.
PETER: The greatest look for me was the Peter Storm cagoules, a pair of straight jeans and a pair of adidas Stan Smiths.
JAMES: [To Peter] You told me that the Leeds Service Crew lads who came to see The Farm told you about the Mondays?
SHAUN: Yeah. Stan Smiths. The first pair of trainers I remember getting was in the ‘60s when I didn’t even know what trainers were. My Dad got them. But adidas didn’t put all those trainers over here, you just couldn’t get them. In fact it wasn’t until the ‘90s that trainers started coming in the shops.
PETER: Yeah they did, yeah. The Leeds lads got in touch with me and said “we’ve just seen a band in Leeds called the Mondays, they’re fantastic, they remind us of The Farm”. In terms of how they looked.
PETER: It was revolutionary stuff. You were trying to get stuff that no one else had. It’s hard to explain that now because every city centre looks the same, doesn’t it?
SHAUN: But you were on telly before us, so we looked at you and thought “they’re great” PETER: Well the Leeds lot knew about us from the telly. And you James Brown said to me “James [the band] have just played in Leeds and it’s all your crowd”.
JAMES: In Leeds the Service Crew, who were all really young, were following James [the band] around, which was weird because they were a bit hippy-ish. My band supported them at a venue called the Astoria and there was a massive fight which started in the audience and then escalated between the Hells Angels style stage security and the Service Crew. It went down in history as a mini-riot. I sat at the back with the singer from The Wedding Present watching it all in amazement. PETER: I’ll always remember I think it was ‘89, the Mondays and the Roses were on the same Top of the Pops. I just thought that was brilliant. We’d been telling all these record labels and A&R people and managers that this is the greatest look you could ever have. It was a reinforcement of Working Class culture. SHAUN: And I really did try to say to Ian Brown “look mate none of this lot know who we are they haven’t got a clue. So you come on and play drums, I’ll go in your band and play guitar, and we can properly take the piss out of this”. Also that first Top of the Pops I was told I would never work that show again.
JAMES: Have you never been on it since? SHAUN: Course I have! I presented it! But the producer told us on that very first one “you’ll never do this again, you”. By the time we came back the next time he’d lost his job. PETER: I don’t think a lot of people realise as well but some of the nights out we had around Manchester at that time were legendary. We’d be taken round by Shaun and his mates sometimes, and it was unbelievable because from that period of hatred in the ‘80s and football rivalry, all of a sudden it was like Saul on the road to Damascus. It was a revelation, wasn’t it? I don’t think that’s been emphasised enough. Thatcher was trying to kick back against football fans, the authorities were, but it was actually the people themselves who said ‘no, that’s it’.
MEMORIES OF THE GAZELLE “I bought my first pair of Gazelle (from 1991) on eBay for £12. They were baby blue with yellowed soles from age and they didn’t even come with laces. They were one of the first vintage pairs in my collection and in hindsight a throwback to when you could legitimately get a bargain off eBay. The shape is so good I don’t think I could ever part with them” PETER O TOOLE, ILLUSTRATOR “When you think of the ‘90s, and all the britpop and hedonism and sportswear that came with it,
you think of the adidas Gazelle. It had just enough of the leftover sentiment from the teary-eyed daduals, who were watching their subculture ebb away, but also Kate Moss and Noel Gallagher wore them and they became symbolic of sportswear taking over in fashion. It’s a proper trainer that hasn’t been bastardised and manipulated enough for it to be boring yet. It’s got all the hallmarks of a great adidas shoe, and it’s versatility remains its best asset” DAN SANDISON, MUNDIAL
MEMORIES OF THE GAZELLE “Gazelles were the ultimate all round trainee when I was a kid. They looked good with shorts, tracksuit bottoms, and school kecks. They’re as timeless as Stans in my opinion.” ROB, LACES OUT
ated mostly with style and fashion, it was actually released as a serious running shoe, named after the female athlete Wilma Rudolph whose nickname, ‘The Gazelle’, the iconic model appropriated.
“You’ve got to give it to adidas. People bandy about the term ‘old skool’, but the Gazelle, appropriately loved and respected, especially on the dear shores of Blighty, was actually first released in 1968! Think about it, that’s before man set foot on the moon. Even though the shoe is now associ-
Like most people from early ‘80s Britain, I kinda take the Gazelle for granted. I remember Newport’s top dresser Tutti had a supersonic rare green colourway. The shoe was so loved amongst football Casuals that we imagined the rest of the world got it, but now looking back you see how far ahead the dressers
were, with the Gazelle at the front of that queue. The rest of the world, Kate Moss et al caught up later. Respect.” NEAL HEARD, AUTHOR OF TRAINERS. “I remember walking through Soho one day and an older lad stopping me to say how similar I looked to him 30 years ago, right down to the Gazelles. That’s the magic of adidas. When you slip on your three stripes you become part of something bigger than just a pair of trainers. It’s a culture and a legacy. Long live the Gazelle”. TOM ARMSTRONG, SABOTAGE TIMES DESIGNED BY MATHEW SANKEY FOR PROPERGANDER
“I don’t know how your summer was in 1994, but mine was great. I turned 16, Romario and Baggio scored all the goals, Oasis dragged millions of kids my age away from the misery of grunge, loaded put people you could aspire to be like on the cover and I bought myself a pair of powder blue Gazelle. 22 years and hundreds of pairs of trainers later, and I still remember how I felt when I tried them on for the first time. I felt magic, a million dollars, like a rock n’ roll star, and I wore them non-stop for long days and even longer nights across the first great summer of my adult life” OWEN BLACKHURST - FEATURES EDITOR, MUNDIAL