The Soviettes "#1 is Number Two"

Summertime Blues/ Top 5 Saturday

Well have to admit that this whole moving thing is shit. I don't want to move ever again ever. Being that I am in the home stretch of it and next week I will be sleeping at the new place I am feeling a lot better about it. That being said I am missing a ton of fun stuff to do. There has been a car/bike show every weekend and I am having to pass. Next weekend is the Rust Revival up in Wayland Ia and it is a great show. So I got the truck in paint and hated it so I get to do it all over again. I have done way to much work to just settle on so shit paint job. It's just money and time , Right? So Top 5  a little late.
Top 5 Bands I've listened to this week

Number 1. Graveyard S/T-. This bands first record is seriously so good they outdid themselves. All there records are good but this is the one. I posted some songs and you should have listened to them. So rare that there is all the combination of a killer band. Music is simple but played well, singing is spot on and the feeling is there. Perfect music to sand your truck to. Ha

Number 2. The Soviettes- Once again I have found another band about 10 years to late. Hailing from Minnesota and having three records out I have no idea about the band. Just happened to watch a video on Youtube and was instantly hooked. Three females upfront and a fellow drumming. With a little bit of digging I found a ton of live footage and I do really like them. Sound like Jawbreaker and early Face To Face with girls singing. I actually really love the main girls voice and you should watch the Number1 is number 2 video. Maybe I will post it to make it easy om all of you.

Number 3. Bruce Springsteen Nebraska- I don't even know how many pf thousands of times I have listened  to this record. It is one of the most haunting and beautiful records ever recorded. When I get to work real early I will play this record as a warm for my day. It will either make me energized or bum me the fuck out out. So put your makeup on and your hair up pretty tonight we're going to Atlantic City.

Number 4. CCR- You want to talk about American music well then CCR is the one. I can't think of anybody that does not like CCR. If they don't then they you are no friend of mine. I have this memory of driving with my dad in his old Econoline van. It was always hot as hell and we were driving to his house for the weekend. I could smell hot oil coming up from the doghouse. I knew that my weekend was going to full of riding dirbikes, skateboarding, fishing and just being a kid. On these drives from our moms place to dads we listened to CCR. With out a doubt we always put in Greenriver and would sing along and play air guitar. Probably one of the first bands I really loved. As I grew up I of course found my way into Punk Rock but there will always be a place for CCR in my heart.

Number 5. Outbreak- With song titles like Your Scum and Brain dead this band rules. Crazy fast short blast to the empty space between your ears. When I want to listen to Hardcore I want this. Angry snotty almost to the point of being ridiculous. There 10" record is by far one of the great Punk records of the last 10 years and with that being said I will go listen to it right now.

Dream Machine......

This bike is one of my Holy Grail machines. I don't know if it is the Buck Rogers styling or the red, white, and blue paint. The lines of the boat tail are amazing and either you love it or hate it I suppose. Most guys hate it but if you look at the hole package this is one perfect motorcycle. someday someway I will make one mine. Mark my words.

West Bottoms Show 2013

Well for the first year I would say it was pretty damn good. I'd say about 200 cars and about 50 bikes were lined up under and around the 12th street bridge in the bottoms of Kansas City. Our shop is about 4 blocks away so that was nice. Took the kiddos and a neighbor along so they could hang out with me. They had a blast and so did I. Check out the crazy Ripper Shovelhead with more oil on the ground then in it. Hilarious because Ian said " That Bike Is Yucky". The Gasser Nova was insane and my favorite car there by far. Well up until this Chevy Tudor rolled up then I left. Great that there is someone else willing to do some hard work and have a real good first show. Enjoy and starting tomorrow I will be riding every damn day period. We had some crazy ass Midwest weather the last two days with tornado's and rain like it was the end of times. I swear last year I had been riding everyday for a month already. Season is starting late but that will hopefully mean it goes a month later, Right?

Hair Farming Dirty Jammers

Seriously Crazy Good

Top 5 Saturday

This is how my brain works. 
Falling asleep I am thinking about motorcycles.
Dream about motorcycles and or redheaded girls and motorcycles.
Wake up and look outside to see if I can ride my motorcycle.
Decide which bike I am going to ride that day. It is usually the one with gas.
Time travel at work and think about working on bikes that evening.
Get to the shop and work on motorbikes. 
Ride home and do my family duties, eat, shower and start over.
All these steps are done while listening to music. 

Doesn't sound like much of a life but for me this is what I have to work with at the moment. In the future I would like to add:
Went skateboarding for an hour.
Got ready for a road trip. Rode my bike just for fun hundreds of miles today.
Money fell out of my ass. 
Went camping and woke up to the wide open sky and the smell of a half burnt out camp fire.

