ROCKIN' nicely reviewed in ROD & CUSTOM Mag.

A very nice review of ROCKIN' appears in this month's ROD & CUSTOM magazine. And on the cover . . . "Exciting New Books You Need to Check Out!"

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This mag is one I grew up reading, beginning many decades ago. It's an honor to be in there for sure. My one regret is that Gray Baskerville, long associated with R&C and many companion hot rod mags, passed away before ROCKIN' was published.

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Special thanks to Brian Brennan, head of Primedia's rod & restoration group and R&C's editorial director, whom I first met at SEMA through Darrell Mayabb.

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a ROCKIN' tip o' the hat to GARAGE Magazine

Garage Magazine, issue #14. On the newsstands now. Publisher: Jesse James. Editor-in-Chief: Dan Stoner. Art Director: Brian Bounds.

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THE hippest review yet of ROCKIN'. (click photo to enlarge). Thanks, guys. I'm still wearing a smile, having read it.

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But as an aside, I have to tell ya that the Doobies around 1971 - 72 were THE rad and bad biker band in the San Jose, CA territory. They played many of their early gigs at the Chateau Liberte on the top of the Santa Cruz mountains, midway between San Jose and Santa Cruz. The Chateau originally was one of the key Wells Fargo stage stops in the Bay Area, dating back to the 1800's. Even if some of their (later) music today strikes you as M-O-R, I seriously don't think even Jesse would make that comment in front of the Chateau bar or out in the parking lot, and certainly not to Pat Simmons, guitarist, biker, and gearhead, who is a particular hero of mine and who definitely could (and did) rock on down the highway. Other than that small point . . . carry on, it's a great mag.

a ROCKIN' day (and a Cobra adventure) down at Autobooks-Aerobooks in Burbank, CA

(above) Doug Stokes, your host at Autobooks-Aerobooks,

with the day's 'pick to click"

(above) the legendary Ed Iskenderian ("Isky Cams")
(above) eye-in-the-sky traffic reporter Jeff Baugh KFWB 980

(mornings and evenings for 15 years = 26,000 hours)
(above) Steve Moriarty, certified race car driver and warbird pilot
with his '65 replica Cobra (with its 289 yielding 415 hp)

(above) Steve's Cobra's dash.
Click on the picture to enlarge, Look closely,
and you'll see (among others) autographs by Dan Gurney;
Indy racers Parnelli Jones and Jim Rathmann;
7-time SCCA champ Dick Smith
(who set the fastest time for a Cobra at 198.60 MPH);
and gearhead and TV personality Jay Leno
(above) rockin' down the highway . . . very fast
(above) the Cobra rocked me back in my seat . . . hard . . . as we hit 95
in three shifts on one of the on-ramps

(above) my host, upon exiting "Kermit"

(above) note the camera mounts. This is film studio territory.
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Doug Stokes, who's the resident guru at Autobooks-Aerobooks in Burbank, CA, invited me down for a booksigning. I'd not been there before, so it was like a pig-wallow for me. Felt like I just stepped into an acre-wide world of books and diecast models. And it was also where I saw the latest review of ROCKIN', in the current issue of Garage Magazine (see next blog).

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A-A is the place for erudite L.A. gearheads. I missed Jay Leno (a regular at the store) that morning by only a couple of minutes (I'd just flown down from Oakland, and rolled in at 11:00). Then, as I was busy signing, I was introduced to Ed Iskenderian, the man behind "Isky Cams." That was an honor.

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The highlight of the day was meeting Steve Moriarty, known to all as a certified race car driver, a warbird pilot with roots in 'Nam, and an engineer/multimedia specialist. Also, owner of "Kermit," the replica '65 Cobra pictured above. After a good hang at the store, I politely asked Steve for a ride. Kinda reminded me of the ride I took with Bigg Slice in Snoop Dogg's "Lakersmobile," only this time it was a rip-roarin' adventure out on the freeway so I could taste some Cobra wind-in-the face. For more than a long moment, when Steve floored it on an on-ramp and I was knocked back in my seat, I got the idea pretty good of what people have to say about Cobra's. It felt totally solid, unlike a few experiences I've had with classic Corvettes that were, uh, way too loose.

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The entire day was simply joyful. I got to open books, page thru magazines, eyeball diecast, and ultimately I took home Rin Tanaka's latest extraordinary artbook, "My Freedamn! #6," which has page after page of racing, bowling, and rock & roll fashion. And we sold many copies of ROCKIN' and as usual I made a bunch of new friends.

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I thoroughly commend to all of you Autobooks-Aerobooks, which is on Magnolia Blvd. in Burbank, barely ten minutes from the Burbank airport. It's been a destination point since 1958, but changes to the store may be in the wind, so don't delay your visit. I might even go down again on August 11, for "Be-Boppin' in the Park," just so I can do it all over again.

