Fare-thee-well Lionel 'Duc' Newbery

Last week one of our contributors passed away. A real gem of a man, Lionel Newbery, or 'Duc' as many people called him, contributed fragments and memories of his ride around the world back in the late '70s to issues #2 and #3 of Head Full of Snakes under the title 'Not Safe'. That's Lionel above on his 1974 Moto Guzzi GT850, the bike he rode from London back to NZ. He still had this bike and it was great to see it again, sitting out the back of his house at his funeral/tangi last Thursday. His kids told me that they plan to do the ol' Guzzi up too, in Lionel's memory.

Last Thursday was amazing and seemed a really fitting send off for someone who was so sort of quietly influential in quite a few peoples lives. Lionel had a large and really loving family, and he was also well known to the locals over in Lyttelton where he lived. It was actually seeing Lionel riding his old red Ducati (below) around Lyttelton back in the very early 2000s that made me get back into motorcycles (having since sold my bike after my cousin died on one). I loved the look and sound of Lionel's Ducati, and he'd often be parked up outside No.6, one of the old cafes that was run by Bruce Russell and his wife Kate back then.

Lionel had shown me photos of his old Ducati GT 750 that he'd bought brand new and raced, but I'd never seen it in the flesh. Turns out his brother had it up in Auckland, and so he rode it back down all the way to Lyttelton for the funeral! I think it bought a tear to many people's eyes when Lionel's son (on the red bike) and his brother (on the GT) started up both bikes to lead a procession of motorcycles over to the Diamond Harbour cemetery. Lionel went in the old Citroen you can just see in front of the motorbikes there.

I thought it would be a slow sombre ride around the bays, but no! These two on the Ducatis took off and this would easily be one of the fastest most hair-raising group rides I've been on. A fitting tribute as everyone agreed, 'that's how Lionel would have ridden'.

The ceremony was beautiful with no involvement from any weird outside participants who didn't know Lionel. The family filled the grave with shovels, everyone got real dirty. There were no speeches, but there were a couple of songs. It was really moving and special.

Here's to you Lionel, and long may the Guzzi run.

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."

Finishing, posting, ...

 

Getting back from Melbourne for the Chch launch me and Nadine got stuck into gluing in the patches in these little library-card sleeves that Stuart sourced. I then have been spraying all the covers with fixative just to make them less likely to smudge and get all over people's hands. This was quite time-consuming, but again kinda fun and meditative... or maybe that was just the aerosols?

Since then we've been doing some BULK mailing! I got an HFoS return address stamp made that not only looks cool, but makes this all a lot faster/easier. I have this funny thing about handwriting all the addresses... I know it's impractical, but this isn't a practical project now is it. We had to employ some 'expert' help (above) for the Japanese addresses after I buggered them up real good!

We're totally caught up with orders now, so anyone who has ordered one you should get it soon if you haven't already. Some of the international ones that I've sent (from NZ) may take a week or two to get to you, but hang in there eh. It's a great feeling sending them off all over the world to some pretty far away and strange sounding places... God only knows how you people even know about our shitty little mag?

Head Full of Snakes issue #2 Christchurch Launch

Fuck! Amazing night on Saturday, totally bloody awesome fun was had. 50 bikes showed up at Tommy Chang's (not including those on show) and then we all rode over Dyers Pass and into town together. Was so good to ride with such a big bunch of such fucked up bikes, we made a real racket and got a lot of pedestrians real excited about bikes I reckon! Wish we had some photos from the ride! Did anyone get any? Sold copies once we got to Smash Palace and man they were flying out the window of Greg's caravan-workshop. Was great to see people stoked about it cause it sure was a shit-load of work. A bunch of us stuck around and got real merry at Smash Palace. Was good to relax and get on the piss!

For anyone who wasn't there, you can order copies from our website here. They're $25 if you're in NZ or Aussie, and $35 (AUS) anywhere else in the world – and remember they're practically handmade come with a free patch so it's pretty stupidly cheap! And for anyone who ordered them last week before the launch, don't fret we are posting them this week. We have a whole bunch of them to post out, it'll take a couple of days...

Hope to see a bunch of you who we met at the launch at Bike Nights at Smash Palace every Thursday!? (That's you Owen, and that red-head dude with the kick-ass pre-unit Triumph chop – I'd love to talk to you about the next issue. If you see/read this get in touch?)

Issue #2 Launch! This Saturday 26 Jan!

Ok finally this THING is almost ready! Launch parties will be held this Saturday in both Melbourne and Christchurch simultaneously and may or may not include a coordinated trans-Tasman burnout.

Anyway the key shit to remember is:

***CHRISTCHURCH –
If you have a bike you'll wanna meet us at Tommy Chang's bar in Lyttelton (London St.) sometime after 4pm. We'll be having a couple of beers there and then riding over the hill (Cashmere) and ending up at Smash Palace (cnr. Bealey Ave. and Victoria St.)... plan is to leave Lyttelton by 5.30pm and get to Smash Palace about 6pm. Copies will be available for purchase from Smash Palace after 6pm.

***MELBOURNE –
4 – 6pm at 'Magic Johnston', 27-29 Johnston St., Collingwood. There'll be bikes on show and there'll be free beers! That's right free. So it's probably worth showing up even if you don't give a shit about our mag...

Which, by the way, comes with a FREE PATCH... and only 1000 copies exist in the whole world. Remember the last issue sold out very quickly, if you want a copy the launch is the best place to get it! They're only $20 but you will need cash!

See you there (or here).

Collating!

HFoS #2 is now collated... all 114 pages x 1000 copies! And will be off to the binder first thing tomorrow morning. Big bloody THANKS to everyone who helped out with this, it was a massive mission! It was so great to see so many people show up today to help out, really sped things along. Thanks to you all and may you all have excellent lives ahead of you forever.

NOTICE: HFoS Melbourne launch postponed!

Unfortunately issue #2 of Head Full of Snakes has taken way longer than we thought it would to print, collate, and bind. Mostly because it is so full of totally awesome shit, and it's been so hard to pack it all in there. As a result we regret to inform you that the launch that was planned for tomorrow (Saturday the 19th of Jan) has to be postponed by one week.

The Melbourne Launch will now happen on the 26th of January at the same time as the Christchurch launch (actually a little bit later cause as everyone knows NZ is ahead of Aussie eh!).

After many various technical problems issue #2 is actually looking really good and you will be able to get your oily mits on it real soon.

3rd colour down... launch deadline looming!?

After practically two all-nighters in a row we finally have finished the printing. It was a fucking nightmare really... the risograph freaked out with the 3rd colour and we had to run it stupidly slowly. Has been really insane, and Stuart and I are like zombies pretty much by now. We started collating lastnight with this machine we borrowed from Brad Haylock (cheers Brad!). It's a great machine, but again I think we've been a bit ambitious! We're making 1000 copies of a 116 page magazine.... and it's taking fucking ages. Came home for 4 hours sleep lastnight and heading back in again now... really looking like we may have to postpone the Melbourne launch which is supposed to be on Saturday?