60 years ago this week, the Beatles released their album Revolver – a masterpiece that helped change pop music forever with tracks including Yellow Submarine, Got To Get You Into My Life and Eleanor Rigby.
With 1967’s Summer of Love just around the corner, the pioneering record was part of a creative flowering powered by young musicians taking America’s vibrant rock ‘n’ roll music to strange new English places.
If you’ve ever watched a 60s music documentary, the voiceover probably sounded just like that last sentence.
But the surprising thing is – if you know where to look – you can see it starting to happen all over again.
Young music fans in their 20s – heavily inspired both by the 60s and the earlier sounds that fuelled the Fab Four – are starting bands, coming up with razor-sharp original songs and jumping on the bus in immaculate suits and perfectly tailored mini dresses to dance the night away in dingy basements.
The Forty Fours – dubbed the Fab Three by admirers – started playing music as teenagers in Cornwall.
They headed north to swinging London and were signed within months by Blow Up Records, founded by Paul Tunkin, who has run the legendary Blow Up club nights since the 1990s.
Their debut single Now She’s Gone definitely sounds Beatles-y – but it’s not The Beatles.
It’s the Forty Fours fans come to see – and there’s no shortage of fans: the harmony-driven band are playing to packed houses all over the country up to five nights and week and filling London clubs.
‘It’s that 60s scene in London,’ said drummer Andy Stander, 21.
‘We did our single release in the Flamingo Club near Carnaby Street.
‘We ended up selling that out and you stood out like a sore thumb if you weren’t in a suit or a dress.’
Guitarist and singer-songwriter Oliver Harriss, 23, quips that bassist Jason Bazeley, 21, ‘had to wear a dress so he didn’t stand out too much’.
There’s a fair bit of mickey-taking, as you’d expect when – despite dark times for grassroots music – they make a full-time living from the band.
They share a house and spend hours together driving up and down the country, whether it’s to legendary Beatles haunt the Cavern Club or down as far as the Isle of Wight.
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Jason does most of the driving while the others ‘just end up pissed in the seat, putting on music that he hates’, Metro can reveal.
Their forthcoming album was recorded live at Fish Factory Studios in north London – an analogue paradise full of old-school knobs and buttons to match their vintage instruments – with most tracks knocked off in a maximum of three takes.
But what even turned them on to this sort of music in the first place?
‘It started out with punk music when I was a kid, when I was about 12, 13 because that’s what my dad was into,’ said Oliver. ‘But then I basically figured out one day that all the Sex Pistols songs were just Eddie Cochran songs.
‘And then I’d look into him. Then I went forward from there, really. I went to all of the bands of that scene, like Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly and everyone like that.
‘And then all of the early beat bands and the 60s groups were covering their songs. So then it was an easy transfer into them. And that’s what we are. Give me a few more years and we’ll be the Jackson 3.’
Charlotte Lewis, one of five regular DJs at the Tickety Boo nights at the Helen of Troy off London’s Tottenham Court Road, also fumbled her way fairly easily towards vintage sounds.
Her mum was one of seven siblings whose oldest sisters were original 60s mods – and the youngest of them got into the scene (which has never truly gone away) when it enjoyed a resurgence in the 90s.
She says there was an ‘underlying reminiscence about it’ in the family but added: ‘I think what really got me into it was watching The Monkees – a lot of old TV shows with my mum.’
They also watched The Goodies and The Good Life and although she admits – ‘none of that is mod’ – she added: ‘I think watching those shows gave me a bit of a nostalgia, and then I got really into the fashion and the music, and then it’s slowly been collecting since I was a teenager really.’
The 26-year-old, who does scenic painting for theatre and film, is one of five regular DJs at Tickety Boo.
The music is all vinyl – rhythm and blues, Latin soul and British beat music – while smart dress is very much required (and at least half the fun of attending).
It came about because they felt existing London mod nights catered mainly to a 90s crowd.
‘We had records, we liked playing our records, we liked dressing up, and we wanted an excuse for us to do it with all of our pals, and then slowly more and more young people started coming, which was quite surprising, and it’s grown a lot bigger than I think we ever expected it to,’ Charlotte said.
Tom McQ, described as a mod Bob Dylan, gathers young bands around him to foster the emerging scene.
The singer-songwriter, whose upcoming album Lonely Revolution features Paul Weller’s keyboard player Tom Van Heel, talks about a ‘third wave’ arriving to follow the 60s and the 90s Britpop era.
‘There was a generation who were in lockdown not so long ago who were denied access to their friends and being out and about, and their saviour was music,’ he said.
‘They listened to music, it literally saved them, they learned from the best, and then they hungered for community.
‘So when they came out, they formed bands.
‘What’s really great about Third Wave is these bands aren’t putting each other down and saying, “you’re s*** and we’re better”.
‘They’re actually jumping up on stage with each other, all helping each other, a friendly bunch who really like being in each other’s company. So it’s a beautiful time for music.’