Month: March 2006

What Rocks Us: Edith Frost

wru_frost.jpgEdith Frost:
“If it Weren’t for the Words”
from It’s a Game
Drag City DC301

We start out with Chicago-by-way-of-Austin-and-NYC singer/songwriter Edith Frost. This song has been a WLUW staple for the last couple months, and the whole album is a mellow Sunday-morning classic must-have. I could name drop all the albums she’s appeared on, but I’ll let the song speak for itself. If you ever get a chance to watch Thrill Jockey’s Looking for a Thrill video, be sure to check out her story, it’s the best on the DVD.

This post is hidden from unregistered members and not available to the internet at large. It will only be available for one week (Friday to Thursday). Right-click to download, don’t overload our bandwidth by playing it online. If this is your song and you’re angry we’re posting it, please let us know and we’ll gladly remove it, but first consider that this is free exposure to a very small group of real music fans who frequently buy records.

Kinetic makes (a little) progress (finally)

Indian business website Sify reports Kinetic Motors is seeking $15 million from investors to fund its production and development of Italjet scooters. It’s about time, the deal was announced two years ago. The first Kinetic Italjet, the 170cc Millenium (the name was already dated when Italjet introduced it in 2000), is due later this month, with the Jet Set (c. 2001) to follow in June. One wonders when they’ll get around to re-introducing the more-than-a-decade-old Velocifero, let alone the Dragster.

Owners vs. Riders

Steve at Scooter in the Sticks posted a great observation yesterday about Scooter owners vs. Scooter Riders. I am definitely guilty of being an “owner,” and his use of photography as a metaphor hit home, as i’ve grown more interested in photography, I’ve grown to dislike “photographers,” instead favoring “people who take pictures.” If you’re a “rider,” you’ll love Scooter in the Sticks, it’s very much in the same vein as The Baron in Winter, with mostly personal anecdotes about riding, something you’ll rarely find on 2strokebuzz, ha.

Vespaquest-Vespaway scooter blogs merge

Vespaquest and Vespaway, the two official Vespa blogs, announced today that they’ll join forces effective immediately. Crystal Waters, of Vespaquest, Girlbike, and Scooter Seat Covers fame, will join Neil Barton at Vespaway. Vespaquest’s Justene “Andrew Ridgley” Ademec and Vespaway’s Jonathan “John Oates” Ogilvy apparently lost interest in blogging and/or scooters. Best of luck to Neil and Crystal, who clearly and rightly recognized 2sb as a huge threat and reacted accordingly.

Reese Witherspoon Rides the Line

Hello Magazine (UK) reports:

The diminutive performer has been turning heads in the British capital as she shows off her riding skills on a black Vespa. The mum-of-two is more accustomed to the back seat of a limousine than the saddle of a scooter, but she has become a biker chick for the film Penelope, in which she plays a pizza delivery girl.

Piaggio & Aprilia sponsor safety classes in Italy

From Motoblog: Piaggio e Aprilia Partner di “Sicuri su due ruote”. It’s in Italian, so I can just make out the gist of it, but apparently Piaggio and Aprilia have invested in safety classes by supplying some scooters. Considering the difficulty of getting into an MSF class, and the expense of private classes, (not to mention the difficulty of targeting the scooter market for advertising) an industry-led initiative would be a fantastic idea here in America, especially since as far as we know, there are no scooter-specific classes or schools here. Does your local shop support a riding safety school, or host their own? They should! Let us know.

Madass USA

Sachs MadassWhile Xkeleton‘s Trickster, a Sachs Madass knockoff, has been creating a lot of online buzz lately, few have noticed that the real thing is now available. It’s being imported by Tomberlin, who otherwise imports mostly dodgy Chinese scooters and who unfortunately took the halfass “bring ’em in and sell ’em as farm equipment” route rather than dealing with homologation and making it the coolest street-legal moped of all time. (the Trickster also lacks DOT/EPA approval) (see comments regarding DOT/EPA approval). But we’re glad to Sachs back in the US, and we’d be even happier to see the 125cc model, as if. (Sach’s official Madass site) Remember the early ’90s Madison, WI scooter club MADass? They’d be stoked.

Vintage DIY scooter plans

gas-ration-200.jpgFrom the mighty Bill at scoot.net: Vintageprojects.com has free plans for vintage scooters you can build yourself, scanned and PDFified from old copies of Popular Science and Mechanix Illustrated, presuming you’re handy and can find all the materials in your workshop. I think i’d rather take my chances on a dodgy $300 Chinese scooter from Pep Boys, but to each his own. Check out the photos, at least.