Music and Motorcycles

Years ago, I sold my 1979 Honda CX500 to a good friend who used the bike to move from LA back home to Idaho. At the time, I thought I was doing him a favor because good old LA was killing him and he needed to cut free of all of the crap that held him in place. Moving by motorcycle is one of the best ways to give up crap that you don’t need. He made it to Idaho, restarted his music career there, cut some records, toured with some big name acts, and quit riding the motorcycle because he was afraid he’d fuck up and damage his hands. After one winter in storage, mice chewed through the bike’s wiring and started a fire that burned down his garage, turned the CX and a car into ashes and scrap metal, and convinced my friend that motorcycles were in his past. 

My wife saw James Taylor on Late Night with Seth Myers and we had an argument about Taylor’s age. (I thought he is my age. She thought he is 5-8 years older.) I looked up his stats on Wikipedia and I was right, he is three months older than me. However, while I was browsing his history, I hit this bit, “On July 20, he performed at the Newport Folk Festival as the last act and was cheered by thousands of fans who stayed in the rain to hear him. Shortly thereafter, he broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard and was forced to stop playing for several months.” I did not know that Taylor lost six months of his career between his first Apple Records release and his first Warner Brothers record, Sweet Baby James. 

A more well-known motorcycle career alteration was Bob Dylan’s 1966 motorcycle crash that occurred the month Blonde on Blonde was released. When Dylan reappeared, he was dramatically lower energy, with the country-music-influenced John Westly Hardin in ‘67 and Nashville Skyline in ‘69. By all accounts, Dylan’s crash was more of an ego bruising than a serious injury, since he mostly moped around in a neck brace for a few weeks and was never hospitalized for injuries. Dylan was a notoriously awful motorcyclist. As Joan Baez recalled in her biography, “He used to hang on that thing like a sack of flour. I always had the feeling it was driving him, and if we were lucky we'd lean the right way and the motorcycle would turn the corner. If not, it would be the end of both of us.” Lucky for Bob and his Nobel Prize future, he quit riding motorcycles before they finished him. Although I recently read an interview with Mark Howard, a record producer, who claims to sell an occasional cobbled-up cruiser to Dylan. Hopefully, Bobby just collects them. 

Piano Man Billy Joel got whacked on his Harley in ‘82 by a cager running a red light and, for a time, had concerns that he might not play piano again. Billy still rides and even has a Leno-style collection of motorcycles. Mostly, he’s a Moto Guzzi fan, but he owns 70’s and modern Japanese bikes, Harley collector bikes, and some customs. He still rides, although not particularly well. 

Duane Allman famously ended his career and life crashing into a stopped flatbed truck hauling a crane; hardly a hard-to-see or avoid obstacle. Allman was, like Dylan, a notoriously mediocre rider and, worse, he had a fondness for disabled, strung-out choppers which played a prominent part in his demise. Berry Oakley, the Allman’s bass player, rode his Triumph into a bus 14 months later. The trajectory of that fabled rock and blues band was forever altered and mangled by the loss of those two key members. 

A more typical Rock and Roll motorcyclist even was Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler’s 1981 crash, mostly caused by his drugged-to-oblivion state of mind when a tree jumped in front of him. Lucky he crashed on the way to pick up his daughter from a babysitting gig, rather than afterwards with her on the bike. 

Billy Idol, a classic rock nitwit, wandered through a stop sign in 1990 and met a car at moderate hippobike speeds. He broke an arm and a leg badly enough doctors almost had to amputate. In 2010, Idol crashed again. Big surprise. 

Some of the rest of rock and roll’s biker mistakes are Dire Straights’ Mark Knopfler, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis and Chad Smith, Richard Fariña, and, of course, Bono managed to mangle himself (fractured shoulder blade, humerus, eye socket, (orbit), and pinky finger on a bicycle. Waiting in the wings is Justin Beiber. If you’ve seen him demonstrate his “skills” on YouTube, you know that goofball is going to tear up a bunch of tattoos any day now. 

As best I can tell, music and motorcycles are a bad mix. But motorcycles and most things don’t mix well, so that’s not news either.

