I decided to start a website dedicated to fifties and sixties style choppers and hot rods. I called it Greasy Kulture, which is cringeworthy now but then seemed like a fair summation of the fifties aesthetic and burgeoning nouveau kustom scene (which saw everyone growing goatees and painting their hot rods flat black).
Chopper Dave helped me get the site going (emailing me on how to construct the site and which of these amazing new 'digital' cameras to buy), and used to send me mags from California; I remember sending him a copy of Custom Car magazine that featured a tiny photo of his bike at one of the first Blessing of the Cars. Those were the days... when you had to search out the choppers hidden behind cars in magazine photos! I remember the Hater sending me a few copies of a cool magazine – or more like a fanzine – called Greaser, featuring the SoCal scene's hot rodders and chopper riders at the end of the nineties. Black and white, hand stapled... that must have been one of the first independent mags covering the new 'old school' thing.
I used to ride around on my shovel, wearing my Coop t-shirt and German helmet, thinking I was the hippest cat in north London. I dread to think what anyone from SoCal would have thought of my wannabe-ness.
Funny how one photo can bring on the sentimentality. I think there's a book to be written about those early days of the traditional hot rod and chopper revival in California. But perhaps we need to wait a few more years before it becomes proper 'history'...
7 comments:
nicely said guy.
CD's (he never updated his site...), yours, Biking Dutchman's, and DBBP were the ones I looked at most in those days. They took a while to load with my 28k8 modem, but definitely inspired me to turn my bike into the b word. And there was this guy called Loon, I forgot the name of his site though.
Yes mate, they were interesting days. It felt actually quite exciting, like there was something in the air that not many people knew aboubt. In a pretty ironic way I'm sure it was the UK's own Low Flyers who influenced those few early So Cal hot rod clubs. This would be the early 90's I reckon.
In fact if we are talking about early influences then for me indeed it would have to be GK, Chopper Dave and Tilly's Flyin' Dutchman websites. The Zero Engineering Chopper Spirit book. Hot Bike Japan's Cool Breakers show photos and the UK's Continental Restyling for the hot rods. Not sure where we got the idea for the Dick Emery size turn ups though.
I used to link too your site off of the Chopper Dave's site. I would check them often to see new posts. Yours was always good with new pics somewhat regularly, Dave's didn't change all that much (I think it still comes up on a Google search, and it still shows the Indian run and a few old chopper pics).As for the 90's, we all looked like idiots, if you look back today, but it was fun as hell! Single, lots of shows, lots of girls, great times (for me) ripping around San Francisco on my vintage bike. Oh and by the way, nobody in Southern California had anything on you, they all looked the same... We can't go back, but at least we lived it.
Was serving in Bougainville as part of the Peace Monitoring Group in 99 when I found Chopper Daves, which lead to GK. Would visit at least once a week for updates. Remember the Indon Shovel with the 250 rear? How rad was that?
Hey Guy , don't forget about my site back then . . . seems like it was so long ago already !
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