Archive for ‘Music’

August 2, 2013

Zappa – Titties & Beer

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It was the blackest night
There was no moon in sight
You know the stars ain’t shinin’
’cause the sky’s too tight
I heard the scarey wind
I seen some ugly trees
There was a werewolf honkin’
‘long the side of me

I’m mean ‘n I’m bad, y’know I ain’t no sissy
Got a big-titty girly by the name of chrissy
Talkin’ about her ‘n my bike ‘n me…
‘n this ride up the mountain of mystery, mystery

I noticed even the crickets
Was actin’ weird up here
And so I figured I might
Just drink a little beer
I said, “gimme summa that what yer suckin’ on…”
But there was no reply
’cause she was gone…

“where’s those titties that I like so well
‘n my goddamn beer!”
Is what I started to yell, then I heard this noise
Like a crunchin’ twig, ‘n up jumped the devil…he’s about this big…

He had a red suit on
An’ a widow’s peak
An’ then a pointed tail
‘n like a sulphur reek
Yes, it was him awright
I sweared I knowed it was
He had some human flesh
Stuck underneath his claws
You know it looked to me
Like it was titty skin
I said, “you sonofabitch!”
’cause I was mad at him,
Well he just got out his floss
‘n started cleanin’ his fang
So I shot him with my shooter
Said: bang bang bang

Then the sucker just laughed ‘n said, “put it away…
You know, I ate her all up…now what you
Gonna say? ”
You ate my chrissy? “titties ‘n all!”
Well, what about the beer then, boy? “were the cans
This tall? ”
Even her boots? “would I lie to you? ”
Shit, you musta been hungry! “yes, this is true.”
Well don’t they pay you good for the
Stuff that you do?
“well, you know, I can’t complain when the checks come through…”

Well I want my chrissy, ‘n I want my beer
So you just barf it back up now, devil,
Do you hear?

“blow it out your ass, motorcycle man! I mean, I am the devil,
Do you understand? just what will you give me
For your
Titties and beer? I suppose you noticed this little
Contract here…” yer goddam right, you son-of-a-whore,
“don’t call me that”
That’s about the only reason
…gimme that paper…bet yer ass I’ll sign…
’cause I need a beer, ‘n it’s titty-squeezin’ time

“man, you can’t fool me…you ain’t that bad…
I mean you shoulda seen some of the souls I had…
Why there was milhous nixon ‘n agnew, too…
‘n both of those suckers was worse ‘n you…”

Well, let’s make a deal if you think that’s true
I mean, you’re the devil, so whatcha gonna do?

(improvised dialog)
“wait a minute…a tinge of doubt crosses my mind…when you say…
That you want to make a deal with me…”

“that’s very, very true
I’m only interested in two things
“yeah? ”
See if you can guess what they are”

“i would think…uh…let’s see, maybe stravinsky…”

“i’ll give you two clues. let go of your pickle”

“what? ”

“let go of your pickle!”

“i’m not holding my pickle”

“well, who’s holding your pickle then? ”

“i don’t know…she’s out in the audience…
Hey dale, would you like to come up here and hold
My pickle to satisfy this weird man out on the stage? ”

“i’m only interested in two things, and that’s
Titties and beer
You know what I mean?
“what? ”
Titties and beer
Titties and beer
Titties and beer
Titties and beer
Titties and beer
Titties and beer
Titties and beer!”
Titties and beer!”
“i don’t know if you’re the right guy? ”
Titties and beer!”
Titties and beer!”

“no! don’t sign it! give me time to think…
I mean hold on a second boy, ’cause that’s magic ink!”

And then the devil let go of his pickle
And out come my girl, there was her titties
Flop-floppin’…all around the world

She said “i got me three beers and a fistful of downs
And I’m gonna get ripped, so fuck, you clowns!”
Then she gave us the finger, it was rigid and stiff
That’s when the devil, he farted
And she went right over the cliff!
The devil was mad, I took off to my pad
I swear I do declare, how did she get back there?
I swear I do declare, how did she get back there?
I swear I do declare, how did she get back there?
I swear I do declare, how did she get back there?
I swear I do declare, how did she get back there?

August 1, 2013

Little Lion Man

This is a big music weekend coming up in the Windy City. Lollapalooza the annual shindig for contemporary tastes. One of the headliners on Saturday will be the lads from blighty Mumford & Sons, English country folk balladeers. Just so happens they’re Triumph riders, here front man Marcus Mumford with his T100 in London.

