sbtrkt. buy this album.

 saturday's, mid august until early may is football, what else are you going to do when saturday comes? today's opponent's are from the west midland's, coventry city, currently languishing at the foot of the championship and staring relegation to the third tier of english football in the face, the ram's are on a roll, seven win's on the bounce, we make hard work of it again but come out one-nil to the good, are derby the new arsenal? [boring, boring derby] at the end of the day we chalk up another win and the red dog scum get dicked three-nil at home, we met up with the boy's, had a few beer's, the crack was good, what else are you going to do on a saturday?

the boxer project, doesn't look like we are making much progress does it? let me tell you, you know that thing about swan's looking really graceful on the surface of the water but really they are paddling like mad under the water?, that's what's happening in loveless-land, paint's being done, wheel's being built, i'm just juggling it all, look closely, had to re-mount the seat, [i'm a lanky five foot ten after all and didn't fit the bike], check out the rearset mountings, one bolted to the frame, the other lying on the bench, sorting out fasteners, shouting at dangerous, drinking tea and eating biscuits, [five day's hard training and dieting, fuck it, it's the weekend, ok, i had two], 1900hrs see's us quaffing a cobra, the weekend starts here.......

 i used to hang around at a shop in the basement of one of the 'cool' clothes shop's in sadlergate, 'limey's' sold threads to hooligan's and soul boy's, meanwhile, downstairs,  was r.e.cords, terrible name but the purveyor's of fine music to a generation, the main man was the legendary hector, northern soul dj, jazz-funk crossover and punk rock protaganist, this is one of the 7 inch singles i heard and subsequently bought in there, big in japan, 'from y to z and never again' [not to be confused with the fucking awful europop single by alphabeat] this was an e.p. [extended play] featuring pop luminaries such as holly johnson, [who went on to form frankie goes to hollywood', ian broudie, [lightning seed's], budgie, [ the banshee's] and the mighty bill drummond of the infamous k.l.f. and burning a million pounds episode, i paid a pound for this slab of vinyl, it's worth a lot more now, but, you know what? i should smash it with a hammer or break it in the vice, otherwise it's getting away from the original values, the sentiment and really, it's worth nothing at all...................

wish we had room for a bandsaw, make life a lot easier, unfortunately we haven't, when you think we've got the bonny, the sportster, the boxer project up on the bench, the miller, lathe, workbenches [x2], an old filing cabinet for storage, a pillar drill and bench grinder, the converter for the three phase, tools and a hundred other bit's and bob's and you could say we are a little claustrophobic so i set to with the hacksaw roughing out the pieces while dangerous leans on the bench watching me, at least he's done something useful today and dropped the tank and fairing off for a nice shiny coat of black paint, we have had to find a new painter since mad john took umbrage and dangerous came up with the idea of using a bloke who had done a repair job on his motor who's got a little workshop in the next village, result, should be back a week on friday, anyway, here's a couple of work in progress photo's of the rearset mounting's.........

have you seen the price of non-ferrous stock? dural, phosphour bronze, stainless, scandolous, i spent thirty quid at newark for a small amount, i usually go to the local non-ferrous scrap dealer and hunt around his yard for stock, he mainly deals with off-cut's and profiles from engineering work's so the stuff is good quality and you only pay scrap value for it after he's weighed it and checked the day's metal prices, so, with that in mind i've decided to save money, save stock and save the planet and use a nice organic material instead, yep, wood................... no i'm only kidding, when making rearsets or mounting brackets we always use a cardboard pattern to get the rough shape and then transfer that to the stock to make the part, in this case i wasn't sure where my rearset footpegs would fall so i chopped a couple of lumps of ply out, drilled the mounting centres and with an assortment of washers spaced them off the frame, i sat on the bike and held my feet roughly in position, dangerous marked it and i drilled them to mount a set of pegs to get the 'feel' right, after a bit of experimenting with the span from the mounting points on the frame and trying to find the correct height i found the most comfortable position for myself, another half-hour with a sharpie and we have the pattern for the mounting plates and it's time to transfer it to the 8mm dural.

 sunday see's dangerous, stu and me heading to the traditional autojumble and for this year, bike show at newark showground, i've got everything, wallet, cash money, cheese and tommy pack-up, guess what i forgot? yep,  camera, put it on charge last night, it's still there, bollock's, no show photo's i'm afraid, [shame, some nice bikes there] but, on a more positive note, i got a whole lot of stainless stock, some duralumin at a bargain price and i unchained the loveless stash and purchased a lush shorai racing battery, it's a lithium, five times lighter than a traditional lead battery, check the photo's, on the left, weighing in at a massive five point seven kilogram's is varta 'mr hevvvvy mother fu careful' on the right is super fly weight 'beast from the east' lithium, third more cranking power, carbon fibred body shorai and weighing in at a staggering, [wait for it, i can't believe it myself] nought point nine, nine, seven kilo's, fuckingellthatsalmostfivetimeslighterthanthestandardbattery! stu got me a signed photo of tt legend steve plater, he signed it to #51 and apparently kept a straight face even when stu told him i was a racer too..............

