Guest Article: Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!
We’ve remarked many times on the connection between the pained musician and the Cyclist. Layne Staley and Marco Pantani being a prominent example of a reflection in a pond of mental strife. Perhaps something about finding strength – or at least some kind of peace – through suffering is a personality trait that Cycling shares with being an Artist. But sometimes it is much more simple than that. Sometimes, you just want to get psyched to get out and ride. Or to stay in and ride, as the case may be. @blackpooltower lets us in on his own dirty little secret.
Yours in Cycling, Frank
Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and the other assorted Ramones like Linda (yes, really, I checked) might not look like God’s gift to the performance-minded cyclist, despite Johnny’s quite aero hair, but in fact they’re practically a secret weapon.
I’d love to say that my training is all Man-With-Hammer-seeking epics and Moser hill repeats but frankly I live in central London, an hour from anything resembling countryside so, whisper it, I do also spend some time on the turbo. Filthy habit, I know. Sorry.
Although, you know what? Graeme Obree did a fair bit of indoor training and if it’s good enough for the JK Rowling of cycling (which is to say: made it with no one’s help, on welfare/benefits, therefore a total hero) then it’s good enough for me.
Of course indoor training is a bleak prospect without music. And it can’t just be any music. It has to be the right music.
So, if there wasn’t a band whose entire output was recorded at between 90 and 100 bpm, with irrepressible energy levels and just the right blend of anti establishment individualism (totally fake in Johnny’s case), catchiness and outright dumbness to keep an underperforming wanabe racer spinning those stupid fan blades round for one more effort … you’d have to invent them, no?
But no need. The Ramones, AKA punk rock pot belge, exist. Or at least their music does, and that’s the bit you need.
Pearl’s Girl by Underworld from the album “Second toughest in the infants”…great title for an album. If you haven’t heard this track it’s turbo gold
I use an old PRS (’83?) solidbody with a Mesa Boogie tube amp. I’m too old to remember all the settings on my pedals so if I just plug in and turn it up.
Playing the Who gets my bpm up, channelling Mr. Townshend.
@Daccordi Rider
Listen to Rattle and Hum and tell me that isn’t the biznitch.
@frank
Gotta agree, while Bono disappeared up his own ass a long time ago, the band hit their peak with Rattle and Hum (which was really the Joshua Tree album tour made into a doco/live album). They had, dare I say it, a raw energy that was hard to ignore at the time.
@brett
I’ll pitch in here. U2 are one of those bands I’ve loved/liked for a long time. First saw then in 82 at Tiffany’s in Glasgow. (Pre War tour gig). I remember walking into Listen Records in Renfield Street in Glasgow and hearing Gloria. I had no idea who it was by but just went up and said “i’ll have what was just played.” That was 1981, the year I started a short-lived banking “career.” I loved them then and I’ve seen them a bunch of times over the years in increasingly larger venues. But as we’ve all gotten older the love has waned. I buy their stuff more out of loyalty to an old flame now than genuine excitement (the kind of excitement that gripped me when War and An Unforgettable Fire came out. I got them the very day they were released and listened to them as soon as I got home.)
Sure, Bono’s gotten more pretentious over the years and the last few albums have been labored, but I’ll give them until Zooropa and Achtung Baby to be still great. After that, spotty at best.
Rattle and Hum is still very watchable today. Most of their recent concert films are unwatchable because of the editing – so friggin choppy it makes your brain hurt.
We can argue about how utterly shit U2 are these days, but they did inadvertently lead to this
https://youtu.be/CGrR-7_OBpA
U2 might have been good up to The Unforgeable Fire or there abouts but Bono disapeared so far up his own arse that his presence on the early albums made them unlistenable and therefore as shite as everything they’ve done since.
Rattle and Hum was the sound of them disappearing up their own egos, pre that some stuff was good, never great in my opinion, which is the only one that counts when I play music!
