Duelling ROCKIN' covers with drummer and Cadillac guy Travis Barker at RIDES and DUB this month

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Truth be told, Travis Barker ain't no Bruce Springsteen. But, the former drummer for Blink 182, Box Car Racer, the Aquabats, the Suicide Machines, Snot, and others (pictured in ROCKIN' on pages169 and 226) managed to get himself on the covers of both the May, 2007 RIDES and DUB magazines, which are fierce urban-automotive mag competitors.

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Back on October 29, 1975, when Bruce made it simultaneously to the covers of both TIME and NEWSWEEK, that was considered momentous news--the future of rock & roll, as it was heralded.

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Nevertheless, a fine achievement for Travis, who is known far and wide as a Cadillac man. Now, the critic in me much prefers the RIDES piece, in large part because I admire cover photographer Zach Cordner's work (he also took the two photos shown in ROCKIN'). But I also like the full portrayal of Barker's (current, but for how long?) Cadillac collection with ID's (page 110), which includes his '67 Eldorado ("El Questador"); a '75 Coupe DeVille ("Sherbert"); a '54 two-door coupe ("Blondie"); a '66 DeVille ("Famous Stars and Straps"); a '53 two-door coupe ("Gloria"); and a '76 Eldorado ("Marshmallow").

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The DUB spread and cover features photos by Marco Patino (altho, it doesn't seem like Barker was quite as happy, but you never know).

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Here's a few snippets from what Barker had to say in RIDES:

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Interviewer: "Are there any favorite automobiles you haven't gotten a chance to rock with yet?"

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Barker: "I wanna build a '52 Chevy pickup truck. I wanna candy stripe it, blow it up, and put it on bags, so I can build the Chevy truck I've always wanted. I also want a '64 Buick Riviera. I'm looking at a '79 Impala police car and I've always been on the hunt for a '61 Eldorado convertible, but I can't find one that I'm willing to attach myself to."

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Interviewer: "The cool thing about being a throwback-car connoisseur is that most cars depreciate in value so fast."

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Barker: "Back in the day, that's what made the old cars so appealing to me. With old cars you had the ability to buy something hella cheap. You could get something for $2,000 to $3,000 and you could freak it, put some rims on it and paint it. It's real cool 'cause you can personalize them more so than the new cars."

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Interviewer: "Just by the way you talk it ain't hard to tell how serious your car game is. Your dad is just as bad, if not worse, right?"

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Barker: "With my pops, I grew up on General Motors and Chevys. There was this time when my friend Skinhead Rob from the Transplants came over and my pops asked him to move his car down the street just because pops was clowning his Ford (laughs). He still has it in him, but I think we're all suckers for certain Fords. Even my pops as he gets older. When we see '65 or '67 Lincolns, we're like, "Man, that's a sick car.""

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RIDES editor Datwon Thomas, in his "Backfire" contents opener, writes, "Our cover guys, Young Jeezy and Travis Barker [blogger's note: there are actually two RIDES covers for May, as is the case with so many magazines these days], are macks hard at work in the music industry. Both successful in games outside their day jobs (Jeezy as a corporate thug, Trav as a fashion gangster) they rely on looking to the future but honoring the flavor of the past in whips that define an era when big, bad, and bold American cars were all you needed to make the statement, 'I've arrived.'"

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Now, when you pick up your copy of RIDES, be sure to admire their comprehensive coverage of the automotive scene. There's Japan's "dekotora" truck scene with major bling (pages 37-38); George Barris (page 44); the Tokyo Auto Salon (pages 54 - 56); Mazda's design concept car, the Nagare (pages 64 - 65); another spectacular Zach Cordner photoshoot, this with the Knick's Jamal Crawford with his '67 Olds 442 (pages 68 - 72); Michael Blackwell's photos of rapper Rich Boy in the garage (pages 84 - 88); the UGK rappers in their garage (pages 94 - 98); Young Jeezy as photographed by Zach Wolfe (pages 102 - 106); and finally (whew), Mr. Barker in all his glory (pages 108 - 114).

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Now that's a thinkin' man's urban, street-wise car mag for ya!

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