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Verona Moto Expo 2012
Persona Di Verona 2012 by Jules Watts
This year’s Verona Moto Expo was my second time attending and boarding the flight from “London” (Stanstead) had a distinct feeling of déjà vu, all the familiar faces were there in the queue, Blue from Back Street Heroes; Dave, Ben, and Gary from Sideburn, artist Conrad Leach and Mark from Ace Cafe amongst others. A re-run? Well kinda. A welcome change this year was being joined in Verona by Madrid artist and Davida collaborator Antonio Merinero who you can read about in my Davida Movida piece, we’ve had some adventures together and more are afoot, so things bode well, also his Spanish/Italian language abilities stood us in good stead.
Almost as soon as we arrived we went out for a meal with the Finnish Kopteri magazine crowd, just like last year, headed as ever by their benevolent patriarch Mala. This year however their ranks had swelled as they were celebrating 20 years of their magazine, congratulations guys and girls. Sitting next to pin-stripers Blaster and Pekka Mannermaa, we discussed the learning of our various artistries, we were all pretty much self-taught though Blaster went on an early pilgrimage to the U.S west coast where the legendary Big Daddy Roth took him under his wing. However, he learnt by watching him, the only direct instruction he received was in keeping his brushes limber with oil. This was towards the end of Big Daddy Roth’s life, when he was touring the circuit signing things to make a few bucks but still passionate about his art. Many pin-stripers of his generation it seems died suddenly before their time. I talked about how I used to work on guitars with scant regard for ventilation or masks yet now when I’m passing the skills on, I emphasise the importance of such things.
Blaster and Pekka both agreed that their art must come from the heart and not the head, Blaster says he does everything he can to help out young pin-stripers so long as they’re not in it to make a fast buck, it’s a calling and I appreciate that. We learnt from Pekka what hairs work for pin-striping brushes and which don’t, the brushes are long so as to hold enough paint, and tapered; they must curve and cling to a point, this is achieved in part through a capillary action, adult human hair is no good, babies’ hair works and is popular in Japan of course, squirrels are the main donors though, cool.
The show was a lot like last year’s, vast, with the custom bikes being predominantly Harleys. Black Douglas Motorcycles brought some pleasing builds using various lumps from Triumphs to Enfields and of course, Harleys, that I really liked, they have an inoffensive verisimilitude, the aesthetic of a restoration rather than a re-interpretation. Idiosyncratic creations could be found if you looked around, Mr Martini certainly has his own aesthetic, transforming Triumphs and Ducatis into unique streetbikes, We gave him some Wallace and Grommet cuff links and some fake 20 pound notes as he’s quite the Anglophile. Two French guys had brought some Harley-engined bikes they’d raced at Bonneville, the form and function were beautifully harmonised and somehow typically French, Fiddy guessed their origin from a glance. As for new bikes, the Bimota Tesi 3D looked fantastic and radical next to everything else, their center hub-steered front ends are as eye turning as you might imagine. Given the price, I don’t expect to see any round my neck of the woods anytime soon, I’ve heard people buy them as an investment and don’t really do any miles on them anyway, shame. Thomas from RCK carried some Davida stock on their stand for the weekend and it turned out to be an ideal collaboration, and a pleasure to work with his team, thanks Thomas.
Friday evening brought us to Mr Martini’s birthday party, spread out between his boutique shop, his Triumph dealership and his workshop. As two of the Fins arrived at the boutique and were offered only spritzer cocktails I thought their heads were going to spin round a la The Exorcist in disgust. Thankfully plenty of beer was found in the workshop and an insurrection averted. Sideburn spun their irresistible vinyl 45’s in the workshop eliciting plenty of retro dancing that culminated in an auction for a children’s cancer charity, a Davida cherry-flake helmet was auctioned for 200 Euros alongside such oddities as a box of Thornton’s chocolates in an Ace Cafe Bag which went for a hundred odd Euros either due to their perceived exoticism or more likely, pure generosity.
Back at the hotel we hung out with the Fins for a while, Fiddy recalling his first bike trip to Europe in the late 70’s on his Honda 500. Some older friends on big BMW’s and the like invited him at the last minute on a trip to the Le Mans 24 hour, he jumped on his bike and rode down with them, forever instilling in him the willingness to be spontaneous and jump at any opportunity to go somewhere different regardless of the distance, so now you know where it started.
