You might have read recently about Valentino Rossi winning his 7th world grand prix but did you see his helmet?

The helmet was designed by  Aldo Drudi and has the shocked face of  Valentino Rossi looking out the top. I will keep you updated if any helmet manufacturer starts to offer this as an option.

If you are looking for more cool helmets then Oddee has 15 Creative Motorcycle Helmets for you to check out.

This “Super bowl of Rodeo” was first held in Las Vegas in 1985, and has now become an annual tradition. For ten days Las Vegas becomes the Rodeo capital of the world with the top 15 qualifiers in different categories competing for a trophy and money. This is the ultimate vacation for the rodeo fan, the best riders, ropers and steer wrestlers in the vacation capital of Las Vegas.

We started going as a family around 5 years ago, after my wife got free tickets to the rodeo. My initial feeling was that it was going to be a little boring, but gee was I impressed. When you get there the main thing that hits you is the amazing atmosphere. It beats even the atmosphere you get at the superbowl!

We decided to ride our scooters down there, and at the time I had a vespa lx50 which was well worn but well up to the job. I am planning to go the National Finals Rodeo again this year and will probaly buy some NFR Tickets as soon as they go onsale.

If you are thinking about going to the national finals rodeo then you need to ask yourself a couple of questions:

1. Do you like horses?
2. Are you ready for some fun?

If you answer yes to any of these, then you are ready to hit the NF rodeo. The great thing about the NFR being in Las Vegas is the cheap hotels… try booking before you go to save cash.

The Vespa S is the brand new Piaggio Vespa to hit the market. My first emotion is Wow – and the next feelings I feel border on the erotic. The one thing that is noticeable to even the lay man is how small this scooter is. Compared to previous Scooters – the Vespa S is styled to look like the 50 special – which is a very good thing. In comparison with a lot of the latest Vespa incarnations the most obvious difference is the shape of the Headlight. I really like the headlight – it seems more masculine?

The Speedo this machine is very chromey – again a great thing (you can never have to much chrome!)

Ok so we know its sexy! but what about the boring stuff like price?

How about £2,650! That ain’t half bad, for such a pretty machine – I think this baby is going to be on my Christmas list.

What do you guys think? Are you going to be selling your current Vespa to get one of these?

This may not be strictly MOD music but The Sex Pistols have been a favourite band of mine throughout my early teens.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the famous “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols” album, they are doing one exlusive gig at the Brixton Academy in London, UK. If you want tickets you will need to keep November the 8th free.

This will be the first appearance live since 2002 when they reunited for their “Filthy Lucre” tour which I was lucky enough to go to. London seems to have been the only option for the band which was backed up byJohn Lydon (Johnny Rotten) saying:

“Maybe it’s because we’re all Londoners, but there would be no Sex Pistols without dear old London town. See you all at Brixton with proper feelings and proper people all around. From London Bridge to The Rose And Crown, all of Britain is welcome so come on down.”

See you all at Brixton!

After digging through my attic I found Mods! It’s an old book that I loved in the late 1980′s. I have also found a great little review that adequately describes how influential I found this book.

Mods! by Richard Barnes (1979) was another Townshend-sponsored project. It remains a great first-hand observer’s account of the rise and demise of 60s modernism – including plenty of modlike attention to detail and personal stories. The bulk of the book consists of a large number of period photographs, not just nameless faces but also pictures of several then-scenesters who went on to achieve worldwide fame. Pictures and text from Barnes’ book are responsible for much of the information presented at this site. In the same manner, Dick Hebdige and George Marshall have several tomes to their credit dealing with subcultures, with an emphasis on all things Jamaican-influenced. And no collection is complete without Kevin Pearce’s Something Beginning With O, a brilliant, concise, and sharp exploration of the world of pop music and its most relevant characters.

If you fancy buying the book you can pick it up from Amazon here: Mods!

What is your favourite book relating to the mod era?

After visiting the Lambretta clothing website I noticed that the company is planning to release a clothing range with help from the band The Who. This could be very interesting and maybe this could be a trigger for another mod clothing revival?

Here is an excerpt from the Lambretta site: “Lambretta has partnered with legendary band The Who to launch a 60’s inspired clothing range that will also feature lovingly recreated items actually worn by the band at the time of the highly influential and highly stylish mod era – including the original US army fishtail parka, exactly as it appears on the Quadrophenia album cover.”

I think the success of this clothing range will be based on the quality of the product. The clothing range is released in Autumn so I will try and purchase of few items and review them when the time comes.

What do you think? Will all the kids swap their hoddies for parkas?

I greatily appreciate any comments.

