rootboy 

Lola. L....O....L.....A ....... LOLA

Rocket-Sauce 

He may have written some of the best songs of all time, but Sir Paul is also responsible for the second most irritating Christmas song ever (behind that awful "Christmas Wrappings" s h i t e from The Waitresses).

KonAaron Snake 

LOL - I have to admit it, I love that waitresses song. It's no Merry Christmas, I don't want to fight tonight.

https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=of2tzbVHYCY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dof2tzbVHYCY

oldbobcat

And Marty's been playing it longer than I've been watching him and the Fabulous Superlatives and Connie Smith on RFD-TV.

Getting back to the bike, it has a simple, functional elegance that many of its flashier Italian contemporaries lacked. There's no excess of pantographing, no chrome plating showing up in weird places, no weird cable routing, no geometric "innovation." Even without paint, the profile, the fork bend, and the two-plate fork crown would identify it as a Masi. And the slotted rear dropouts say, "I was made by Confente."
And the Weyless seat post says, "I was made in the USA, I work just as well as Campy, and I don't care what you purists think."

Sort of like Clarence White enlarging the soundhole of his Martin. If I had $19,500 lying around, I'd buy this bike in a minute.

pcb 

Hey, are we close to a Rickroll yet?

canyoneagle

Gotta love that Rick has a sense of humor about it

ozneddy

wotda heck are you all talking about ?you lost me, your all nuts !

bigbossman 

When I was a mere teen living in the LA area, we used to pass by the Vasek-Polak dealership on the way to go surfing. He had 917's on the showroom floor..... and they didn't mind us drooling over them. I never got to sit in one, ride in one, drive one, or even touch one.... but it ignited a passion I still burns today.

Oh, and The Beatles..... talk about overrated.....

bigbossman 

The 917 debuted in 1969, and won Le Mans in 1970.

KonAaron Snake 

C'mon Bbm - the Beatles have a LOT of great material, good song writing and accessible, but smart albums. For a commercial band, they're remarkable. They also really helped change the standards of rock (with Dylan); you were expected to write most of your own material and they were the first rock band to really evolve over time. I understand the tendency to say they're overrated and ver played, but they were a great band.

Are the Beatles my favorite band? No - but they do deserve their place and legacy. The fact that they never had a reunion or three consecutive dial it in albums helps their cause.

bigbossman 

I didn't say they were no good, or even that they don't deserve a place in history.

I just think they are not the minor gods that a lot of folks think they are. They had the right skills, and were in the right place at the right time. American pop music was dreadful at the time, and they came up with a very fresh, catchy take on it. But if I want to hear "Honey Don't", I prefer hearing it from Carl Perkins.

But..... Ringo was underrated as a drummer.

KonAaron Snake 

You know that we both park our cars in the same early rock/blues garage, and rock is Chuck Berry to me too, but I do dig how the Beatles helped make rock smart and not just kiddie bop. They were the first band that became more than teen fodder, and it's amazing how they changed the standards. Lets keep in mind that rock had really died in the US when the Beatles came here. The labels were pushing white, watered down crap and it took the Beatles to bring chuck berry back. Outside of del Shannon and some of the Motown, American rock had really gotten awful by the early 60s.

I'm with you on Carl Perkins, Jerry lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Bo Didley, Berry, little Richard, ike turner, etc.

gomango

What a great lineup!

Cool version, that's for sure.

curbtender

But..... Ringo was underrated as a drummer.
Ha can't say much about his movies... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw11tCjAQM0

iab

One of my favorite stories is from Jackie Ickx. Asked by a pretty woman at a party the fastest he ever drove, he replied driving 230mph in is Ferarri at LeMans on the Mulsanne Straight. He goes on to say what he failed to tell her was that a Porsche 917 was passing him at 240.

And I did work on a 917 once, mostly cosmetic stuff. It was Brian Redman's car (he didn't own it, just raced it at LeMans). We were getting it ready for an event at Road America where Brian was going to drive it. He had gotten plumper over the years, he didn't fit well in the car. And he seemed to enjoy driving a GT40 a lot more than the Porsche.

bigbossman 

Like I said - "American pop music was dreadful at the time".

rhm

^^I think you guys are blaming the faults of American society, and its music industry, on the artists. The American music industry would take a band, like the Blue Moon Boys, and make a star out of the front man. In music where the color line was always pretty vague, performers were forced to be either black or white. By coming from a place where these issues didn't exist, the Beatles were able to do something their American competition couldn't do. There was plenty of talent here, including singers and instrumentalists both black and white, doing their own material, but the industry wasn't set up to deal with that.

JPZ66

Hmmmmm. I guess I will have to go read through this entire post to see how we got from Confente's Masi to Porsche 917's !

Win, lose or draw....I'd still take a Ferrari.

Joe

KonAaron Snake 

Rudi - even by your standards, this post in on point and insightful; it was definitely the labels and the marketing. There WERE some great performers - Eddie Cochran and del Shannon jump to mind. I did say "the labels were pushing..."

I don't listen to the Beatles nearly as much as I do the kinks, but I have to honest, the Beatles are more accessible and certainly have better vocals and harmonies.

Just as an aside, the everly brothers don't get their due.

gomango

They did at our house growing up.

Mom was a huge fan and hooked the rest of us.

Lots of great artists growing up though.

Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Wanda Jackson, Conway Twitty etc.

Dad was a big Buck Owens fan.

Let's just say they were more than a little concerned when I started hauling home Yardbirds, The Who, the Small Faces and Velvet Underground albums.

Dad just about kicked me out of the house when I started in on David Bowie, T Rex and Lou Reed albums.

Heck, he tried divert my attention by laying Rolling Stones albums next to the hi fi.

Didn't work.

I built my own Dynaco kits and blasted Bang a Gong through some home built Voice of the Theaters in our basement.

No small wonder he took up drinking brandy on weeknights.

repechage

Way back at the time there when Autoweek was more of a racer publication by Competition press and printed on newsprint, they had an interview (I think with Mark Donnahue) and some of the comments stuck in my mind.
That the 917/30 was a beast to drive, but when the boost dial was turned up is was not going to lose a drag race. Other cars handled better, but the power could make up for it easy. And the chassis was made of unobtainium, a veiled reference to the chassis having magnesium and the poor reputation it had in race cars, especially German race cars. My father had to explain that one as I was not around for the LeMans tragedy.

KonAaron Snake 

There really was no going back after Iggy Pop...you're never quite the same after you listen to Search and Destroy for the first time (or Sweet Jane).

Italuminium

Great, that stupid o bla di song will not leave my brain for the remainder of 2012.

thinktubes 

Most...derailed...thread...ever!

bigbossman 

I dunno....... has anyone mentioned Grant Petersen yet?