"I'd like a time trial helmet, made out of hair, please"
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.
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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.