 Top 5 Saturday
Number 1. Shovel head has been running great and I am getting all the little bits dialed in. Found my brand new petcock would not shut off so I replaced that this week and then dialed in the brake for the last time hopefully.

Number 2. 10 days till I move into the new digs. Fucking crazy around here and I am getting very behind at the shop. Truck is almost ready for paint and the Norton is almost ready to get blown apart for paint and such. 

Number 3. For the first time in a long time I would have to say I am real happy with my bikes. Both are done and look proper as well as run proper.  May be tempting the gods but I am feeling like I don't need any other bikes right now. I loved only having one but two is good as well. Jockey shift or foot shift. 100 miles per tank or 50. Making choices is fun.

Number 4. Listening to Graveyard . Got hooked up with there other records and let me just say how great this band is.Almost has a Black Sabbath feel if you mixed it with The Kinks or something like that. Riffs for days and the vocals are perfect. Great music to drill holes to. 

Number 5. Swap meet tomorrow. I love that we have a motorcycle swap every month. It is the best feeling in the world to wake up early and hit the road. I usually drive out because I end up buying all kinds of shit every time I go. Always end up getting little brackets or pegs stuff I use a lot of at the shop. Brake parts and gas tanks are always a most. I get to see all my swap meet friends and be a little bit social which for me is rare. 

Enjoy The Quiet......

I know that my bikes are not quiet but while I am riding them all the bullshit in my head just fades away. Only to come down even harder when you step off the bike. There is a spot in almost ever town I have ever lived in that I would go to and just sit and think or just sit and try not to think. Special places that might not mean shit to the next guy but to me they are almost holy ground. There are those places out there you just have to find them and finding them on two wheels is the only way your gonna know your there, get it.

Really Love Motorcycles, Seriously......

Had the first great weekend of bike events in town. Two shows in one weekend and I have to say it doesn't get much better. The Vintage Japanese Motorcycle club in KC put on there show and swap Saturday. I think the little CB 160 road race bike that actually gets raced was the coolest thing there. I could not have even got on the damn thing but it looked killer and I guess goes like stink. The boy went crazy when he saw the Mini Trail Honda and I have to say it would be killer to roll on. There were some very cool and clean old bikes there. Sunday was a typical Harley show with your typical Harley bullshit and all that comes with it. Yeah I rode my Harley out, So. The Shovel got some attention and I loved the blue shovel above. There was Elizabeth's Knuckle and the Indian in the show. Everything else was crap. Riding the Shovel back I smelled a lot of gas and found out the float was sticking open and letting copious amounts of gas to hit the ground. So today I found out my brand new petcock does not shut off. It says off but it doesn't shut the fuck off. There was a little burr on the needle seat of the S&S so I took some red scrotch brite and cleaned it up. Luckily for me Dave had giving me a new petcock that he could not use. So I swapped it out and all is right with the world again. More miles this week and more shows and swaps this weekend. Winter is finally over.

Small Things and Snake River......

I know I am not the only one that wastes hours and hours on youtube watching vintage Evel footage. Well my boy and I just got done watching  the Snake River jump and then he ran over to the table and set up this Crazy Jump as he called it. So freaking cool that he instantly knew to make two ramps and then went and picked out his yucky cars so they wouldn't get hurt if he crashed. Well with a rev of the throttle we went at it with all our might and didn't you know it this time he actually made the leap and rode another day folks. We did this for about two hours until he moved onto monster trucks smashing the cars. Either way it was quality time with my boy.

Just Saying..........Top 5 Saturday

Chopper Dave has a great article in the new Horse about helmets. I could not agree more. I don't think there is a bigger topic for bike riders then to wear or not to wear helmets. I am one of those guys that over the years has grown into a fairly gnarly rider. I used to wear a beanie helmet then a 3/4 and now I only wear a full face Bell Moto 8. I am maybe gonna get a new Biltwell full face but we shall see. Look at this picture above  and realize that if you go down and you will oh you will, your grill is gonna hit the ground first. I like my face and my beard where they are at. It is of course your choice but if you live in a state where you have to wear a helmet why not wear the BEST FUCKING helmet you can. The rest of this old man body can be pinned back together but if my chin is on my bellybutton well I guess I'd be screwed wouldn't I. So top 5 reasons to wear a full face

Number 1. They are fucking cool as long as you wear it well. Score a vintage dirtbike helmet and start a revolution I say. Sure they won't help your head when it hits the ground but your chin and beard will be safe. 

Number 2. Stealth mode. I know you want all the cute girls to see you on your bike but having a full face on won't let the cops see your face. They don't call the Simpson Bandit a Bandit for nothing right.

Number 3. No Bricks to the face. I think I wrote about the red brick that I got smashed with riding on the highway. Well it sucked and from that night on I wear a full face. Bugs, bricks, sticks, rocks, bees, cigarettes, etc etc don't mean shit. Sure you hear them hit you but no pain and blood to deal with.

