Eddie Piller is a big name in certain nattily attired, musically minded circles. He is the founder of Acid Jazz Records, a musical tastemaker who lends his name to mod and power pop compilations, and a renowned second-generation mod. So when I saw that he had a book coming along that cribbed its title from Mod-founder Pete Meaden's most famous description of his cult--clean living under difficult circumstances--I assumed it would be a general history of modernism.