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Thanks again, Doug! The pleasure, as we say, was all mine.

a candidate for the most ROCKIN' automotive-concept album cover of all time

While on the subject of truck-related album covers, I couldn't resist pulling this one out.
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Head East was a hard rock quintet originally from south central Illinois. They played their first gig on August 6, 1969 at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. The lineup that would take them through their first six albums began to take shape in Champaign/Urbana, the home of the University of Illinois.
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Get Yourself Up, the band's second album, was released by A&M Records in 1976. It topped out at #161 on the Billboard album charts.
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The cover photo is credited to Rudi Herzog. No more information exists, other than the cover concept is by Jeff Ayeroff (was he a friend of the band?). The art director was A & M's esteemed Roland Young.
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To say the very least . . . inspired choice of a photo.

a ROCKIN' look at the classic (and the cheesiest) truck drivin' albums

I belong to the American Truck Historical Society--in fact, I consider myself one of the founding members (there are about 25,000 members today). You haven't lived till you've been at an annual ATHS convention, where 400 - 500 restored big rigs from the '20s to the '60s gather.

For a guy like me who's into trucks, it's pure heaven.

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I'm pulling together material on truck driving albums for the ATHS bi-monthly magazine "Wheels of Time," and I thought I'd share with you some of what's turned up, visually speaking.

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The '60s-'70s trucker LP is a genre unto itself. Cheesy, of course. Heartfelt, yes that too. Yet a fantasy to some degree, especially the hitchhiker and truck stop waitress motif. Note that a number of the LPs actually share the same photo session. And it's curious to me that the trucks themselves are not very flashy, and even the choice of the trucks is open to question, visually speaking. I mean, there were better trucks (and better painted trucks) to choose from. I do like the GMC "howler" on the Willis Bros. LPs very much, as well as the B-model Macks ("That's Truckdrivin'"). Cabovers--at least those which ended up on the LPs--meh. But that's one sturdy lass on "Road Music."

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The Starday and King labels are the classics. And the trucker-hero-musicians are Red Simpson, the Willis Brothers, Red Sovine, Dave Dudley, and Jimmy Martin, although very few (if any) actually sat in a cab, much less drove a truck. Note that I've left out "Convoy" and latter-day crappy compilations.

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My all-time favorite is "Widowmaker" because of that bumper. Any of you blog-readers remember others I should include?

ROCKIN' in the back seat (yeah baby!)

(above) poster by Alan Hynes and Christian Hall
(above) "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car" reached #1
on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard R&B charts in the U.S. in 1988

(above) poster by Daniel Danger

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I just saw Daniel Danger's new concert poster (above) and I'd earlier clipped Alan Hynes and Christian Hall's piece done for a Dwarves event. It got me thinking about action in the back seat. What musicians and lyricists have been singing and writing about doing in the backseats of cars, or alluding to doing in cars likely in the backseat, has been the source of great controversy--and great interest--while earning expressions of ire from morality groups since the 1930s.

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Robert Johnson TERRAPLANE BLUES (1936):

"When I feel so lonesome, you hear me when I moan

Who been drivin' my Terraplane for you, since I been gone"

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Sonny Boy Williamson PONTIAC BLUES

"I'm going out with my baby tonight

Whole lotta loving, in that straight-8 Pontiac

We're gonna get on the highway

Cut the bright lights on

Turn the radio on"

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But the number one backseat love song has to be Billy Ocean's Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car, simply because it rose to #1 on two of Billboard's singles charts in 1988, but also because it was the basic recipe with all the ingredients:

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"Get outta my dreams

Get into my car

Get outta my dreams

Get in the back seat baby

Get into my car

Beep beep, yeah

Get outta my mind

Get into my life

Oooooooooooooh

Oh, I said hey (hey) you (You)

Get into my car"

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Here are some others I looked up, while thinking about all the ways the back seat figures largely in car songs.

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Eric Carmen DRIVIN' AROUND

"With my girl by my side

We can go for a ride

To find a place we can dance

And when it gets real dark

We can stop in the park

And have a backseat romance."

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Roxette SLEEPING IN MY CAR

"So come out tonight

I'll take you for a ride

This steamy ol' wagon

The radio is getting wild

Sleeping in my car, I will undress you

Sleeping in my car, I will caress you

Staying in the backseat of my car

Making love, oh yeah"

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Akcent KYLIE

"Kylie, give me just a chance

Let's go out and dance

We can get into the groove

I can watch you move

Later you can sing to me

Like a shining star

But I'd rather do you on the

Backseat of my car."

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Now, to be sure, rappers have been covering this subject in their own inimitable style, sometimes referencing the backseat directly, others implying where the deed was done. FYI, for those who care, each of these songs is a gem, lyrically, although some may be offended by the overall content. Nevertheless, you can Google 'em up and take yer chances.

