'Dark Rider: Dark Sixties Heart' by Darkrider aka Adrian Fox (Article)
What is a Dark Rider? And what, exactly, is the Dark Sixties Heart? Some form of an explanation, perhaps, is needed...
Before entering the so-called English Mod/Scooterist Scene in mid 2003, my background was as one long attached to The Dark of horror/mystery in film, literature and images, an integral part of my Being.
As a 16 year old, 2nd Generation Roxy Club Punk Rocker in 1976/77 (Arcane Vendetta, editor of "London's These Things" fanzine), I was exposed to and willingly met the concepts of challenge to authority, autonomy of thought and self-image, plus the embryonic stirrings of sounds coming from the likes of The Damned, The Adverts, Siouxsie & The Banshees and The Cramps, these sounds and stances keying into the Dark part of my soul which thus helped to shape me and set me free. I am 44, now (somebody has to be, but the Youthful Soul is eternal), and these things have become a very real part of me and will stay with me for life.
Growing up in the 1960’s, I was immediately privy to the then ‘new’ sounds of the Time, discovering much more later in my teens as I began to seriously collect vinyl from this Era, realising indeed that in the bodies of such bands as Them, The Zombies, The Easybeats, Yardbirds and Animals etc, that, the deeper you choose to dig, the darker and more disturbing the tones and subject-matter for songs are dug up.
Take the area of Surf/Hot Rod music (often derided as being puny and soft), and you will find things like ‘Dragster On The Prowl’ by The Scramblers and ‘Ghost Guitars’ by Baron Daemon & The Vampires, or Girl Group, to be met with such Death Disc delicacies as ‘(Requiem) For A Girl Born Of The Wrong Times’ by Betty Barnes and ‘He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)’ by The Crystals. In part, were it not for tracks like these, there would perhaps have been no Cramps, Siouxsie & The Banshees, and so on. For everything there is a reason and end result, and all things are links to the same chain, no matter how outwardly implausible…
My entrée into the 21st Century Scooter Scene began with the creation of my machine itself, choosing to ride a 1963 LI 125 Lambretta Series III, initially designing its look on paper as a Gothic example of its kind, my Mod Custom Scooter to reflect my leaning toward The Dark. I Did not care that I may prove ‘One Of A Kind’, as I am an independent soul, so sallied forth to bring about “R.I.P. ’63: Deadly Beauty”, and damn all else.
The machine is black and red, silver crucifix under the red leather saddle, the inner leg shields to mimic the interior satin of an opera cloak; this red was the machine’s original colour and, although re sprayed mainly black, I kept this red element almost in homage to the original ‘ghost of the machine’. There is a vampire bat ornamental mascot on the headset, a Luftwaffe eagle and two chrome skull mascots on the rear carrier, the number plate being ‘LUI 9666’ (an Irish ‘dateless registration’ purposefully sought). A 1963 classic tax disc used with the road-legal one is for: 1963 (year of John F. Kennedy’s death), NOVEMBER (month of John F. Kennedy’s death) and postmarked ‘NOTTINGHAM’ (place of my birth). Kennedy embodies the early 60’s for me, especially that whole ‘Brill Building’ thing. My handle is EvilFoxy13, but am also known as ‘The Shadow’.
Here I am, a year and a half later, having encountered none like me within the Scooter Scene, or seeing another machine of Gothic kind. I understand one exists up North, entitled ‘The Undertaker’, its colour purple and sidecar designed like a coffin.
I have friends within the scene, am loosely attached to the Bar Italia Scooter Club, Soho, but am not a member (internal politics and fallouts are not my concern) as generally I prefer to exist as a ‘Lone rider’.
Just as I was in the early 1980’s, I favour the wearing of all black, as in this I am naturally comfortable. I will wear MA1 jackets (‘13’, ‘666’, ‘Evil’, skull and devil patches on them, as a come-on or fingers up to others, who can take or leave me), black leather overcoats or box jackets, black leather ties, shirts, jeans and boots, my favourite being an authentic black English Fox Hunting jacket, with a red satin lining (I enjoy wearing a white hunting stock with this latter, as in Damien in ‘Omen III: The Final Conflict’).
There are those I feel who do not like me or what I project, but I have consciously crafted my Dark Image in a sixties manner, perversely to turn the whole thing on its head.
In a Lestat style, I enjoy cars ahead of me pulling away faster than they should, or the shocked faces of bus drivers next to me at sets of red lights; sport which is trivial yet satisfies the soul, in a Byronic way, of course! Oh, were there to be more Gothic persons on scooters or motorbikes, cruising with Evil Engine Roar on the Queen’s Highway…
Apart from those who lean musically toward Psychedelia and Freakbeat, most in the Scooter Scene prefer Northern Soul with images, attitudes and personas to match, yet there was plenty of ‘Darkness’ in 1960’s music, whether it be in ‘Dark Chords’, ‘Dark Tones’ or ‘Dark Lyrics’, even some light, upbeat songs carrying a Certain Darkness, somewhere. You only have to know where to look, and have ears open enough to listen for it but yes, it is most markedly ‘there’…
I am a Dark soul drifting nonchalantly between two worlds, not fully accepted by either as I have elements of both. I enjoy what I am and know what I am, and I share the sentiments of those who know these things also about themselves, and who do not care that others may judge and dislike them, for these things.
The only things that mean anything to One are the things which are integral, precious and important, and it should not be any other way. Strength is not in crowds, which One can easily disappear into, it is within The Self which may live by the credo: ‘COURAGE TO STAND FREE’. Exist in groups, certainly, but as a Unique Entity on your own terms. Nothing else matters, and let no-one tell you any different…
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