Live at Red Rocks anyone, surely a keeper along with Unforgettable fire and The Joshua Tree.
Above were soundtracks to my youth.
After that – no so much
earbuds may be out for us ….but I need this rig following me on some hills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DcqnkzGEFQ
concur on all points made on Bono, him and his off colored glasses either need to go back to making some angry assed music or just stop trying to play the professional victim/answer for everything and go the fuck away.
@ped
YES! And try like hell I’ve never been able to play that like Mr Cash did. And for YEARS I’d tried dammit. I still try! Folks, I don’t care what anyone says but their latest, the freebee that showed up on my iPhone one day, is a DAMN GOOD album. No one plays music every day for decades and some of it doesn’t suck. yea yea yea, so some U2 music sucks. But I gotta say, some of it all is gems beyond gems. My humble opinion but wtf do I know? Cheers all
@ped
Not to mention some of Negativland’s finest work.
https://youtu.be/AVroc7RvNeU
@Frank – I just luuurve JCM800s. I had a master vol 2 x 12, 50W combo back in the day, run into 4 x 12 plexi cab. I was living in (very) Central London at the time with no neighbours (apart from a knocking shop downstairs.) Used to run a long lead from the living room to the kitchen and let the partition wall act as an organic powerbrake. You could hear it from an 4 blocks away – totally freaked out the crowd boozing outside the local downstairs.
I’ve always been more nihilistic grunge on the turbo. Numbing, grinding pain tunes. Fortunately not crept into that particular pain cave since the move….
@fenlander
THAT’S what i’m talking about!
@RobSandy
that JVM is the very tits. i toured the southern US with a couple JCM2000 DSL50s i modified myself, about 15 years ago. i am not a big fan of most JMPs, 800s, or 900s. the dsl2000s and jvm series, OTOH.. SUPER.
@frank
unlike (seemingly) most U2 fans, i LOVE that record, and the movie, too.
my interval training music tends toward Electric Wizard, Windhand, Sleep, etc. the deeper and slower i can get my mind working, the deeper i can suffer. this is a great thread, and one i missed when it was new.
@frank
are you quite sure you have enough dirtboxes? where’s the Rat, Frank?
@Cary
Wow, I posted that picture ages ago. Super ages, like, when Frank still talked to us.
My only regret with the JVM is that I don’t use it enough. I had a few failed attempts to get a band together some years ago, and I put it all away when I found cycling. I really don’t have time for both. And trying to find like-minded musicians in my area was draining my will to live.
But when you get that amp cranked up and the tubes start glowing…the sound is incredible.
Funny enough, I was messing with my pedalboard this weekend. The Bontragor Slow-Motion (the green pedal on the top row) was causing loads of problems, causing the signal to drop out for the whole board. So I took it out and now have space on the pedalboard for an extra pedal. Any suggestions? I don’t really go in for modulating my sound much, like flange or chorus.
TBH I could probably do with the Big Muff and a Delay and nothing else.
@RobSandy
it’s not easy to maintain a balance between music and health. music is decidedly unhealthy, in 2017, too. as far as your board, i just got into using a sub-octave pedal, which i’ve never used. i have a good bit of experience with an Octavia, but as far as an octave down, none. either type of pedal is fun, and has loads of uses.
@Cary
It’s true, musicians rarely look well.
I’ve always reckoned that music is something I can get back into when I’m older, but the best time to be cycling is now.
And yeah, I spent a whole summer trying to get a band together and couldn’t manage it. That killed off a lot of my enthusiasm. Bear in mind I’m a songwriter/singer and guitarist and wanted to be in a 3-piece, so was only looking for a drummer and bassist.
I do miss performing, but there are always open mic nights.
@Cary @RobSandy
Try a looper pedal. BOSS makes a cool one and they’re a riot to mess around with. I run a stereo out signal from a slick guitar loaded w/both hum buckers and transducer. You can loop an acoustic rhythm and then switch over to the hum buckers and it’s nothing to also loop in a little percussive beat as well. Cheers
@Randy C
I’ve got one, the Hardwire delay has a loop facility.