Music to Ride By

Now I'm on a roll. Listening to Heartbreaker, I'm reminded of all of the rock and roll songs I used to crank up in my head to get motivated before a race. I occasionally get asked why I don't listen to music while I ride, especially on long distances. First, I don't want to be deaf. Second, I have a lifetime of music on-line everywhere I go. I have a head full of rock and roll, blues, jazz, and classical music. The audio quality is dramatically better than any crap MP3 player and cheesy helmet headphone rig. I don't have to worry about batteries (although I need to recharge with breakfast and lunch). The selection is practically endless and I don't have to fumble with the player's tiny controls when some tune I hate accidentally slips into the cue. So, in some particular order, I've decided to list some of my favorite racing and riding head-tunes:

• Heartbreaker - Rolling Stones (The Stones' best song from their best album.)
• Frankenstein - Edgar Winter (My moto gate go-to song from 1973 on. Synthesizers should have been abandoned as musical instruments after Edgar put this tune on tape. They've done nothing new or better since.)
• Medicated Goo - Traffic (Pretty much anything quick from Stevie Winwood and/or Traffic will do when the road is twisty, rough, or missing altogether. I've been a fan since he was "Little Stevie Winwood" with Spencer Ward.)
• Hocus Pocus - Focus (The band Van Halen wishes it could be if Eddie had the chops and Roth had a sense of humor and  Van Halen had a rhythm section.)
• Scatterbrain - Jeff Beck (Actually, all things Jeff Beck are worthy of riding and racing. All other guitar players are just cheap imitations. Get the real thing, listen to Jeff. Once, I thought I could play guitar but Jeff reminded me that I just own guitars.) 
• Give It Everything You Got - Edgar Winter's White Trash (I freakin' love this song. The closest I ever came to winning a moto was when I had this going hard in my skull. The Rickman caught nothing but neutrals in a big sweeper and down I went.)
• Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo - Johnny Winter  (Rick Zerringer wrote this one for Johnny. It didn't hit, so Zerringer renamed himself "Derringer" and did it again.)
• Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who (I used to drag out the synth intro in my head until the gate dropped, then . . . not much. I could never ride as fast as Pete can windmill. It is a good covering-miles-tune. A solid block pass motivated by a Townshend power chord is hard to forget, though.)
• Living in America - James Brown (I can ride for days on this song. It should be the 21st Century's national anthem. It isn't because we're a nation of pussies and other sorts of gutless conservatives. On my way back from Canada, I have to get this tune going or I might immigrate.)
• Ballroom Blitz - Sweet (Racing is semi-organized war. What better music than a bar fight tune?)
• Whammer Jammer - J. Geils Band with Magic Dick (One of the great, rarely heard rock motorcycling tunes. When Hancock started with this jam, I knew I was gonna like that movie. I did, thank you for asking.)
• 1812 Overture - Tchaikovsky (Not a race tune, but a wonderful thing to be able to replay on long, boring cross-country trips. You wouldn't believe how loud the cannons are in my version.)
• A Night In Tunisia - Dizzy Gillespie (Dizzy's music got me into music. I hear this song a half-dozen ways; from his New York 5-piece combo  to this big band which I was blessed to hear in the 70's.)
• Traveling Lady - Manfred Mann Chapter Three (Traveling music, not racing music. There are a few songs from this album that I get going on a great day: Snakeskin Garter, Mister You're A Better Man than I, and Time. I recently converted my LP to digital audio and have been re-enjoying this music a lot lately. I need a trip to somewhere a long ways away.)
• High Falls and One Way Out - Allman Brothers (I think I did the entire Alaska and British Columbia mountain section with High Falls in my head. I saw this band -- the High Falls band -- in '73 and have never forgotten how great a rock and roll band can sound. The best day on the road almost always coincides with my being able to pull up the entire Live at the Filmore East album from memory; lead parts included.)

And my "new" (post-racing) travel-pump favorites:

• Jack You Dead - Joe Jackson (The version I really hear in my head was from the Sum Fun Band in SoCal. I ran sound for them for 8 years and they kicked the snot out of Louie Jordan's song. This is the closest thing to their version, add a killer harp solo, a much hipper rhythm section, and a bigger, blusier voice, and you've got Sum Fun.)
• Let's Get Fucked Up and Die - Motion City Soundtrack
• Whatever Happened to My Rock and Roll - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (As best I can tell, the theme song from "Faster." I can't watch road racing without having WHTMRR in my head.)

I'm not even close to running out, but I am getting bored. I think I'll go for a ride and listen to music. See 'ya.

Can't Help Myself

I don't know why, but this song has been stuck in my head all day and I had to hear it. It's off of an album, Goat's Head Soup, that some consider to be the end of the Stone's productive period and the beginning of their rock star decay. I must be decadent because I am no Stones fan, but I loved this record. I like everything about Heartbreaker, especially the horn arrangement.

LGFUAD

Absolutely no motorcycle content here, but I love this song and the video is pretty amazing, too. If this song had been around when I was racing, it would have been one of my "gate songs." I had the opportunity to record Motion City Soundtrack at a college event a few months ago. These guys still rock.