Perry Boys
The original Perry Boys were a strange crowd, a Soul rabble that put most other gangs to flight. They were few in number in the early-70s when Manchester enjoyed its main Northern Soul era, but as the decade progressed they became more visible. The “bags” - immense flares made from a billowing silky-type material favoured by the Skinners and football hooligans - hid the Perries presence. But they were in there, among the Glam-Rock and Soul crowd, dancing to the beat in polo shirts, narrow Mod jeans and gym pumps. How did this pointed mode of reckoning manage to find fertile soil in the ridiculous 70s?
Simple: Nature. The Perry Boys were really all about dancing and dressing. And they loved their hair. Fashioned in an effeminate French-style like a truncated bob, the so-called “wedge” came about partially by accident. Genetically; mid-70s lads loved that Skinner look. They coveted the centre-parting, with its blow-waved lobes, undercurled ends and mounded crown. But for some, it wasn’t to be; they simply grew hair that was too fine. No amount of hair-dryer treatment or lacquer could solve this problem; those centre-parted ambitions cascaded down either cheekbone to sweep flatly past the ears towards the back. Its wispy sheen constantly fell into the eyes of the wannabe Skinner, and had to be flicked away. The French had been caught in this protein problem years earlier, and had designed a stylish alternative for those with the right hair-type. All it really was was a centre-parting left to lop over the sides as nature intended.
This is not to say that everyone who was caught up in this thing supported “anti-natural” or base hair texture, but this alternative style had to have originated somewhere, and it stands to reason that it cannot have begun with those not genetically selected to express it. When combined with the clothing an extension of 60s Mod occurred, very fitting in the cool Mediterranean regions where scooters and simplicity prevailed. It was a convergence of functional, well-made street fashion and a natural way to express oneself. The Perry Boys identified with this philosophy, and wore continental clothes with pride, scorning the Birmingham bags and aping their sophisticated foreign neighbours instead.
Perry Boys may have supported Manchester football teams, but they loved Soul more. They sang Tamla Motown habitually and allowed the occasional decade-old rhythm and blues into their repertoire. In tandem with the development of the Perry Boys, Manchester United and Manchester City began their faltering venture into replica merchandise. Younger kids began to fetishise the logos and labels like Admiral and Umbro that appeared on the football shirts’ breasts alongside the club crests. A second convergence was in the making; the French-Skinner hybrid, already familiar with street fashion, was about to hit the designer sportswear revolution. When Punk Rock came along, it distracted the Manchester youth, who sampled it merely as an aural novelty. But actual Punk “style” was never as popular as it was in London. Not with the working-class anyway.
Working class kids in Manchester from 1977 to 1979 entered a weird aimless episode, neither one thing nor another; it was all plain shirts, jeans and prototypical Adidas trainers. This was the black and white range, whose members composed Kick, Bamba, Mamba and Samba.
Between the drainpipes trousers of hipster bands like Buzzcocks, Joy Division and The Fall and the fast-proliferating sportswear craze, the Perry Boys dissolved. But their basic template lived on in the youth of that Nameless time. When The Who re-released Quadrophenia as an album and film in 1979, the stage was set for a revisiting of those old “street” Mod forms the Perries had kept alive for so long. But this time the continental streetwear would fuse to sportswear, rather than eclipse preposterous flares and star-jumpers; there were no flares and star-jumpers. The Perries had seen to that.