Number 4. They become like a force field. I think I ride a little crazy or more just at full speed ahead all the time. No big deal because my face is all covered, right?

Number 5. Actually the only thing that sucks about a full face is it is hard to spit and adjust glasses. Small price to pay I suppose. True story about 2 weeks ago we were out riding and we were goofing around. Shea kinda broke down and this bunch of faggot bicycle riders went by and one of them put his fingers in his ears. Like to say that he did not like the sound of my amazing Shovel head. I thought he was a fuck head and left it alone. Well a mile down the road there he is again and  he does it again. So I yell something about being a faggot and then try and spit on him as I buzz  by him. Well all that happened was I spit on the inside of my helmet and then I got even more pist off. I don't know why I didn't just kick him over then run my loud obnoxious bike over his 5000 dollar road bike. Fuck him ,but I did learn a valuable lesson. You can not spit with good aim or distance with a Bell Moto 8 on.

There Was A Time.......

Hard to believe but in one generation it has gone from a freak show, sailor, pirate, tradition to every fuck face on the planet getting covered in tattoo's. I am no better then the rest but I truly believe in the tradition of being a freak show, sailor, and rock and roll at heart. Also I think that I will never be as cool as anyone of these fine folks that led the way. Respect the art and respect the history and the true spirit of getting retarded tattoo's stays intact. Ha

Jake My Man.......

Jake shares my affliction for redheads.  Well here is a prime example my man . I personally like the mean face best but honestly she is only winking at me, got it. Redhead bomb drops again.

The View......

I know I have mentioned the house selling but I have not talked about the house I am buying. I did three months of hardcore work so my house would be ready to sell in spring. We got it listed and in a record 8 days the house was sold. Oh Fuck that means I have to find another house real quick. I live in Midtown KC which is alright if you like college kids, hipsters, prostitutes, pimps, homeless thugs, crack heads, people that think they don't live one block from the ghetto. Well I had had enough so in a blink my house is gone. What you see here is my new house or more importantly the view from the shop. Look close there is nothing. No houses, no highway, no one getting shot. Fucking crazy how quiet it is out there. Will be able to move all my shop stuff home by the end of summer and start slaving away at home. It will be awesome. Shop is about 1000 sq ft.and the rest of the basement is finished for play room and storage. The ranch style house is 2000 sq ft. and is pretty cool already but will be in full make over starting on the 29 of May. There are a few neighbors down in the low level(ha ha) that are gonna love me. Loud ass truck and loud old Harleys are gonna be breaking the silence coming real soon. Wish me luck and everyday will be hillclimb racing because the driveway is fucking gnarly. The city of Parkville Mo is a cool little town and I am glad to be calling it home. It has the best school district in the metro area and some great back roads riding to go on.

After thoughts....

Well its been a couple of days now and I have thought a lot about the show. Besides the terrible weather I think next year I should try and get more of the old man types with all there snooty vintage cycles to come out. See the only problem with that is that if there is even a 1 %  chance of rain they won't bring there bikes out. Oh well live and learn I suppose. My daughter loves doing Mad Libs so I thought it would be funny to see what people would come up with. I of course forgot to run around a take  pictures of the entry forms but there were some great ones. Shea's was classic. If you have not seen Noot's digger/stroker ironhead then this is the bottom pic. Bike is so killer and I still have not had a chance of riding it. Hint Hint On Friday I loaded my two bikes into the show. Perfect opportunity for the bikes to shine all alone. All I had was my camera phone. Classic

Thank You and Fuck You's

First and for most I want to say a giant thank you to everyone that came out to support the show. Not exactly the best weather and actually I don't think it could have got any worse. Maybe a direct tornado on the show but anything else is pretty damn close. 80 degrees on Tuesday, snow on Thursday and rain for the last 48 hours straight do not make for a good motorcycle show. I can just see all the fine folks that looked out there windows this morning saw the rain and said "Fuck that I'm staying home". I don't blame them honestly. I think I did say at one point that I would rather have 28 awesome bikes then 100 shitty ones. Well I got what I asked for. There wasn't one shitty bike in the show and I did get the kudos from quite a few people that said the same thing. Noot came down and hung out Friday night as well as Michael from Keokuk. Hanging with Noot is always a good time and I did get to talk motorcycles all day so it was a good day in my eyes. Elizabeth got the Best Of Show trophy with her Knucklehead. Noot got the best Chopper award for the digger and Tommy got a 1st place ribbon for the GS crazy bike. Tony got the Best Metric as well with the Cb street tracker with the green flame job. Oh yeah the big Fuck You goes out to the weather,  obviously. I figured we lost our ass but you have to start somewhere right?