English music journalist Phil Smee (who later started the Bam-Caruso Label) coined the genre term to describe the harder, fuzz loaded and sometimes psychedelic mutations that happened to the British Invasion Mod music. In the sixties, when colourful clothes, marihuana and LSD became the conceptional glasses of a whole generation, musicians that could afford it started to play around with the newest gimmicks inventions brought into recording studios. Among we find fuzztones, flanging and chorus which is often manipulated with trippy echoes and other effects. All in all, Freakbeat can be described as a relative to the US Garage-Psych movement. As much apparent parallels as many differences flag both genres. As there is a gap between Garage-Psych and pure Psychedelic Rock, there... Read more

First I had my difficulties with the term "Mod" because I tried to find the leitmotif in this Genré but there was none. I think the best way to look at Mod in the context of "Evolution of Genré" is to understand it as an umbrella term for a multiplicity of music styles, that the subcultural movement called "Mod" used to listen to. More confusing does it get when one look at the origins of the term itself. Mod is an acronym for "Modernist", originally a person from the Modern Jazz Scene. Modern Jazz was nearly out of date when the Mod culture started to take over London, Britain and eventually the whole world. Even Japan found itself in some mod revival hype in the '80s ("Bōsōzoku"). Before I continue with the actual "Mod-Music", let me draw you a more detailed picture of the subcultural correlation... Read more