Evel Knievel (born Robert Craig Knievel; October 17, 1938 – November 30, 2007) was an American stunt performer and entertainer. Over his career, he attempted more than 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps, and, in 1974, a canyon jump across Snake River Canyon (which failed) in the Skycycle X-2, a steam-powered rocket. Knievel was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999. (More from Wikipedia)
Along with many other figures from the underground press, Mick Farren moved to the influential New Musical Express (NME) in 1974. Quoting again from the Telegraph obituary: “Allowed free rein to explore the outer reaches of popular culture by its editor, Nick Logan, Farren turned in a series of memorable pieces on people such as the motorbike stunt-rider Evel Knievel and the avant-garde film director Kenneth Anger.
“In the summer of 1976, by which time the Sex Pistols were introducing Britain to punk, Farren’s NME piece headlined ‘The Titanic Sails At Dawn’ [again using a Bob Dylan lyric, this time from one of my all-time favorites, “Desolation Row”] was judged to have caught the mood among the generation of teenagers disaffected by giant stadium acts like the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.”
(March 2014/1)
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“Motochrist” and “We Came, We Saw, We Drank” both appear on the debut album by Mötochrist, having the dementedly playful title of 666-Pack. The punk rock website razorcake.org includes this review of the album: “If Evel Knievel were still recklessly careening his way through a bone-snappin’ array of death-defying stunts, he’d assuredly blast Mötochrist as tolerably loud as possible to fuel his adrenaline before once again crashing his motorbike into the record books as the world’s most amazing daredevil adventurist. I love Evel Knievel, and, apparently, so do Mötochrist (they wrote a song about him, ‘Evel’, and they also included his name within their list of thanks in the CD-insert booklet).” This CD is definitely on my wish list.
(October 2014)