i just went down the step's to the slightly damp vinyl vault and randomly opened one of the storage boxes, stuck my hand in and plucked out this gem, ' rosemary what happened' by richard 'popcorn'wylie, originally released on the karen label, the song was loosely based on the film 'rosemary's baby' the 1968 film starring mia farrow and john cassavetes, directed by roman polanski and dealing with satanism, hardly a recipe for a huge northern soul floor-filler but, there you go, 'popcorn' wylie was a highly respected detroit bandleader and producer who had an almighty fall out with berry gordy at motown, he left the famous label and went on to work with j.j. barnes, edwin starr and jamo thomas, [famous within the northern soul scene themselves] the grapevine label operated between june 1977 and early summer 1980,  releasing proper rare soul vinyl, each release numbered around five thousand copies, this one is a rarity as it's a 'demo' copy, highly sought after by soul collectors and not to be confused with the 'pressings' that were released, [bootleg copies of the original items, even 'pressings' are fetching stupid money, they are, after all, almost forty years old themselves] i'll tell you how i came about owning a load of demo copies of 'grapevine' label vinyl another time, and i might just tell you how much i paid for them.......................

fairing finally mounted, screen on, it's been a nightmare, glad that's out of the way and we can move on, rearset's are next on the agenda, just need to lose some weight off the fairing mounting bracket's and off the fat bastard rider, i'm on a serious diet, loads of home made soup's, no bread, no alcohol, carrots, celery, no chocolate, crisps, pringles or chips, cut the dairy down to the bare minimum, no use trying to shave gram's off the bike here and there if i'm not fit to ride it, monday to friday, i'm on it, focused and training hard, come the weekend? listen, i'm nearly fifty three, honda ain't going to come knocking and offer me a work's ride............

 football. f.a. cup third round day, for me the most important date in the football calender, [apart from when we play the red dog filth], for as long as i can remember i've loved this day, i think of the glory tie's we have had in the past and rather forget embarrassing exits to lower league opposition that we have had to endure, that's the beauty of 'the cup', the 'giant's' can get stuffed by a bunch of lower league, or, god forbid, non-league opposition, today our opponent's were fellow championship side crystal palace, on a freezing cold east midland day we beat them one-nil, not the stuff of back page headlines but, you can only beat what's in front of you, we were the better team and deserved it, the cup has slowly been eroded by the bigger club's fielding reserve sides or in manchester united's total lack of respect, dropping out of the competition all together a couple of years ago, how dare they? the arrogant bastard's, the minnows of football have the right to cup glory as much as the big clubs who have their sights set on european success, big-up's to the supporters of unfashionable club's, the lad's who follow their team's week in and week out, it's not always pleasant, [i'm a derby supporter so know all about that, worst team in premiership history for one.......] but the cup? i'll be there tomorrow watching the draw, we are number eighteen, 'please god, i've been a good lad, can we get ................'

after the big new year clean up i opened up the the big vinyl cellar and got lost for a couple of day's and night's, i really, really tried to thin out the collection, i had all good intentions of thinning it out, getting some records on e-bay and trying to raise some fund's for a holiday/ the race project/ the drive being tarmaced/paying some bill's or any other of the boring, mundane, everyday thing's that life throw's up, i try and sort them out into stuff that i don't play, don't listen too, [enough] all the records fall into that category, i've got lazy, i listen to my music on my i-pod or from my i-tunes library, i'm a fat, lazy, bastard, i don't even play cd's anymore, why do i need these slabs of vinyl from a hundred years ago? i make five piles of stuff i won't play again, then, then, then, i put them back into the carefully marked boxes, fuck that, no way am i going to get rid of these gem's, my kids can do that when i'm dead, they will throw them in the bin, discarding them as 'that old shit music that dad used to jump around too, dance, cry, play imaginery sax/guitar/drums too' to them it's worthless, to me, it's my heritage, every disc hold's a memory, i can remember hearing them for the first time or buying them, you don't get that with clicking a button, the classic concerts, the wednesday night blues parties, the northern soul all-nighters, the early rave scene where everyone was your best mate, the edgy drum and bass scene, the reggae soundclashes at the carib club, the prog rock, glam rock and hardcore punk scene, all the new wave sounds, all the tunes that just give you goosebumps, nah, i can't get rid of any of this stuff, so, the first in the series, [not for any reason, i just closed my eyes and dug in deep], is this gem from 1977, the year of punk rock, i was eighteen years old and like a sponge, caught between two tribes, bang into the sweet soul music of northern and the complete 'fuck you' attitude of punk, it was a natural progression, i was travelling all around the country, i worked in the north and the south, i was travelling to away matches all over the country, it was exciting, i was a derby supporter, we lived for the weekend as our contemporaries before us had, the mod's the greb's and the skin's, we caused mayhem all over the place, it was all about having a laugh, beer fuelled and sometimes amphetamine driven, i'm not proud of it now, [as a nearly fifty-three year old], but, you know what?, i really don't give a fuck, when i listen to music like this, slaughter and the dog's, 'cranked up really high', apparently it's been voted into the punk top one hundred singles listing and loads of well respected music critic's, [who are probably aged about twenty five and know fuck-all about music apart from what they have googled to find out what they think they should like], don't know about that but i know it's an un-holy row and i love it, the pictures are mine, the sleeves are not in the best of condition, the vinyl is scratched, [not least by george peckham in the run out groove, he's the legendary master engineer, responsible for many, many, punk, post-punk and new wave recordings, also known as porky prime cut's] check out your local oxfam and charity shops, your local independent dealer, you can of course download them if you want, but you won't be buying something that means anything, when you buy vinyl you are buying the real-deal, something you can hold, pour over the artwork and the cover sleeve and imagine some eighteen year-old dancing around their bedroom too while their parent's are shouting 'turn-it-fucking-down,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,!'