VERONA EXPO part five.......SIDEBURN SUPPORTERS

Unfortunately my camera battery ran out so I didn't get as many portraits as I would have liked. Anyway, from the top we got Renzo Ruffo and his lovely wife. He's the son of Italian 50's/60's road racer Bruno Ruffo. Don't know what attracted him to Sideburn but he kept coming back to see us!

Next shot is Jacopo Monti, hot Italian dirt track racer who competes in the UK championship.

The guy in red is Sven from SCRAPERS car club he does a nice mag called MOTORIZED.

Next up is the guy behind SINNER SUPPLY.....sorry but his name escapes me.

The last shot is of the singer of an AC/DC clone band hired to play throughout the day.......not supporters....more like competitors...we got into a soundclash with them with Mr. Martini's 300w amp!

VERONA EXPO part four......STRUMPETRY

never a dull moment with unashamed, overt, Italian-style vogue-ing in every direction....BELLISIMO!!

VERONA EXPO part three ...MR. MARTINI

Mr. Martini is a big TRIUMPH dealer in Verona.....across the street from his dealership he operates a small retail shop selling really nice customised vintage and modern Triumphs. The shop looks and feels more like a VIVIAN WESTWOOD/AGENT PROVOCATEUR lingerie emporium than a bike shop. To say Mr. Martini is an Anglophile would be an understatement, for his stand at the show he rented a London double-decker bus and utilised the top floor as a VIP lounge.
The geezer in the last shot is on the Mr. Martini payroll, his neck tattoo says "IT CANNOT RAIN FOREVER".......He's obviously never been to Manchester!!

VERONA EXPO part two... EVEL KNIEVEL EXHIBITION

The Evel Knievel exhibition was on display at the show. It all packs into a big trailer and is on tour throughout Europe for all of 2011. The blue leathers are the ones he wore for the Wembley Stadium Jump. Also on display was the Canyon Sky Cycle (complete with damaged nose cone) his XR750 he used for the jump over the tank of sharks, the EK Dragster and the Jet-Bike. The highlight of the exhibition was a skeleton showing all of Evels broken bones........I purchased an EK bathrobe!

ITALIAN MOTORCYCLE EXPO, VERONA 2011 part one

Just back from a truly great trip to The Italian Motorcycle Expo in Verona where SIDEBURN MAGAZINE were invited to "exhibit"....
We shipped a pallet of goodies (thanks Wilky #99) and jumped on a plane armed with 2 small boxes of Garage, Soul and British Beat 45's along with my portable record player and the four Psychedelic Terrorist Masks.
Got picked up by the "Viscount of Verona" Paolo Zieta, in his pimped out paddy wagon and travelled in style to a nice hotel where the EVEL KNIEVEL EXHIBITION and LOWRIDE MAGAZINE staff were also staying.
The show was HUGE!! I didn't actually manage to get round all the 8 halls....and I was there for 3 days!
The Sideburn Booth turned out to be in a great spot....hall 1, in the shadow of Mr. Martini's double decker London bus and right next to the LOWRIDE MAGAZINE photo studio! This meant that all the really cool bikes from all around the different halls were lined up ready to be photographed in front of our booth. Add to this, a constant parade of stunning models in various states of undress, entering and exiting the studio, thus providing endless photo opportunities!
Although the Sideburn booth was one of the smallest there, we seemed to make a big impression, resorting to shock tactics and "masking up" in matching white overalls and dancing like loons to IL GEGHEGE by Rita Pavone, around the new ZIETA STREET-TRACKER.
I met a bunch of cool people, Roberto Totti and his wife Chintzia (respected Italian bike builder and winner of best street bike) that's them pictured with Paolo Zieta under the Sideburn banner. Also Mr. Martini (more on him later) who sorted out a nice loud amp for me to play my records with and took us out to a bustling pizza joint that sold pizza by the metre! We spent time with the OFFICINE MERMAID folks  Dario, Stefania, Antonio and Toto...we were treated like kings.
Jeff Decker was there with his collection of Motorcycle Club Colors and a couple of his bronze statues.
Fiddy introduced me to a guy called Neil Blaber, director of AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER WORLD who turned out to be a JAILCELL RECIPES fan and saw us play with GREEN DAY at Tunbridge Wells in 1991.

LANCELOT LINK......IN COLOR!!

 I noticed that the last few posts have been mainly monochrome...so, for no reason other than to add some color to FULL FROKKUL...here are some Lancelot Link comic covers and a clip from the TV show with the band singing "Evolution Revolution", another song squished through THE STAGS mangle and served up on the DO THE TON album

Roots of UK skateboarding

I stumbled upon a little bit of UK skateboard history by pure accident. The pics in this post came from two entirely separate sources.

Firstly, after watching a 1965 British teen movie BE MY GUEST (starring a very young pre-Small Faces Steve Marriot) I googled the leading actress JOYCE BLAIR. It turns out that she was the sister of famously camp TV dancer LIONAL BLAIR. I also found the shots of Joyce posing in London's Hyde Park on a wonderful Gerry Anderson licenced STINGRAY skateboard!

Fast forward only a few weeks to Christmas time. I received some vintage TV21 comics as a present and there, amongst the pages, was this ad for the very same skateboard. The magazine advert dates the photo to 1964.

It's strange to me that two completely unrelated interests of mine, namely Gerry Anderson memorabilia and sixties beat music led me to learning stuff about a third unrelated intrest!!