Thursday, October 29, 2009

Chuck Biscuits - Rest In Peace

Rest in Peace Chuck, another great one downed from cancer. He was the backbone of the first four Danzig albums and then had stints with a few other bands you may have heard of such as Social Distortion and Black Flag. Here a few songs to remember him by...



Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Integrity - Love'em or Hate'em

Love'em or Hate'em Integrity in my book were a game changing band in the second wave of hardcore. Their bleak out look on life, the haunting imagery and the use of iconoclastic individuals as part of their imagery made them a force to be reckoned with. To this day I have never seen them live, and I have been listening to their albums for over 16 years. The last show in which I was "supposed" to see them, they were about to go onstage and once again a huge fight broke out and they split, thanks for the fight Wade! This has happened on numerous occasions when I went to see them. Either they start shit with other bands or some random knucklehead runs his mouth, just how hardcore shows used to be, back when rock n roll was dangerous and fun.

Their style was always a bit different than the other bands at the time as they were slow and chugging instead of the speedy hardcore that was coming out of NYC aka, Sick Of It All, Killing Time, etc. This distinctive sound helped to define what is known as Cleveland Hardcore. To this day, I still believe that Integrity were ahead of their time and clearly put a stamp on a lot of the styles that are popular now. Too bad I didn't get to see them in their glorious violent days, damnit!

Integrity on Myspace


Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Land Of Plenty - Skateboard Foundation

Right before we moved from Oakland, CA back to the east coast I promised a friend that I would paint a board for his skateboard foundation. The Land of Plenty Skateboard Foundation is a non profit community development organization based in Los Angeles. It is their mission to encourage creative physical education and artistic expression through the culture and activity of skateboarding. Doing so was a great feeling and to be able to give my time and efforts to a group helping out the younger skate rats is always a good thing. Hopefully I will get to skate with those dudes again some time soon.

The Land of Plenty - Skateboard Foundation




Sunday, October 25, 2009

Geargoyles Show - Inman, South Carolina

Woke up at 4:30 am and it was raining buckets, but luckily I had packed all the gear the night before to head out for the show. All the way to South Carolina line it was raining its ass off. Just outside of Charlotte it was just about impossible to see and then I drove right into the middle of an accident on 85 with a dude still upside down in his vehicle with is arm out, sketchy for sure. Just across the state line, the skies cleared up and made for a bitchin' day just outside of Spartanburg for the Geargoyles Car Club fall show. For as many cars and trucks that were there, it was matched in bikes as well. Lots of folks were eagerly interested in my Honda cafe-chop build and was psyched to walk them through what I did. Thanks again for all those who put on the show and extra special thanks to the folks who walked away with some high quality Rusty Knuckles merch, we appreciate it!






























Friday, October 23, 2009

In Chicago For The Day

Got a great random call about flying out to Chicago for the day to help a friend out with a photo shoot and video production. In essence they needed a well qualified person in the "arts" that could act, so whaddya know, a plane ticket confirmation arrives by email and off I go within a few hours. It was a campaign for a good sized marketing agency that focuses in the financial sector. So being the ever so nimble and fly by seat of my pants individual, I was able to take their direction and act as a banker painting a huge blank canvas to create a positive change in the mental work flow. Sounds highfalutin' but it was damn fun and then I got to do another photo shoot with a great photographer by the name of Robert Randall. After the video production I decided to walk around a bit and grab some shots of randomness and all that is Chicago. Check out the work of photographer extraordinaire Bob Randall, quite an amazing guy and killer stories. Also a big thanks to my pal Mark Okolita for hooking this all up, thanks again hombre! And a shout out to video guru Jim and studio gal Nicki!

Robert Randall - Photographer












Tuesday, October 20, 2009

True Grit

A topic that interests me to no end is human expression. Yeah, a huge topic but its the way each individual represents themselves which then defines them as characters in the game of life. This could be building ground up custom choppers, painting a canvas, writing a story, playing music or just letting people on the street know you have a voice. I will never forget seeing "Bush Stinks" written all over the alley ways and random walls around San Francisco. It truly echoed the time a few years back and just made me laugh every time I saw the chicken scratch writing. So one day after leaving the local coffee shop, what do I see happening right in front of me, a middle aged woman with a sharpie scrawling "Bush Stinks" on some advertising space. Damn, personally I tend to think most graffiti oriented material comes from younger individuals, but once again life smacked me right in the face. This is the same as it did when I was in Greece and a few Americans were complaining about the scrawled names on rocks at monuments and an old Greek man told them that everyone simply wants to leave their mark. Expression comes in many forms but when you see it done anonymously and poetic, it can speak volumes. Check out this site for a few rather well placed words:
Random Vandal




Saturday, October 17, 2009

Apple Moonshine Spurs Ideas for Biker Runs

A buddy of mine swung through the other night and we shot the shit over a few beers while talking bikes, road trips and then hatched a plan for a potential "Run" on the coast here in the south. Not going to leak any of the ideas just yet as we have to go out and do the roads and figure the route before we post our plans, but it should be killer. Lets just say this, it involves pirate lore, actual pirate locations, the great outdoors and moonshine will be involved. After a few swigs of his killer new batch of apple flavored shine, the great idea came to us, so keep a weekend in your April 2010 calendar open for 500 mile round trip run.