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Nice jacket son! He even spins around a city on it in one of their videos “Whispers in the Dark”

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He was spied at the local Triumph dealer Motoworks earlier today ogling the bikes. Their Facebook page captures the moment.

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June 24, 2013

Denim & Leather

Heavy Metal IS the music of a motorcycle on the motorway: heavy drums, power chords and wailing lyrics. Biff Byford’s Saxon was a venue filling group of the early eighties. On their album Wheels of Steel their first track starts up with the rumble of revving motorcycles….

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Motorcycle Man
[Byford/Quinn/Oliver/Dawson/Gill]

If you see me flashing by
Do not stop me, do not try
‘Cause I’m a motorcycle man
I get my kicks just when I can

Motorcycle man
Motorcycle man

I can beat your street machine
We’re taking risks, that’s what we mean
‘Cause I’m a motorcycle man
We get our kicks just when we can
When we can

Motorcycle man
Motorcycle…

If you see me riding by
Do not stop me, do not try
‘Cause I’m a motorcycle man
I get my kicks just when I can
When I can

Motorcycle man
Motorcycle man
Motorcycle, motorcycle
Motorcycle man

I can beat your street machine
I’m taking risks, that’s what I mean
‘Cause I’m a motorcycle man
We get our kicks just when we can
When we can

Motorcycle man
Motorcycle man
Motorcycle, motorcycle
Motorcycle man

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Head bangin’ glory!  \m/

March 3, 2013

Monkey Wrench

Dave Grohl: screaming frontman to Foo Fighters and once drummer to grunge band Nirvana as well as latter day percussionist to Them Crooked Vultures. He enjoys two-wheels too; though I must make a departure from Brit Iron for a post, he love the potato-potato drumming beat of a Harley.

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March 2, 2013

Wild Horses

Seeing as we’re on a music rock ‘n’ roll let’s delve into the two-wheeled antics of a pair of the fathers of rock: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Well Keith has always been a skinny malinty so the diminutive Triumph Cub seems like the best choice for him.

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The right-wing brother of the great Christopher Hitchens said of Keith: “a capering streak of living gristle who ought to be exhibited as a warning to the young of what drugs can do to you even if you’re lucky enough not to choke on your own vomit”. His long endured reputation stretches ahead of him. But he sure can write a guitar riff or two!

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Whilst he’s toting around some manorial grounds such as Stargroves. I can’t see him riding the public roads, Sir Mick take the controls of a Honda. Well ‘you meet the nicest people’. Hope he gets some satisfaction.

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March 1, 2013

Comme d’habitude

Not the Ace of Bass but the punks punk. Malcolm MacLarens enfant terrible Sid Vicious seen here with his leather jacket and lip turned scowl hoofing along a London street seemingly atop a Honda.

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Well here’s how it’s done! A strapped down Moto on a flatbed trailer… Well how else can a brazen youth barely out of his teenage angst bare his skinny pale chest and sip his beer.

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As the story unfolded his spirally punk lifestyle caught up with him in a New York gaff. Nancy Spungen found an untimely demise with a single stab wound and Sid ended up on Riker’s Island. Out on bail in early ’77 he was found dead of a heroin overdose a few days later.

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His final written words were apparently: “Bury me in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. Goodbye.”

I wonder… “My Way” indeed.

February 26, 2013

Not your fathers heroes.

To celebrate The Man in Blacks birthday here’s a very little known film that Johnny Cash wrote the soundtrack for (along with Carl Perkins and Bob Dylan). It starred Robert Redford as a happy-go-lucky racer, Big Halsy Knox, who chases the adventures offered of both track and ‘field’; he takes on a mechanic sidekick, Little Fauss, who looks up to him, and true a early 70’s buddy movie ensues.

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There are allegiances made and broken; a love interest, in the form of a drop-out muse played by Lauren Hutton, as the fabulously named Rita Nebraska; and of course super racing cinematography both on-board and track-side.
But Cash’s droll voice powers through with his balladeers songs.
Rollin’ Free
Ballad of Little Fauss and Big Halsy

Happy Birthday Johnny!

January 24, 2013

Goin’ faster than a Roller Coaster…

Long before one Don Maclean wrote That song the boys were having a great time riding a wave of youths popularity. After a long tour in May 1958 they took a side trip from Lubbock to Dallas to pick up some mo’orsickles. The Harley D dealerships told these young whippersnappers not to touch their machines; across town at Ray Millers Triumph showroom they received good enough treatment to pick up a few of the latest models of Brit Iron available at that time.