At the very least, subsequent use of the Union Jack in the Gear boutique sunglasses of 1965 and John Entwistle’s jacket on the cover of The Who’s My Generation in 1966 can be directly traced to Geoff Reeve’s similar experiments with sunglasses and silk screened fabrics in the early 60s. The art-clothing connection of the early sixties can also be similarly seen in someone like Michael Davies, who graduated in graphic design from in 1958 and was the decorator for one of the first Carnaby Street mod boutiques, Domino Male.

Turning commodities into art is but one of the linking concepts between the pop-art movement of the early 60s and modernism. On the U.S. side of the Atlantic, Roy Lichtenstein’s Ben-Day paintings, largely based on pop-culture and comic book themes (and thus frequently also following an action-based paradigm), have arguably become the most famous remnants of the pop-art. His work (and/or derivatives based on his style and themes) have been used quite frequently in the context of mod projects. The explosive rise of comic book output during the so-called Silver Age of the early 60s further accentuates the time-branding effect of his material.

Indeed the concepts of motion, action, and speed that were inherent in the paintings and designs of the early decade were quite closely mirrored by the modernist culture. London’s Situationists particularly attempted to redefine the contents of the canvas not as pictures but as events and the recording of a sequence of actions. Names such as The Action, or terms such as Swinging London, or the countless arrow motifs spanning The Who’s early posters to Weller’s This Is The Modern World sweater, are alternative interpretations of this early 60s emphasis on mobility and dynamism.

Perhaps there does not exist a direct relationship between Jasper Johns’ target and flag paintings in the 1950s and 60s USA and the mod fixation on these same items (after translation through a UK filter via the RAF and the Union Jack motifs). However, it is difficult to believe that the subversive nature of using national symbols in these new contexts was not a driving force behind both of these tendencies.

Does it make any sense to associate mod culture–ostensibly known as a working-class ethic with strong emphasis on the materialistic- with the elitist and cultured atmosphere that the word “art” usually brings to mind? Direct connections might exist or have existed: ex-art school types who are/were mods, bands like The Creation who fused art school elements into their stage act, or art school types who later became musicians. Realistically, though, it would be excessively flattering to modernism to say that it has had any significant impact on the traditional art world as understood by the average person. However, the reverse certainly isn’t true: anybody who doesn’t understand how tendencies in the world of art have had a significant and catalyzing influence on modernism is certainly missing a good part of the story.

In particular, there are a number of stylistic elements associated with the art (and, by double association, manufactured items and pop-art) of the early 60s that are as important to establishing a “visual modernist look” as any piece of clothing or song you care to choose. Specifically there were during this time very specific recurring themes in several visually-related fields, such as typography, composition, and painting.

The same forces that made artistic output largely focus on simple abstract, geometric and figurative directions was a reflection of societal tendencies that generated and affected modernism in many ways. With an enhanced mobility in the population, afforded by public transportation or alternative methods (e.g. scooters), cities such as London in the early 60s were undergoing a change from the static into the kinetic. Road systems on the West End were being remade into fast-moving routes-these were captured on photographic film by the typographer/graphic designer Herbert Spencer in his Mile A Minute Typography.

Robyn Denny’s Austin Reed Mural of 1959, with its polychrome lettering and permutational style foreshadowed the Ready Steady Go! set decorations of two years later. Optical, aggressive art such as Bridget Riley’s interference patterns caused visual stimulation and the impression of motion by means of abstract colour and form.

Although the history of musical trends in mod culture is easily chronicled, any attempt to strongly classify bands or music as mod is flawed in its premise; there is no mod music per se, just music that mods have traditionally liked and listened to. To view music as a more fundamental or necessary component of the subculture is a common outsider misconception, motivated by analogy to other more recent movements which were formed or led by bands and were thus spurious by nature. As has been the case with other teen phenomena, a mod “stance” has, in the 60s, 70s, and 90s been adopted by bands looking for ways to quickly increase their popularity, but most of these bands have also quickly been forgotten.

It has historically been a bad decision to look to or rely on bands for mod inspiration; in the history of music there have only literally been a handful of people who were both true modernists as well as successful musicians (e.g. Weller up until the solo period). Most have fallen into categories such as “I hated it but I wanted to be popular” (e.g. Daltrey, Entwistle), “I went along with it ’cause my mate was into it” (e.g. Foxton), “I was a mod at one point but gave it up after I became successful” (e.g. Marriott, Townshend), “I’ll be moddish for a while but not too seriously” (e.g. Blur), “I have no sense of style but let me try to fake some by posing with a scooter and hanging out with Weller” (e.g. Oasis). Overall it could conceivably be argued that music has, when linked to modernism, done more harm than good due to its mass appeal and commercial underpinnings; however it is also true that, usually before commercial success or popularity sets in, some truly timeless, honest, and high-quality work does get produced. Like all memorable relationships, mod and music quite often don’t get along and let each other down massively, but when they work together the whole thing really does click like nothing else.