Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances: A Life In Mod – From the Revival to Acid Jazz

by Eddie Piller

This is the memoir of a teenage mod from the East End of London.

A journey of discovery for a schoolboy dabbling with punk, funk, record shops, discos and clothes, and then... WHAAAM! An unstoppable wave of like-minded kids fall headlong in love with 60s mod culture, revived and reformatted for the 70s and 80s generation.

The ultimate mod memoir - from Britain's best-known 'face'.

Eddie Piller was one such kid. His life was changed forever. Written with humor, passion and attention to detail, CLEAN LIVING UNDER DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES is perhaps the ultimate mod memoir, taking us from meeting the Small Faces as a toddler, to the 1979 Mod revival, through the more purist 1980s mod scene and eventually to Acid Jazz.

A born storyteller, Eddie takes us evocatively into a world of scooters, clothes, and music. We run with the crowd to decaying seaside towns, East End backstreet boozers and sweaty teenage gigs, all fizzing with an uncontainable excitement and often exploding into violence.
 
Once mod touched your soul it changed the way you looked at life, unexpectedly broadening your horizons. In Eddie it awakens a can-do attitude that sees him setting up a fanzine, putting on club nights, hustling jobs in the music industry, and eventually setting up a record label. It even takes him to Ireland at the height of the troubles and to Australia where the local mods take him on a military exercise...

Visceral and always entertaining, CLEAN LIVING UNDER DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES is a stand-out memoir that relives the thrill of the 70s and 80s, and the movement that helped make mod the most enduring and successful British youth culture of all time.

Genres: Music, Memoir, Nonfiction, Autobiography, Biography

416 pages, Hardcover

Published July 3, 2023

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

thanks to the publishers and netgalley for a free copy in return for an open and honest review

enjoyed this book from the authors early days to modern day and his musical influences and the characters he met and knew from the original mods

[Diane Vallere · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book could not have been more fun! I laughed my way through five hundred plus pages and dog-eared more of those pages than not. Eddie Piller did anybody who has more than a passing interest in the mod revival a favor by writing this wildly entertaining memoir. There are too many great lines to cite here!

[Kaila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eddie, you are the best!!

[Debbi Barton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely amazing, full 5 star review to follow.

[Robin Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

As soon as I started reading I realised there's lots here I can personally relate to. In 1979, the pivotel year for the mod revival, I lived in Ilford and worked for a film production company in Soho.
What a fabulous memoir this is. So full of detail: gigs, venues, performers, managers, record labels and every facet of teen culture in the early 1980s. What a different world we lived in back then! Teenagers today spend most of their time at home playing with their controllers or tapping away on their mobile phones. This book points out all that they missed.
Eddie takes one through his career path with a real who's who in the indie music scene in the '80s. And he recalls a great many scooter trips: Bournemouth, the Isle of Wight, and even Belfast during the Troubles.
This book is a must read for everyone who was ever young and is still young at heart.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finding that this was available as an audiobook on Spotify, and having always had an interest in Mod and its attendant culture, I gave this a go. Eddie Piller I knew as the brains behind the Acid Jazz label. What I didn’t know was how immersed in Mod he is.

This is essentially the story of late 70s early 80s British, working class, pop culture. Piller first became a young Punk, an early teenage rebel who quickly became disillusioned as Punk descended into Sid Vicious clones, gobbing and lumpen three chord thrashes. It was the nascent Mod Revival, inspired by The Jam, that gave him direction and a sense of purpose.

Piller writes well, and narrates his story with wit and a gruff honesty. He details the violence that attended youth culture at that point, with Skinheads, Punks, Mods and Scooter Boys constantly at odds. The violence is at time sickening and, from this point in time, hard to believe went on. But it did.

Mod spurred Piller on to pursue a career in the music business, via fanzines, DJing, working for independent labels, setting up his own record labels and constantly expanding his musical horizons.

It’s a fascinating snapshot of a decade in music that moved very quickly, a scene that developed into a lifestyle. It’s Piller’s drive that comes through, his determination to promote the music he loves. Because at the heart of it, it’s all about the music, be it Punk, Mod, Soul or any number of obscure genres. You only have to look at his Acid Jazz output to see the breadth of his interests.

Well worth your time.

[Nigeyb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eddie Piller is a natural storyteller and he has some amazing stories.

Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances: A Life In Mod – From the Revival to Acid Jazz is a terrific memoir.

The opening tale of a visit to Ireland to DJ during the Troubles grabbed me and the book didn't let go until the final page.

If you lived through this era then there's added resonance and recognition.

This has got the lot: passion, violence, humour, reinvention and redemption.

A joy from start to finish.

