Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances - by Eddie Piller

About the Book

This is the memoir of a teenage mod from the East End of London. A journey of discovery for a school boy 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. Eddie Piller was one such kid. His life was changed forever. Written with humour, passion and attention to detail, this 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.

Book Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Writer, record producer, label owner, broadcaster, and entrepreneur EDDIE PILLER is heavily involved with the mod subculture, an interest which started in 1966 when his mum ran the fan club for East End mod super-stars, The Small Faces. He is perhaps best known as the co-founder of Acid Jazz records which recently celebrated its 35th birthday and remains one of the most successful indie labels of a generation.

In recent years Piller has seen great success with the acclaimed jazz and soul compilation series 'Martin Freeman & Eddie Piller Present...' with the award-winning actor. He is also behind the chart-topping BBC album, 'Eddie Piller presents...The Mod Revival.' A thirty-year career in specialist radio has included successful spells presenting at radio stations such as Jazz FM, BBC Radio London, 6 Music, and Kiss FM. In 2019 he founded specialist internet radio station, Totally Wired Radio (TWR) and is especially well known for his regular Modcast show. Piller has recently written two books for Omnibus on the subject of Fanzines, and has written nine documentaries for Sky, ITV and the BBC as well as two radio documentaries. He has been the headline DJ at Glastonbury and Bestival, and Paul Weller's tour DJ. Currently, Eddie, among other things, manages the actor/musician Matt Berry and can be spotted, if you're eagle-eyed, in the latest series of Toast as a Californian cop.