This month has seen my car show calendar completed for 2018. On 2nd September, I attended the inaugural Vauxfest event at Billing Aquadrome and on the 8/9th I attended the AACI’s last bash of the summer.

Vauxfest
The VBOA has been absent from Billing for the last couple of years, but now that the venue has U-turned on its “no more car shows” decision, a new event has popped up to fill the Vauxhall (and Opel) shaped void.

Vauxfest, the brainchild of organiser Richard Watt, ran between the 1st and 2nd September and I went along on the Sunday to see what it was all about.

Rather than being organised around car clubs, the event was open to anyone owning/driving a “loosely” historic Vauxhall/Opel. An owner would arrive with his/her vehicle and park it in the next available space in the current row. This meant that vehicles of all types and ages were displayed together.

In addition to the vehicles, there was an autojumble and various catering/other concessions.

Because of the nature of the event, the vehicles on display probably differed quite considerably across the two days. I have no idea if Saturday was bigger and better than Sunday or not.

I arrived at Billing around 12:30pm, by that point, and by my reckoning, there were approximately 100-120 vehicles.
 
I am fan of the seventies stuff but there wasn’t much to get excited about from that decade, there was more from the noughties, 90s and to a lesser extent, the 80s. I wandered around with my camera for about half an hour before I left. 

Lots of effort had obviously gone into organising Vauxfest, but it was low key in comparison to the VBOA National Rally. Still, it’s early days for the event and I’ll look forward to it growing in awareness and status in the future.

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AACI Late Summer Open Nationals
On the 8th and 9th I went to Billing again, but this time to attend the American Automobile Cub International Late Summer Open Nationals. Regular readers will know that over the last few years, this car club’s events have become firm favourites on my calendar. This was the third such gathering this year for me.

Normally I attend AACI events on the Sunday of the weekend they are held, this year, because I already had commitments on the Sunday, I decided to go on the Saturday.

The weather had been predicted to be horrible; the afternoon was overcast but, aside from occasional spitting rain, the heavy showers predicted didn’t materialise. I took a chance and headed to Billing to find that lots of exhibitors had decided not to take this risk.

The number of vehicles on show was frankly disappointing but there were still some gems. The Starsky and Hutch liveried Grand Torino shown below was a joy to see. It wasn’t there on the Sunday so I would have missed it if I’d stayed at home.

After mooching around for a little while and accepting that the returns for the journey out were limited, I decided that I’d just have to come back on the Sunday too. Though I only had until mid-morning to participate, I am glad that I returned because the Sunday was significantly better.

The weather was better too and this time, I spend a couple of happy hours with my camera enjoying and photographing a range of exciting vehicles. More were still arriving as I left, but I couldn’t hang around.

One poignant thing about this event was the respect shown and sense of loss felt in the American car community following the recent passing of the legendary Burt Reynolds. In terms of the cult of the Pontiac Trans Am, Reynolds was almost single-handedly responsible for the car’s place in history. Smokey and the Bandit was a feature of this show and there were plenty of Trans Ams present as well as red Bandit sleeved jackets, cowboy hats and fake moustaches. There was also a “Snowman” Kenworth truck and trailer.

As mentioned above, the outing on the 9th completed a hattrick of enjoyable AACI events and my thanks goes to the organisers for all their hard work.
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Vauxfest
AACI - https://www.aac-int.com/

Other Relevant Posts:
https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/american-cars-and-fathers-day-thoughts
https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/car-show-and-car-sos
https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/aaci-late-summer-open-nationals-2017
http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/aaci-summer-open-nationals-2017
http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/24424-the-aaci-summer-nationals-and-fathers-day
http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/aaci-late-summer-open-nationals

On the 25th August I went to The Craufurd Arms in Wolverton to see Electric Six. The band from Detroit, fronted by Dick Valentine, achieved fame in the early noughties with songs like “Danger! High Voltage” and “Gay Bar”. The gig was my second outing in Milton Keynes in two days that featured bands from across the Atlantic (see separate Anvil review).
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DSM 1V
Electric Six was supported by a UK outfit I’d never heard of called “DSM 1V”. I thought that an odd name for a band and so I went and looked up the reference. It turns out that it is a diagnosis term for a major depressive disorder.

And that was sort of appropriate given that the melancholic eighties inspired electric pop/rock band with a synthesized drum machine reminded me a little of REM … and Michael Stipe and his men were a miserable bunch.
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Again, like REM, DSM 1V’s music didn’t inspire me. But moustachioed and mullet haired front man, Guy McKnight, was interesting and had a great voice. To me, he looked a bit like Freddie Mercury, behaved like Iggy pop and danced like a proper space cadet. Whilst the rest of his band mates were unanimated, McKnight was manic, intense, angry even and if he’d be fronting a punk band and the music was heavier and faster, he’d have been brilliant … as it was he looked/behaved like a nutter who might lose it at any moment.

McKnight tried to get a relatively uninspired audience rocking to his manic beat but the pogoing, the forays over the barriers and out into the audience, the invasion of personal space and the direct, borderline aggressive staring didn’t really work on the night.

