RIDES Mag says . . . ROCKIN' "a brilliant book worth reading and looking at"

RIDES Magazine caught my eye several years ago. It is, as it says on the cover, "the illest car magazine ever." And, in my humble opinion, a more upfront publication than DUB (the two cover much of the same territory--urban whips, rappers, hip-hop, and the shops and streets where this kulture comes alive). It's just that the people at RIDES were, up front, really friendly, really helpful when I got in touch with them quite out of the blue. And I won't forget that, ever.

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Ben Harris, associate publisher, returned all my calls right from the beginning. Editor-in-chief Datwon Thomas immediately gave his blessing for Brian Scotto, executive editor, to do an interview with me. And Lauren Crew, photography director, put me in touch with photogs like Rayon Richards. Their consideration, their encouragement, their understanding of what I was hell-bent on accomplishing--honoring both black and white peoples' shared love for music and cars--felt like family to me, and so I reciprocated in ROCKIN' (see page 215).

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Now RIDES did me a solid, reviewing ROCKIN' in their current issue, "From The Streets," which annually honors the people's side of the equation--but always characteristically, through crews, shops, and whips. I have a nice feeling that many folks who maybe wouldn't have noticed ROCKIN' will now track it down, check it out.

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Snoop Dogg and Bigg Slice love their cars as much as Brian Setzer and Mike Ness love theirs. That's one of the points I was making. And, also, that the history of cars and rock & roll goes square back to the early '50s with Ike Turner and his cousin Jackie Brenston combining to produce "Rocket 88." I myself grew up across the Hudson River from Manhattan, in Englewood, NJ, where my high school--since the late 1800's--has been half black, half white. The first music I turned on to was Motown, riding in the back of the track team bus. The first concerts I went to were indoor track meets in places like the Jersey City Armory, where the schools rooted on their relay teams by singing out like they were in church. It moved me then, it moves me now. It's how I got into Bob Marley, how I got into the Neville Bros.

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Those of us who love music and cars, let me put it this way: we're all in it together. And that's just a natural fact. Or, as Brian Scotto put it, "(it's) what happens when you mix two things that for years have been the voice of the youth. Cars and music share one key thing in common: they allow you to express yourself (word to N.W.A.!) and Grushkin captures that."

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Thanks, RIDES. For real. And especially from the get-go.