Something else I haven’t really had the patience to learn to use properly…
@RobSandy
i made my living with my guitar for 15 years. it’s why i quit riding years ago. you really can’t take a Merckx Corsa on the bus with you.. lol it was a lot of fun, and i was very privileged to be able to put my daughter through school with music, but when it’s not fun anymore, it’s REALLY not fun. i would surmise the life of a pro cyclist is similar in that reality spares NO disillusion..
@Cary
I can imagine. Childhood dream was to be a pro musician but I’m not sad it didn’t happen – seems like a grind at best case. I have a friend who is a multi-million album selling rock musician (not going to name him) but he’s had what you’d class as an extremely successful music career but he still doesn’t have a lot of security – has trouble getting a mortgage because his income could dry up any day.
So you did the full gigging, living out of a bus, travelling a lot? Do much recording?
Like cycling, very happy to keep it as a hobby. I haven’t ridden hard for nearly 2 weeks now due to being as ill as I’ve been in many years. Some sort of flu bug knocked me off my feet last week and I’m slowly, slowly, recovering. I might become an indoor cyclist for the next few weeks to keep my lungs away from the cold air as I fully recover.
@Cary
Need to go back to WAR, BOY, Under a Blood Red Sky and the Unforgettable Fire….that’s where it was at.
@Deakus
Achtung Baby was a great album. U2’s new one is ok. Better than the one before though. I have a sweet spot for The Unforgettable Fire too – after War, they could have done quite nicely just recycling that sound, but they ditched Lillywhite and brought in Eno. That was kinda ballsy I thought.
What’s scary is that I first saw them 35 years ago. Yikes.
@wiscot
Achtung is my favorite. after i heard “The Fly” i used a gated delay on just about everything i played for about a year. lol what an outrageous album!
@wiscot
Here’s a scary ‘I’m an old fuck’ story.
We had a cycling club Christmas dinner, and I was sat with one of our junior racers – a super strong 16 year old road and ‘cross racer who got to Cat 2 easily in his first year of senior racing.
Anyway, he was wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt, except when I looked closely it was an Australian Pink Floyd t-shirt, a tribute band which I’d seen play. He’d seen them that autumn and I worked out that when I went to the Aussie Pink Floyd gig he hadn’t even been born.
@RobSandy
I remember the days when they were all original and tribute bands had not even been thought of……….
@RobSandy
i’ve toured nationally with the Metal Sludge tour, as well as with my own band, but most of my money i made playing live music on Bourbon St here in New Orleans. i’ve played electric blues (Freddie King, Howlin Wolf, Little Walter, etc), classic rock (Clapton, SRV, Santana, Bob Marley, Zeppelin, Hendrix, Stones, etc), funk (ohio players, james brown, sly stone, etc), classic r&b (irma thomas, etta james, rufus and chaka, etc) classic metal (sabbath, dio, rainbow, ozzy, priest, maiden, etc), punk, and maybe some other shit i’ve forgotten. these gigs run 4 and five nights a week, four to six hours a night, too. i quit all that in 2007, though. i manage nightclubs now. this year, i’m going to put out a doom metal album with some friends of mine from Austin TX. if that goes well, we may play some festivals, but i ain’t getting on a bus, city to city anymore. i’m too old for that shit.
@Cary
So the Spinal Tap bit about having the gig’s location written on the back of the guitar isn’t too far fetched? I’d imagine that after a few dozen gigs on a tour one must be quite disorientated.
unless you’re Iron Maiden or something, most road-trip style tours aren’t that long for working guys, you may go on 5-10 gig trips, with 10 being a rare maximum how grueling these are is mostly up to the performer and how they approach tgeir job.
sorry. i hate autocorrect and my eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be.