BIlly Apple Interview

Here's a LINK to an interview I did with Billy Apple, a New Zealand artist, about an exhibition he's put on at the Christchurch Art Gallery. The exhibition features the only Britten V1000 that is still actually raced.

That's me and Billy (above) having a beer upstairs at Smash Palace. (Photo by John Collie)

Danny Lyon's 'The Bikeriders'

Not the greatest article here, but interesting to see that Danny Lyon's book 'The Bikeriders' is being rereleased in its original form. Very much 'up-my-alley' I guess. I have one of the early 2000's reissue versions:

But they're nothing like the original:

Can't wait to compare 'em in the flesh.

Jean Jackets & The Teen Witch

Two things we all love! If you're in Sydney you should go to this for sure. Wilfred was a contributor to HFoS #2 and he obviously knows a thing or two about denim...

From the FB page here:

"Kate Jinx and Wilfred Brandt examine some the more unconventional tropes of Hollywood in this cinematic dissection of adolescence. Wilfred will discuss the history of jean jackets, the birth of the teenager, and the Juvenile Delinquent film and the romanticisation of misspent youth in his ‘JDs in Jean Jackets’ lecture.

A paranormal parallel will be provided by Kate Jinx as she traces the life-cycle of the Teen Witch and teases out its strange comparisons to her own adolescence, in this performance lecture which is part of a greater body of work on the four-corners of cinema."

Fragments 2

This has been sitting here for a while 'cause I've been wanting to write something decent about it, but I thought I better photograph it and give it back to Jimi, who got it from Trademe recently.

What it is is a photography/poetry magazine published in Christchurch in the late 60s or early 70s I'm guessing, there's no date on it. At the back it says "Published by Fragments and printed by Designprint Press Limited, Christchurch", and that's it for info really.

Jimi's dad may know one of the photographers involved and I was kinda keen to see if I could talk with him about it.

Initially I thought it was a bike mag when Jimi told me about it, but yeah it's not, it's just this issue – issue #2. The first half of the issue is this "photographic essay" of what appears to all be the same MC. Mostly patches aren't shown but there's an Epitaph Rider in there on the fold out poster that comes with it. I presume they're all Christchurch based?

It'd be cool to know more about this as the design and printing are noteworthy for it's time too. I have to admit I'm not as interested in the poetry part (which I haven't reproduced here), but it is interesting that someone wanted to put all this stuff together? I've been reading the new book on gangs here, 'Patched', and in it the author talks about the relationship between the early MCs here and the hippy counter-culture movement. I wonder if this is an example of that kind of cross-over? It'd be good to get a date on this sucker!?

Robin Morrison Highway 61 photos

I found these photos by NZ photographer Robin Morrison on the Auckland Museum website, here and here respectively. I was working on something else entirely when these came up, not even motorcycle related. These photos, and certain other things that have come up recently in regard to issue #2 of head Full of Snakes, have made me realise how impossible it is to look at the history of motorcycling in NZ without talking/thinking about the motorcycle clubs/gangs that were such a big part of the culture for quite a while. Anyway I'm really interested in what Robin Morrison was doing with the Highway 61s here. Did he do a whole project on them? Had he seen Danny Lyons book? No doubt. Has anyone seen anymore of these? 

New films by D. Thomas Herkes

Three new films by my good pal D. Thomas Herkes, aka Jack Shit, and writer of our HFoS music column 'Sonic Shit!'

Nothing to do with motorcycles, but I reckon if you;re into old bikes you'll dig these trailers. Yours truly featuring as Dr Ivan Hanson in 'I Kill'.

Really wanna talk this guy into making a B-grade biker flick!

Bosozoku and Tokkofuku

Bosozoku and Tokkofuku

This (link above) is an interesting post by a guy called Jarrett Reynolds about his mission to get himself a genuine Tokkofuku – an embroidered jacket that the Bosozoku bike gangs of Japan used to (possibly still do?) wear.

Stuart and I have considered having a patch with the next issue of HFoS as opposed to the flexidisc and this reminded me of this.

Thanks to Tim Kelleher from Sons & Co for putting me onto this guy.

The National Grid @ RAMP Gallery

Here's some photos of Jonty and I (and Amy) putting up our show 'Design and Designers' in Hamilton over the weekend. We're now making issue #8 of The National Grid as a catalogue to this show. We have 2 weeks to get it to print!... and then I can get back to thinking about my bikes!

