This is crazy, apparently many bootleg records (78s?) were copied using Xray film in Communist era Russia. These inventive sound junkies utilized used Xray film to carve copies of recordings from the West for their listening pleasure.
Laws were passed in the Soviet Union to make the production and distribution of these one sider acetate-like recordings, and this era of sound enjoyment was effectively over in 1959.
Here on Street Use the whole story is told.
I finally made it to a Chicago Critical Mass last Friday. I think the turnout must have been around 600-800 cyclists. The turnout was insane.
I bumped into the long lost Quisp. I have not seen him for almost 20 years, in fact the last time I saw him, he was on Oprah, yelling at her in the early 90s when I resided in AZ.
The first two pictures give an idea to what it like to be in a procession of hundreds of bikes in Chicago's Loop at the end of August at around 6 PM.
The third picture from the top gives a poor idea of what a tall bike looks like (the guy with the beret to the right of the guy with the back pack in the center), but there were quite a few on this ride.
The last two pics show the gathering before the ride.
One of the most memorable events was when a scruffy tall bike rider, parked in front of a CTA bus and just leaned up against the windshield. The bus driver looked like he was going to pitch a fit, but luckily for him a Chicago Police Officer showed up and honked his siren and floashed his lights. The tall biker, ran into the mass of cyclists and took off. The officer gave no chase.
I ended up losing a PlanetBike tail light and a Bell helmet. It was an awesome time.
This article is pretty amazing, tho, creating the hydrogen takes a lot of energy to accomplish. In this case they are using natural gas to lessen dependence on the Grid.
Nice back up plan, but it would be optimal if we could harness renewable energy for this purpose... Solar, wave or wind power.
From Adrants, comes the picture above. In my opinion, the billboard is funny in of itself, but the expression on the girl's face makes is a classic.
Check out the map above of the Amsterdam Beijing Race. 10,000 miles in Classic Cars!
From the website:
Although cars play a principal part, this is certainly not the only thing that the event is about. “Competition, culture, camaraderie and adventure are central”, Vermeer says. “The rally leads to countries and regions where it seems as if time has stood still. The route follows parts of the classic Silk route and crosses areas with breathtaking panoramas: from narrow mountain roads in East Turkey to the vast and sandy Gobi desert in China. En route we will pass impressive structures and locations, among which the Chinese Wall and the Yellow River. Classic cars add an extra dimension to this. However, it is going to be above all a rally that will tax everything and everyone who participates in it to the limit. Unique, exciting and memorable, those are the keywords for this event.”
The site goes on to say that the newest car is from the Bicentennial Year of 1976 and the oldest car is from '34. Dig the Monte Carlo Mustang above.
I received a comp in the mail yesterday. There are a number of garage killers on it, but the standout is definitely "I'm Moving On" by The Evil from Florida. It has everything that defines killer garage punk, urgent vocals, stomping tempo, tough guitar buzz and even the requisite Back From The Grave style scream. This particular track was never released back in 1966.
Here is the story from JeffMiami, the source of the track:
"The Evil acetate came from a band member. The first time I heard it, I nearly passed out. It's that amazing. It was used on the Evil/Montells comp on Corduroy, but in "cleaned up sound". That same master was passed along to Norton. This is its first appearance direct from the vinyl demo, with no enhancement.
In 1966, Evil won the Dade County Youth Fair Battle of the Bands, and as a result they won time at Bobby Dukoff Studios (the same place where the Nightcrawlers album was cut). The band had very little time, so they pretty much did four songs in one take. Much of "I'm Movin' On" was worked out on the spot.
The four songs were "I'm Movin' On", "I Know I'll Die" (heard on "Jeff's Moody Monsters"), "From A Curbstone", and "Always Runnin' Around". None of the songs came out at the time. A few months later, the band (with a few new members) went into Criteria Studios and recorded "Whatcha Gonna Do About It". Unlike the one-take Dukoff sessions, the band spent many hours working on "WGDAI, and didn't get to record a B-side. No problem. "Always Runnin' Around" was placed on the flip, even though it featured a different rhythm guitarist, bass player, and drummer.
The band broke up and no one thought much about the acetates. A couple of decades later, when I was researching my book, one of the band members found "I'm Movin' On" b/w "I Know I'll Die", and graciously gave it to me. As for how I felt when I first heard it... disbelief! Nothing could be that great, could it? Both sides!"
I have been cranking this in the car as well as on the reference system. It is the best garage track I've heard yet this month.
I mentioned this awesome car in passing in my Gasser post a while back, but finally got around to posting some pics. This '33 is running a Nailhead, possibly one of my fave engines, next to a SBF 289 cu. The engine looks especially cool jammed into the firewall. The iron cross on the moon tank in front of the grill shell did nothing to hurt the looks either, in my book.
The '70s brown vinyl on the running boards and in the roof, was kind of hard to look at though. I guess the '70s were all about the earth tones.
The lettering on the door says 1974 AHRA C/MP Class Winner. I don't recall the exact et this car ran, but I think it was a high 10 second car. These old cars are so much cooler than carbon fiber, hemi destroying modern NHRA machines. I can't get enough.
This post from boingboing seems really surreal, espcially in Portland OR.
I thought that Portland was one of the more bike friendly cities...