When the set was done, the band cleared off the stage and that was pretty much that.

During the downtime between acts, I recognised and talked to a few folks that I recognised from the Anvil gig the night before, I wasn’t the only one have two nights out on the bounce.

Electric Six
Whilst Electric Six has been prolific in producing music over the years, I only have “Fire” in my CD collection and that is the album that contains the tracks that the band is best known for (see above).

The 25th was the first time I had seen the band perform live so I didn’t know what to expect in terms of presentation or antics. When the band members were in their civvies pre-set and doing their equipment and sound checks, I’ll be honest, they could have been the roadies for all I knew.

When the band members dressed in their performing finery finally took to the stage, there was no doubting who the fans had come to see. Electric Six got a much warmer welcome than DSM 1V. The gig was a sell out and the Craufurd’s show hall was packed for the headliners; the audience a full mix of ages from teen to middle agers, lots of women in the audience too.

When I first saw front man Dick Valentine, I thought he had a look like Tom Hanks about him, mannerisms like Harry Hill and a dress sense like your secondary school history teacher. Non-descript slacks, comfortable shoes, a red shirt with a broad collar and a green velvet sports jacket.

All the band members were wearing “smart” clothes and most of them were wearing shades … no tour shirts on show. The primary guitarist, referred to as the “White Wolf”, wore a white suit, he reminded me of Kelsey Grammer or Alistair Petrie. The secondary guitarist in his sports jacket, slacks, shirt and shades looked like Goodfella, Ray Liotta, and the bass player reminded me of Jason Statham. So, without even contemplating the keyboardist and the drummer, you’d got a school teacher, a gangster, a hard man and a show off. Electric Six’s music crosses genres and defies categorisation, some hard rock, some glam rock, some pop etc... the outfits worn defied the rock categories for sure.

 I don’t have the set list to share, I didn’t get to pick one up at the end of the gig and, to be honest, there were a number of tunes I simply didn’t recognise. Singing along was always going to be a struggle for me, but it certainly wasn’t a problem for many others present. All in all, there were between fifteen and twenty songs including the encore.

Though Gay Bar, Danger! High Voltage, Dance Commander and many other cool tracks were shared, it was probably the final track of the evening that actually impressed me the most. I think it may even have been called “Show-stopper”. During this tune, the band completely switched around. Valentine took to the drums, the drummer took to the microphone and sang, the White Wolf picked up the base, the base player picked up the Wolf’s guitar, the keyboard player took the second guitar and the second guitarist took over keyboard duties. The revised band played flawlessly and, in that act, proved that all the members are flexible and skilled musicians. 
   
Electric Six, whilst not as heavy or as fast as the bands I usually see did genuinely impress. The gig was good fun, good natured and well appreciated by all in attendance.

Full marks to The Craufurd Arms too, its ability to attract transatlantic talent to Milton Keynes is to be applauded as loudly and enthusiastically as Electric Six was.

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Electric Six

Towards the end of August, I went to a couple of cracking gigs at The Craufurd Arms in Wolverton. The first gig was Anvil on the 24th and the second was Electric Six on the 25th. I’ll write about the gigs separately.
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Anvil is a long established Canadian heavy metal band comprised of Steve “Lips” Kudlow (guitar/vocals), Robb Reiner (drums) and Chris Robertson (bass). The fellas were only in the UK for a couple of gigs (the other was the Stonedeaf festival in Newark) and were promoting the new album “Pounding the Pavement”.

And it turned out that the album title was a nod to real life. During the set, Kudlow explained, the band is determined to keep working and making metal music despite increasing age, decreasing awareness and reducing incomes. He likened Anvil to door to door (in the band’s case gig to gig) salesman doing the hard yards and trying to make the sales.

Anvil’s heyday was the 1980s and the fellas are of retirement age now, Kudlow is 67. Like the band, the audience was an aging bunch too, I guess that those that followed Anvil from its early days are going to be a little long in the tooth by now.  Lots of grey hairs were present and I fitted in just fine (though I’ll admit I should have worn a tour shirt of some description instead of my Adidas branded generic rugby shirt, which didn’t fit in at all).

To keep the earnings up and the costs down, I found out later that the band was travelling light … very light. The chaps turned up at the Craufurd with two guitars, some cymbals and a small quantity of merchandise. That meant the venue had to go into overdrive to provide and then set up the rest of the kit (amps, drum kit, microphones etc.) necessary for the gig to take place.

For the band, there were no back up guitars and no trusted roadies to “fix” things if they went wrong. Fortunately, there were no busted strings during the performance and so no one would have been any the wiser that the fellas were on a tight budget.
 
After the support act, “The Tony Rolfe Band”, had completed its set, Anvil took to the stage. Shortly after launching into action, Kudlow was off the said stage with his guitar and performing in the audience. I was very close to the front of the hall and that meant it was amusing trying to decide which way to look. Of course, Kudlow’s guitar’s power cable followed him onto the floor and that left me and many others passing it backwards and forwards over our heads as he meandered around the hall before returning to his band mates. When out of microphone range, which was an issue as he mingled, Kudlow had a neat trick of holding his guitar up to his mouth so that the pickups would act as a substitute.