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2Pac WHAT'Z YA PHONE #

"Never had sex with a rich rap star

Till I got her in the backseat of my homeboy's car."

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Snoop Dogg BEAUTIFUL

"In a '64, me and baby boo cruisin' (oh-hoooo!)

Body rag interior blue and

Have them hydraulics squeakin'

When we screwin'"

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Mc Nas-D and DJ Freaky Fred IT'S MY CADILLAC

"My Caddy is so loud

Some neighborhoods ban me

But it just makes it easier

For me to get in panties."

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LL Cool J BACK SEAT

"You're the type of girl that got class and style

Still all you need

Is the backseat of my Jeep once in awhile."

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Fabolous CALL ME

"I remember every gesture made (ooh)

During the escapade (ooh)

In the back of the Escalade (whoa)"

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Still, the all-time leader in explicit allusion (if that's the right term) is:

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Clarence Carter STROKIN'

"Well, let me ask you this

Have you ever made love

On the back seat of a car?

I remember one time making love

On the back seat of a car

And the Police came and shined his light on me

And I said

I'm strokin' . . . That's what I'm doing,

I be strokin'

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Was that what Kid Rock was thinking (?) when he penned:

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Kid Rock CADILLAC PUSSY

"She had some Cadillac pussy

Some Cadillac pussy

Man, it would drive you wild."

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Or, Eddie Money?

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Eddie Money SHAKIN'

"Rosanna's Daddy had a car she loved to drive

Stole the keys one night and took me for a ride

Turned up the music just as loud as it could go

Blew out the speakers in her daddy's radio.

Got so high we had to pull over to the side

We did some shakin' till the middle of the night."

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And who doesn't remember the line "being seventeen and being barely dressed," although in fairness the front seat might have been the operating theater in this song:

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Meatloaf PARADISE BY THE DASHBOARD LIGHT

"I remember every little thing

As if it happened only yesterday

Parking by the lake

And there was not another car in sight

And I never had a girl

Looking any better than you did

And all the kids at school

They were wishing they were me that night."

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The Barenaked Ladies also expressed concern that sometimes lust got crossed up in the heat of the moment:

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Barenaked Ladies IN THE CAR

"We were looking for ourselves

And found each other

In the car

It was rare to do much more

Than simply mess around

In the car

It was mostly mutual masturbation

And though we spoke of penetration

We'd have to wait for someone else

To try it out."

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Billy F. Gibbons and company were just a little more confident:

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ZZ Top SHE LOVES MY AUTOMOBILE

"She don't love me,

She love my automobile

Well she would do anything

Just to slide behind the wheel

She said, "What's it gonna take for you

To lay your top on down?"

I said, "Honey, why don't you ask me

When we get to the outskirts of town"

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And the Boss most certainly had it down:

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Bruce Springsteen FIRE

"Im driving in my car

Turn on the radio

I'm pulling you close

You just say no

You say you don't like it

But girl I know you're a liar

'Cause when we kiss

Fire."

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Now, they're other songs of perhaps lesser stature that also cover the subject well, including the Violent Femmes' Gimme The Car, the Rolling Stones' Brand New Car, the Scorpions' Lovedrive, Paul McCartney and Wings' Back Seat of My Car, Die Vision's separately written Back Seat of My Car, the Ass Ponys' Dirty Backseat Car Thing, I Monster's The Backseat of My Car and Big Star's Back of a Car.

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Nevertheless, the great ones really do get it:

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Alice Cooper SLICK BLACK LIMOUSINE

"Hundred miles an hour

My hand's on the radio

Baby's in the back seat

Bompin' all over the road."

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Unfortunately, bad--very bad--things can happen in the backseat too, through force and violence:

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Tori Amos ME AND A GUN

"It was me and a gun

And a man on my back

But I haven't seen Barbados

So I must get out of this

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Yes, I wore a slinky red thing

Does that mean I should spread

For you, your friends, your father, Mr. Ed

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"Tell me what's right

Is it my right to be on my stomach

In Fred's Seville?"

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So I close this meditation on back seats with two more memorable references:

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Bruce Springsteen SHERRY DARLING

"Your mama's yapping in the backseat

Tell her to push over and move them big feet

Every Monday morning I gotta drive her

Down to the unemployment agency

Well this morning I ain't fighting, tell her I give up

Tell her she wins if she'll just shut up

But it's the last time that she's gonna be ridin' with me."

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Arcade Fire IN THE BACKSEAT

"I like the peace

In the backseat

I don't have to drive

I don't have to speak

I can watch the countryside

And I can fall asleep

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Thanks everyone who contributed to my thinking. If anyone knows of other backseat songs, please contribute to this blog by responding. Thanks to to all the lyricists, songwriters, and musicians whose songs these are, and from which which I borrowed portions for the sake of this blog only. There is no permission granted or implied to otherwise reference or reproduce these lyrics. This is a documentary exercise. Peace out.

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