A Great Blog

Music - gigs

2012-03-19T01:43:00.000-07:00

Killing Joke. Wulfrun, Wolverhampton.
Dark, industrial rock. Still with the anti establishment message. Took a while to get going but then really got into it. Loads of crazies there - punks, goths, metalheads - like going back 30 years.
Still relevant? The same week as at least 14 emo kids stoned to death in Baghdad and two of the Riot Pussy girls arrested in Moscow, facing up to seven years.

The Road.

2012-03-07T00:40:00.004-08:00

Collected a bike from a pal who lives near Barmouth. Lee was one time singer with the mighty One Way System. True British punk, they toured extensively and some great videos made. Check out One way system, believe yourself, Japan.

We took a walk over Barmouth railway bridge that crosses the estuary.It was designed originally for a section to swivel and let the tall boats through. A single track railway, with pedestrian walkway and allows bikes across for £2.00 - Mad.

Films

2012-03-06T00:27:00.002-08:00

Watched a couple of good films and one not so great recently.

Nosferatu - part of Bishop's Castle arts festival. The original silent Dracula film made in 1922. Screened in an old chapel, candles up in the stained glass windows - Whitby we can do Goth as well.
The much copied and hugely influential film was directed by FW Murnau. His next film a couple of years later won the very first oscar, not to be repeated for a silent film till now with the great " The Artist".
All original copies were ordered by the Bram Stoker estate to be destroyed for copywrite reasons. Thankfully a copy remained in the USA.
Local musicians provided an improvised soundtrack together with wine and Three Tuns beer made a great start to the evening.

Senna - the movie. Flicks in the Sticks, Chapel Lawn village hall.
A very well made film / documentary about a racing genius and remarkable man. Recently winning a bafta it's not just for petrolheads. It gives a small part of Grand Prix history when racing was arguably at its most interesting.

Superbiker - Shrewsbury. The story of the dramatic British Superbike series last year. Apart from the final race the film was a poor imitation of TT 3D. But the Ulster man Michael Laverty who was riding for swan Yamaha was sitting a couple of rows in front ! Oh and the film score was by Dave Vanian, so it could have been worse.

Elephant ralley - 2012

2012-02-15T01:15:00.000-08:00

From Susl and Mac,

Stuttgart area, Germany.

Elephant meeting in Loh Thurmansbang Bavaria Germany last weekend in January.

Hi Mal,

want to make envious and tell you a bit about the elephant meeting last weekend in Bavaria. Everything was covered in snow, the hills, the tents, the motorbikes. Ideal weather, sunny and quite cold….which was good, because no mood.

A good idea was to arrive there on the Wednesday before the weekend in order to get one of the popular flat pieces of campground because the area is very steep. We took Macs good old Eastgerman twostroke MZ bikes, a single ETZ 251 and a sidecar ETZ 250 towing a trailer made in 1949. We had loads of luggage, especially Mac,  because he wanted to make my first trip there as cosy as possible. For him, it was the 14^th time since 1985. Beside the ordinary camping stuff we took a chainsaw, a snowshovel and a 3feet- barbeque. Gascookers don’t work properly at a temperature of 10 degrees below zero. It’s always good to have a little bottle of snaps, because normally most other drinks freeze…..but not in our tent, because as well we had the world greatest gas heating.

You can buy wood and straw there, so you don’t have to sleep on the frozen ground and we could warm up feet and beers at our fires. Also little snacks were offered, but most people did there own cooking.

Everything was very well organized, but without any party tents, bands or such stuff. Maybe the toilet situation could be improved…… But prizes were given to for example the farest visitor. So: British bikers could have a chance for getting famous. People from whole Europe were there, from Russia to Spain.

50% were sidecars. An interesting point was the technical customizing. Snowchains, Skis under the tyres, handwarmers, threewheelers with mobile loos.

Hey, it was really great fun! It was my first, but not my last time. Hope to see you British folks there next year….especially other women……

Music

2012-02-12T02:57:00.000-08:00

The Black Keys. Retro-Groove-Rock. All we seem to be listening to at the moment

Shows

2012-02-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

Telford Twin Shock, Classic & Road Racing Show.
8th - 9th February.
Highly recommended in a first class venue.
Classic bikes for competition use - stripped down no nonsense, can't get much purer than these.

Music

2012-01-30T10:37:00.000-08:00

Was given the c.d. "Nine types of light" by my lads for a Xmas present. The band are TV on the Radio - a black art rock band from New York. They mix a fusion of jazz, funk, soul and disco into some great rock tunes. Check them out on You Tube.

Books

2012-01-30T10:24:00.000-08:00

Went to a talk by Simon Gandolfi last week, he was a guest speaker organised by S Shrop's vintage motorcycle club. He wrote the book "Old Man on a Motorcycle" in which he rode from Central America down to the tip of Argentina on a Honda 125. He was in his mid 70's but still had a boyish enthusiasm for life. And rather than just observing he was a participant, and speaking Spanish he would naturally converse with just about anyone.
A 125? 120 mpg, a tank range of 300 ml's and spares he could get anywhere. Dropping it wasn't an issue and it can cruise at 55 - 60 mph all day. Makes a lot of sense.
He has since rode back up to New York, around India and now aims to ride around the world - he's 80 next birthday. As he says "it's never too late"
The venue was The Inn on the Green, Wentnor, S Shropshire. A really friendly bustling pub, offering accomodation and a campsite next to a small river All under the Long Mynd with some of the best biking roads in the country. Highly recommended!

Another lesson

2012-01-25T03:54:00.001-08:00

Today Mal had another lesson on creating blogg entries....

No excuses Mal...GET BLOGGING!

[DRU..]

Malcolms Blog

2011-07-14T05:50:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Malcolm's Blog

Here you can read about the many tales and adventures of Malcolm - the man behind Metal Malarkey...!