5/5

[kelsey daffodil · Rating 5 out of 5]

such an engaging read. i listened to the audiobook and i found it even more fun to read it that way. brilliant book and definitely worth a read if you want to learn about the mod revival ! not only does eddie write about his life during, there are moments in the book that are informative of different parts of the mod revival culture, such as the scooters they rode and the clothes they wore, but written about them in depth. loved it :)

[John Howie Jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read from the voice of experience - if he's not the ace face, he's certainly up there. A tough book to put down - Piller's experiences in the mod revival world are great fun to read about, and always exciting. His continual self-reinvention - and eventual discovery that said reinvention is a big part of what "mod" means - while staying true to a set of core values is to be admired, and his journey makes for great reading. Well done, sir.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading under difficult circumstances

After breaking both my shoulders and leg. I’ve been laid up in hospital for seven weeks , not being a prolific reader, I however purchased this book and straight away couldn’t put it down .
The books detailed account and Eddies personal journey through the mod revival, soul and acid jazz gave the scene far more credit and authenticity I’d previously wrongly dismissed.

[Shelley Cummings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you..

Reading this book confirms I’m still a mod. Always a mod!! You quote “that mod is an attitude, an outlook, a way you live your life. Whatever you want it to be”… Thank you for those wise words.
If you think you’ve left your mod life behind… Eddie confirms it’s ok to move forward!!
Brilliant read, vicariously relived my youth through his words!

[David Emery · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Eddie - his love for music is infectious, and this book is essential for learning about the Mod Revival of the late '70s/early '80s. I wish he'd taken his book further into his career, but there are a ton of hilarious and harrowing stories here. I'm amazed and thankful he made it out alive to tell them.

[Conrad Krutnik · Rating 4 out of 5]

How Eddie Piller grew up

This is a good book about Mod and what it means to Eddie Piller. It tells how he moved from Punk rock to the Jam to Acid house. It's really about growing up.

[Tim Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read of Eddie's early career.

[gary marlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely brilliant read

Made me understand what Mod is truly about a must read for anyone wanting to find out, it’s definitely broaden my horizons.

[Nicola Southall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book

[Michael Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, but a niche read.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only read about 1/4 of this novel until I abandoned it. Didn't really know too much about Mods and/or Mod Life. It was an okay read not really my type of music or fashion scene.

[Anni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dipped in & out, it’s always funny to read about friends & lives in print. The writing style of reminiscences is like sitting down in a pub swapping anecdotes, just only one sided. Most of the music referred to I know & love, but a couple of gems I’d missed. And he’s right, mod isn’t necessarily the clothes you wear, or the music you listen to, it’s an attitude, an outlook, it’s part of who you are.

[Burt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great detailed account of growing up in the second wave mod revival of early 80’s London. Southern CA had a similar second wave mod scene (these things were more regional before the internet and southern CA was the center of the U.S. scene) so I loved connecting how closely our scene mirrored what was happening in the U.K. All the same clothes/shoes/records and of course The Jam and Paul Weller setting the tone for the whole movement. I also loved the story of when Piller got a tape from an unknown Los Angeles band that he immediately fell in love with (The Untouchables) and how he facilitated getting them their U.K. record deal.

[Mainzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

For fuck's sake, so annoying.

As in 443 pages is not enough. I wish this book was 886 pages long.

As in, I wanted to know more about every story he told. I wanted more details, I wanted to know more about the people he engages, I wanted to know more about the London mod scene, the gigs, the events, the gangs, the faces, the drama. Lured into his extraordinary world, I wanted to pummel Eddie Piller with a thousand questions.

This of course is not a criticism, it is a tribute to the wonderful book that Eddie has written. On a cold winter's night I sat by the fire and read the book from start to finish (skipping the boring music industry bits). At dawn, I closed the tome, sighed, and slightly limped off to bed - a limp earned from falling off my beloved Vespa in 1985. It's not so much the nostalgia or the requiem for youth, no, it's more than that - Clean Living under Difficult Circumstances captures a moment in time and brings it to glorious technicolour light. Furthermore, Eddie is an outstanding storyteller, and a likable, sympathetic narrator.

Crucially, Clean Living under Difficult Circumstances is a portrait of another world, one that is almost unrecognizable today. What was it like to be a youth with so much more freedom than today, unchained to mobile phones and pansophic social media? Eddie ushers us into a subterranean world where young people are living their lives to the full, in a breathless, exuberant, and even magical present. The kids are alright, out dancing every single night, coming together, celebrating a collective euphoria that is reminiscent of that portrayed in Quadrophenia.

Unlike Quadrophenia, the downfall is not brought about by drug-fuelled self-induced paranoia, but mostly by hate-filled ultra-violent rightwing Skinheads. Eddie veers away from politics (unlike his hero and muse, Paul Weller), and if I had one criticism of the book, it is that he is a little too careful to not offend anyone. This is not to say that it is a rose-tinted account of the times, but simply that the author seems to occasionally restrain his pen, i.e. the left unsaid.

So what was it like to be a teen in the late seventies/early eighties? With Eddie Piller’s book we are given a thrilling account of how it was to be a central part of London's urban youth subculture during that epoch. A synopsis? - wild youth, hip for kicks.