After last year’s diverting boiler suit and balaclava combo, Sideburn this year went for quintessentially British ‘plus fours’ tweed attire, including deerstalker hats, that ‘brown acid’ disorientation the event so badly needs. To complete the look they’d had some embroidered patches made up with a Sideburn heraldic coat of arms, the motto: sinistro velox i.e. ‘left quickly’, as in, go left quickly, not ‘they left quickly’, although I’m fond of both interpretations. By lunchtime Saturday, Mick, the fourth Sideburn compadre had flown in from his hometown of Rome. He'd managed to equip himself with the requisite tweed attire at his local flea market. Because of the tweeds, some people thought they weren’t ‘real’ bikers, which couldn’t be further from the truth with that bunch of flat-track fiends. Conrad Leach suggested a side-project for Dave’s band The Stags: ‘Radiating Tweed’. Alongside Sideburn Mag, Guy Bolton from Greasy Kulture Magazine and Matt from Dice Magazine completed the British independant magazine scene exhibiting at Verona.
It was good to Sideburn messing with people’s conventions in a place where, though it should all be about the unconventional, you look around and see one stereotype after another saunter by, you couldn’t parody much of the scene as it’s done it itself. One of the cooler guys I saw though would have to be ‘fat Elvis’, pictured here on Mr Martini's stand who again provided the best indoor smoking room - inside his matt black and psychedilic Rolls Royce. We had a good laugh at some of the patches on display, ‘Life Member’ etc, our favourite however had to be ‘Safety Officer’, that’s some badass club that needs one of those.
Dave from Sideburn was enduring a painful in-growing toenail all weekend for which Sharon gave him some painkillers, he knocked them back with the nearest water bottle which contained straight vodka, I don’t think he’s drank in years so it must’ve taken his mind off the pain quick enough. The Expo food last year seemed to consist of a choice between ham and cheese or cheese and ham, thankfully this year we discovered the outdoor food stalls, cheap and delicious wraps were regularly devoured and washed down with beer or €1 espressos.
Saturday evening we ate with Sideburn and the Spanish ‘contingent’, as I shall continue to refer to them, apparently ‘contingent’ in Spain means a fighting force, if they fight as voraciously as they party, God help their enemies. I braved a local delicacy, ‘Lardo’ pizza, it’s like it sounds, thin slices of fat for the topping, first taste was apprehensive but it’s a lot nicer than you might think.
There were tales of getting away with various motorbike infractions over the years, we all have them. Ben recounted being pulled over on a chopper with the wrong plates by an old-school British police biker, 70’s moustache and all, he decided on the hoof to pretend to be Swedish and let the copper come up with the explanations for all the disparities, just agreeing and nodding along; “It’s not a requirement in Sweden is it?” “No” etc. The copper took his time testing everything on the bike whilst Ben had to resist the temptation to take a photo of the copper on the chopper.
We walked through some desolate parts of town on our way to the Dice party (boisterous) and saw lone prostitutes on dark street corners, dangerous work that. We hooked up again with David Boras from El Solitario M.C. and the ‘contingent’ at the tale end of the Dice do. I’m happy to report that they’re still giving their rental cars hell. I was particularly taken with David’s father in law, a scuba diver, biker and general adventurer, his lust for life remains undiminished and his daughters are without exception enchanting. He bemoaned the lack of vintage bikes at the show, why wasn’t there space for a history of bikes with all those halls? True true. Throughout this eclectic night Sharon had to carry round a pair of freshly pinstriped shoes, care of Blaster, paint still wet, no easy feat.
So that just about wraps up this years Verona epistle, as a post-script to last year’s, you may recall my scepticism about the veracity of ‘Juliet’s’ balcony, well that still stands but it turns out there’s a town nearby where the castles of the original Capulet and Montague families still stand so there might be some truth in the tale. One word of advice: always keep your passport handy, one of our party sent theirs off on the conveyor belt in the hold luggage, luckily it was a small airport, you can imagine the palaver in a larger one.
Ciao, Jules.
30 January 2012