"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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@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.