The Aulton Mob - March of the Mods (Finnjenka Dance) (1966)

The Executives (UK) - March of the Mods (1964)

(Tony Carr)
 UK
Original version

Not the well-known Australian band of the same name.

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Single on Columbia July 1964.

The Executives were a Blackpool band who recorded a number of singles 1964-69.

♫ Listen at YouTube

The writing credit on March of the Mods is to Tony Carr, the father of Executives frontman Roy Carr. A friend of the band at the time, Robert Owen, recalls that Tony Carr was a hairdresser by profession, with connections going back to the big band era.

Roy Carr himself became well-known as a music writer with New Musical Express and other magazines, and as the author of several books on popular music including Beatles at the Movies and A Century of Jazz. He later became executive editor of music magazines published by the IPC Group, including NME and Uncut. For more details of Carr’s varied career, see Richie Unterberger’s account at All Music.

The Executives’ line-up at the time of March Of The Mods was
Roy Carr (voc)
Reg Powell (organ)
Peter Fielding (lg)
Colin McLaren (b)
Derek Fell (d)

By the time of their 1966 single Lock Your Door, personnel had changed considerably:
Roy Carr (voc)
Robin Dalton (kb)
Tony Williams (g)
Glenn Cornick (b)
Steve Unwin (d)

From this line-up Glenn Cornick became a founding member of Jethro Tull (another band with Blackpool origins) and Tony Williams joined Stealers Wheel soon after its formation in 1967. He also joined Jethro Tull for a while in 1978.

Selected sources:
1. Band line-ups are from Executives history at Rock klasyczny i progresywny [archived page].
2. Comments at YouTube by original Executives lead guitarist Peter Fielding gave me some leads.
3. Blackpool reminiscences of Robert Owen (email).
4. Entries for Roy Carr at All Music and Wikipedia.
Further reading:
1. Glenn Cornick’s photo gallery: The Executives.
2. Pages on The Executives, Glenn Cornick and Tony Williams at Collecting Jethro Tull.
Thanks to Stewart Edwards for nailing the original, and to Robert Owen for key information.

Morecombe, 1967, a later line-up. Photo: Robert Owen.