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Buddy took an Aerial Cyclone; J.I. a Triumph Trophy; and Joe B a Triumph Thunderbird. Story goes they then rode ’em back across town to the Harley dealer to show off their new rides, then hauled along the highway to Lubbock some 350 miles away. I bet they were singin’ all the way!
Here’s a period advert for the Ariel…

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The Aerial eventually made it to the Waylon Jennings estate; as you know he gave his seat on that fateful flight to Buddy. It’s a nice looking bike fit for one if the true founders of rock ‘n’ roll.

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January 8, 2013

Rebel Rebel

The great Ziggy Stardust of Martian Spiders fame is 66 today! That’s right David Jones, aka David Bowie has a birthday celebration today so we’ll see how the sad clown fits into the moto-world… For starters he IS the sound of the 70’s defining a look and music that moulded the next generation, or two, or three, in a refreshing style of glam, punk, funk, soul and rock all together and all alone. His alter ego persona over the decade would allow him to reinvent his ideas, always staying a step or two ahead of everyone else.

David Bowie sitting on a motorcycle

 

Here’s a super image from his early career, sitting around with Lou Reed & Mick Jagger, while Lulu looks on (she is of course a Lawrie so there’s a family connection somewhere!)

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Of course he has so much to look back on with his 66 years; here he is as the titular Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth.

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October 31, 2012

Day-O, Daylight come and me wanna go home…

Saw this Bonnie on Craigslist earlier… under those long legs and sissy bar is a nice little runner. Banana yellow for a banana bike. Two and a half grand and she’s yours. This was the first year of the oil-in-frame set-up and was supposedly a tall seat. You’ll need an upended crate to get on this perch!

 

As Harry Belafonte said:

‘Work all night on a drink a’ rum
Daylight come and me wan’ go home
Stack banana till the mornin’ come
Daylight come and me wan’ go home”

October 17, 2012

ooh STOP!

…and if you’re going to go fast, you’ve got to be able to stop too! I’m slowly acquiring parts for the front end to set up a disc brake system. The conical drum brake standard to the ’72 T120R is okay for delicate slowing maneuvers but when you need to slam on the anchors then they’re more comical in reality, you always have to think ahead with traffic and have a potential run-off space – which you should do anyways when riding!

Basically as the front end of the late model 650 and it’s beefier 750 younger brother (the T140V or TR7) were much the same; all I have to do is swap out the fork lowers, add a caliper, hoses and brake lever with master cylinder, and change the wheel to a disc braked one. Well, the eBay searches have been going well, indeed some items are coming with extra stuff that I can flog off to pay for itself. Get some new seals, stainless hoses and stainless pistons then Bob’s yer uncle, the Bonnie will then ‘HALT’ on my two-fingered command!

 
With your feet on the air

And your head on the ground

Try this trick and spin it, yeah

Your head’ll collapse

If there’s nothing in it

And then you’ll ask yourself

 

Where is my mind?

August 16, 2012

Just For Kicks

June 24, 2012

Rattus norvegicus

The car CD player has been non-stop Stranglers all weekend whilst driving around errands, social events and motorcycle maintenance. Jean-Jacques JJ Burnel, is of course the bassist and major writer for this punk band extraordinaire. He is also an ardent Triumph rider.

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Where would ‘Peaches’ be without that heavy bass riff?

May 27, 2012

Robert Zimmerman

“I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses. Even the horrifying news items of the day, the gunning down of the Kennedys, King, Malcolm X…I didn‘t see them as leaders being shot down, but rather as fathers whose families had been left wounded.”–Bob Dylan

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Bob Dylan’s career was going stratospheric when, on July 26th, 1966,he took his Triumph out for a jaunt and managed to wrap it, and himself around a stationary object. Some believe it was a front to just jump off the planet chaos. Here’s an interesting painted interpretation of his mishap. It was his birthday on the 24th.

May 1, 2012

A Stray Cat

Rockabilly Rider: The Homewreckers front man Danny Dean takes his early rock music seriously, especially when sporting a greased pompadour to his rocker bike like this Triumph. You could take this puppy down for a rumble along Beale Street to Sun Studios for a session with your Gretsch, Double Base and Drum backed band of anti-establishment misfits.