In addition to Kudlow being enthusiastic off stage, he and Chris Robertson were very animated when on it too. Rolling eyes, big grins, lots of lip action and other exaggerated facial expressions were so common that I found myself thinking about Aardman Animations and Wallace and Gromit. Maybe the next time Anvil makes a movie, Nick Parks could be the man to sculpt it.
   
There were various other points of amusement during the evening. At one stage, Steve Kudlow played his guitar with the aid of a gold coloured, penis shaped vibrator.  Then in between songs, he reminisced about times past and things lost. His stories about meeting Lemmy and engaging over drugs and booze, were entertaining and enjoyed by all present. He could do a good impression of Lemmy’s gruff voice too. 
 
Here’s the set list: 

1. March of the Crabs
2. 666
3. Ooh Baby
4. Badass Rock 'n' Roll
5. Doing What I Want
6. Winged Assassins
7. Free as the Wind
8. On Fire
9. This Is Thirteen
10. Mothra
11. Bitch in the Box
12. Swing Thing
13. Daggers and Rum
14. Metal on Metal
15. Running (encore)
16. Born to Be Wild (encore)

During the set, Robb Reiner performed a belter of a drum solo. Bearing in mind that he wasn’t using his own stuff and wouldn’t have known until the evening what was included in the kit he was provided, he worked his magic with real aplomb.

At the end of the gig, I went to buy a copy of Pounding the Pavement but there were none left. The old hustlers lost themselves a sale, which is a shame bearing in mind how keen the band is to keep its flame alive. I’ll be able to get a copy on Amazon, but I regret that I didn’t get a copy at the gig and get the guys to sign it.

I can however report that the gig was good fun, good natured and top quality … and that I’d really like to see Anvil again.

I understand from the event team at the Craufurd that Kudlow/Reiner/Roberston had a great time too and are keen to play the venue again in the future. Hopefully next time, they’ll come slightly better prepared.

I’d bet that the fellas had a better time in Wolverton than they did in Newark. Playing at a festival just can’t be as immersive/rewarding as playing at a venue like The Craufurd Arms. 

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From the age of 16 I wanted to ride a motorbike, but I put it off for more than 30 years for all sorts of very sensible reasons (cost, danger, practicalities, higher priorities etc.) …

… and I’ll admit there was the issue that Mrs Baldwin threatened to divorce me if I succumbed to temptation.

But we have been married for a long time now and the kids are getting older …

And lately, the desire to tick the motorcycle thing off my mental bucket list was strong. My thought process was that I either took the plunge, or accepted that I was never going to do it. I have binned plenty of my dreams/fantasies over the years but this was one that I didn’t want to consign to the skip.

So, on the 17th August, I entered and ultimately passed my CBT. Passing was not a forgone conclusion and there were a number of occasions when I thought I might not “qualify”.  Fortunately, it all started to come together for me when out on the road later in the day. In the end, I achieved enough to get my certificate but was all too aware that getting it didn’t exactly make me Barry Sheene. What I would need was a lot more practice.
   
So, on Sunday 26th, I bought myself a motorbike.

The old-boy-buying-a-motorbike story has of course resulted in me being accused of having a mid-life crisis (that accusation initially levelled by Mrs Baldwin on Facebook) and I have had to acknowledge that there is some truth in it. My mid-life standing is of course without doubt, the “crisis” element is worthy of some reflection.

For me, it was never about rediscovering my lost youth or making myself more attractive to women (though both outcomes would be okay too). My issue was simply time – it going by at pace and even beginning to run out, at least in terms of learning and then having the time to graduate up the motorcycle hierarchy of licences and engine CCs. As a mid-lifer, I know that I am not invincible and can’t take it for granted that my health and physical fitness (such as it is) will accompany me into my fifties and beyond.

Mastering my little red 125 Yamaha has become the latest challenge for me.

My first, and frankly Herculean comfort-zone-slasher, was driving it back the 72 miles from the outskirts of High Wycombe in what felt like monsoon conditions. The bloody rain was torrential.

The Moto GP at Silverstone got cancelled because the weather was so bad. But it didn’t stop me!

Not perhaps the brightest introduction to the world of two-wheeled motoring. Brave … maybe. Stupid … most probably. I was riding a new bike through places I had never been with no maps or satnav to guide me.

By the time I got home, I was soaked through to the skin and shivering. I kid you not, my boots were full of water and my leathers (jacket and gloves) leaked so much black dye into my arms/hands that it looked like I had sleeve tattoos. But …

… at least my first solo motorcycle trip didn’t see me crash it.

I have since added another 150 miles to the odometer and am a lot more competent/confident than I was on the 26th. Fortunately, the Yamaha is not fast and it takes a while to get to not fast too. Being very conscious of my inexperience, I also ride it sensibly, for sure a damn sight more carefully than I drive my car anyway (or would have ridden a motorbike in my youth). I don’t try to look cool either, obvious ‘L’ plates, a plain white helmet and a high vis vest accompany me on every trip.  Be safe, be seen is my mantra …

And crisis or not, that’s so middle aged!

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