I've decided I'm definitely going to start a separate blog or Tumblr or something for my design related work/research. Talked to Jonty about us starting a National Grid one again (we actually ran one really briefly before making the publication together – it was a disaster though). So yeah from now on (well, from soon) HFoS will be just mostly motorcycle related. Although obviously I'll be looking at, and for, overlaps etc...

London

Back home now from my too quick two week trip to London and Holland. Was pretty excited to do a bit of a motorcycle pilgrimage in London because when I was a young fella just getting into bikes I was massively into the whole rocker and cafe racer scene from the 60s. I'd actually tried to go to the Ace Cafe when I was in London last time but didn't make it. This time I almost didn't again because I got so fucking sick and spent two days in bed when I arrived in London! Anyway I did finally make it. Went out there with Max and thought we were lost but realised we were going the right way when we saw the cafe racer cut-outs stuck to the fences under the bridges. Funnily enough I got a real kick out of seeing the bridges and imagining the hooliganism that had taken place under them in the 60s... and how many lives were probably lost to them as well. Unfortunately there were fuck all cool bikes there... actually there was a car show on. Zephyrs. There were a couple of decent bikes inside on show, and then there was this chopped Honda hardtail out front with this excellent paint-job on the tank, but that was it. I kinda was expecting more, especially as we were there on a Saturday AND the weather was ok! Was still cool to see the place though.

We were gonna go to the London Motorcycle Museum after the Ace but given my illness I was too fucked after how long it had taken us to get this far and so we bailed at this point. We did make it to Lewis Leathers though...

Where I got measured up and ordered a jacket. These jackets are ridiculously expensive and I'm still wincing and feeling like a jerk when I think about what this cost me. I'll get the jacket in a few weeks and have just found out that I'll have to pay fucking tax and customs charges on it when it arrives here too! Fuck. Hope it fits me real good and it's as awesome as it has been in my imagination for the last 20 years?

Thought I'd see more cool bikes on the road in London, old Brit shit, but didn't see anything apart from Hiro's BSA outside Lewis Leathers here. I did see some other cool shit riding around but nothing English...

This one above was outside a church!? And the Ural with sidecar was just around the corner from Max's place, but I never saw it running.

The coolest bike I saw in London was Nicolai Sclater's machine 'The Sushi Eater'... and to put this in context you need to look at a Honda Rebel 250 to see how this thing started it's life on earth. It's pretty amazing what Nico's done with this thing...

That's Nico above. I was planning to interview him for HFoS issue #2, but he was such a good dude we ended up just talking shit for a few hours which was great. He took me to meet the Kingdom of Kicks guys (see 'em here) at their garage which was also fucking awesome and a highlight of my week in London. Unfortunately I'd run out of time to hang out with these guys more. Hopefully gonna do an interview with Nico by email now (which'll be a bit sharper now I know him better anyway). Nicolai is 'Ornamental Conifer' who I've mentioned on here before, you can see his work here. I really dig his signwriting stuff.

I went to Holland for this exhibition I had some work in and there was no motorcycle action there I'm afraid. I tried to find some stuff but I'd left it too late and anyway I was kinda thinking I'd be busy with the show and all.

Back in London for one day before heading home after Amsterdam Max and I went for a bike ride to find this place...

 

Maitland Racing. Unfortunately it was closed on Mondays, but it was well worth the bike ride just to perve through the window at some of this shit. Really choice race bikes and all sorts of great parts. Was a pretty good way to say goodbye to London...

Of course I did a bunch of other shit too, but this is a motorcycle thing you know.

Stalker?

Holy shit someone's obviously following me around drawing pictures of me. It's a bit creepy although I'm sort of flattered too. I found this on Cafe Racer Culture and as usual there's no info...

Flexidiscs are here (Paul Elliman recording)

The flexidiscs to go with our first issue arrived yesterday and I'm pretty damn happy with them. I'd wanted to make a flexidisc right from the beginning of thinking I might make this mag, and then when Paul Elliman was here he made a proposal to me for the first one. Paul has made a recording of a 1952 Vincent Black Lightning that is 4 minutes and 43 seconds long, mirroring Richard Thompson's song '1952 Vincent Black Lightning'. The black on black label was Paul's idea, and he's releasing this under the pseudonym Can Robert. The records sound great (thank God, I've had a lot of trouble with getting vinyl made in the past) and are such interesting artefacts. These were made by Pirates Press in San Francisco and I'd highly recommend them.