Wheels of Time

It’s been a funny old couple of weeks.  Still without a car and plagued by a bout of insomnia, we have had an intense and sometimes stressful time (for reasons which I won’t bore you with here), in some shape or form rooted in the past.  For starters, not having been behind the wheel of a car since the Golf gave out, I have reluctantly had to get used to temporarily being ferried around by others (I’m too scared to drive Reaper, our van, other than on remote open roads) - something I’ve not experienced since 1990!

We have been up against it with our regular Hayburner advert deadline, having put all of our eggs in one basket by asking our first and only customer from Israel if he would be so kind as to send us some sunset photos of his beautiful 1967 Karmann Ghia, featuring his order of Voodoo Street stickers.  Naturally, Murphy’s Law intervened and his first order went astray.  A second parcel was dispatched and we spoke very nicely to Vic at Hayburner, who granted us an extra couple of days to pull it together.  

My dream car

In the nick of time, Shmuel’s photos appeared in our inbox.  

They are pretty stunning, wouldn’t you agree?  

Surf Permit Stickers available at voodoostreet.com

Voodoo Street Logo Script Sticker visible on the rear window

Our latest ad, featuring a dreamy image from this shoot, will appear in the next issue of Hayburner magazine, out in December.

On Wednesday evening, Gaz attended the local hotrod meet, having produced some promotional stickers for the group, which included language that would make your granny’s hair curl.  Unless you are driving a 1950s souped up car, you are relegated to the far end of the car park.  Gaz is just about tolerated in our 70s V8 Rover (he still has to park at the back), due to his interest in these hybrid beasts and enthusiasm for a great engine sound.  Unfortunately, despite an amazing turnout of retro vehicles, in freezing temperatures, this was the only image he managed to capture before the camera battery gave out.  

As part of our preparations for Chepstow, Gaz has been cleaning up the 1920s roadster bicycle, which he’s hoping to use as a promotional prop.  

He’s so in love with this bike, he’s started campaigning for it to be wall mounted inside.  I’m not wholly convinced, particularly as I’m now starting to think it’s haunted.  

With little room left in the workshop, Gaz is currently bringing it into the kitchen whenever it rains.  On each occasion, we’ve independently experienced unexplained knocking on the patio doors.  On one occasion, the fuse box tripped out, plunging us into darkness.

  

Meanwhile, I’ve been educating myself on producing and sending blanket newsletters (something we have long promised to our subscribers), re-thinking our clothing packaging, photographing and updating stock on our website (Blackberry hoodies are now available to buy online so lovers of all things purple, check out our new stock)...

….and working on promotion with the help of some natty editing tools and filters.  Warning:  We may go all psychedelic on yo' asses in the coming weeks.  Our mystery boxes are available now.  More details online if you're interested.  I'm not going to do a Christmas plug in a November blog.  I love Christmas but unless I stuff my ears with cotton wool and put on a blindfold during TV ad breaks, by mid December, I'm already over it.  The only Christmas song I could happily listen to at any time of year is "Fairytale of New York".




Our clothing may be new, but our influences are pretty retro.  My style is also pretty eclectic.  There are days – many days - when I would love to float around in a Kate Bush dress or Woodstock era hippy garb and other days when my style icon is Annie Hall.  

Then there are days like today, when I fully appreciate a more masculine look – a great pair of skinny jeans, teamed with an old Voodoo Street baseball tee and this 70s jacket I spotted in a charity shop for £6.00.  (Please ignore the sleep-deprived bags under my eyes!) 

Last week, we went back to school.  We accepted a request to attend a Q&A session on T-shirt design for a group of DT students tasked with designing a T-shirt inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution.  

Armed with some clothing and sticker samples, we rocked up.  As we waited for lunch to end, the teacher, Miss Mason warned us: “They will probably come in and stare at you.”  She wasn’t wrong!  We had prepared answers to a range of questions covering everything from market research to the nitty gritty of the design process, but had omitted to prepare any kind of presentation, so my stomach did a little lurch when the teacher simply introduced us and then threw us to wolves/handed us over to the class. 

 I was always very shy at school and any kind of presentation would fill me with fear and unshakeable self-consciousness.  So with a niggling insomnia-induced headache and 45 pairs of eyes scrutinising our every move, we launched into an impromptu potted history of Voodoo Street, somehow without stumbling over our words or interrupting each other.  After passing round some samples, we took questions (and there were many), before leaving a bunch of free stickers for the kids.  

The great thing about kids is that the feedback is instantaneous.  We had a round of applause, a couple of high fives on the way out and some lovely follow-up messages from the teaching staff.  Why on earth I spent my 80s school days worrying so much about standing up in front of my peers is beyond me.  Well, they do say youth is wasted on the young!

Sticking with the 80s, in our downtime, we’ve also started watching the Netflix series “Stranger Things,” which is set in the decade of my childhood.  We're a bit late to the party, but loved the shades of Goonies/Stephen Spielberg evident in the first episode and I’m desperate for an opportunity to binge watch this before being exposed to the inevitable spoilers.  I’m hoping the rest of the series lives up to the first episode. 

We’re also limping through Blade Runner.  I’m embarrassed to say that this film has lain on our shelf for years and I don’t ever recall watching it.  I think I’m put off somewhat by the fact that I have the director’s cut, which removes the uplifting ending.  

Caleb's keen to see it before he catches the sequel, but for numerous reasons, we’ve only had short windows of opportunity to watch…and now I’ve got all sorts of TV vying for my attention; Peaky Blinders, The Apprentice, Detectorists to name a few.  

There’s also a Netflix series covering the relationship between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford starting in December.  We’re suddenly spoilt for choice.  Way better than all those “going-on-a-journey”, “this-is-the-best-thing-that’s-ever-happened-to-me”, formulaic, pantomime reality TV shows.  Not so great for curing insomnia.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

I can only apologise to those of you who take some interest in where we are and what we are doing.  My blog entries have been pretty irregular for some time now.  I could offer you a raft of excuses.  For example, our propensity to book trade shows late in the day.  This effectively means that we semi-unpack the van late on Sunday night, gather our thoughts and brace ourselves for yet another Trump headline on Monday morning (or any given day for that matter), muddle through to mid week catching up on online orders, fielding enquiries, etc. before setting ourselves some impossible challenge (usually in the form of new stock), which we then attempt to turn around in time for the coming weekend.  By the time I’m in a position to update the blog, the next show has arrived and the moment has passed.

I could also blame a whole host of other things, but this time, in a typically British manner, I blame the weather.  The heat wave we had (remember?), meant that I ventured outside and whenever I venture outside for prolonged periods, I discover that we actually live on the edge of the Amazon rainforest.  

In short, I’ve been “on some shit” in the garden.  (Trust me, that’s the best phrase to describe the job, which confronted me. Here's the link. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=on%20some%20shit )

I will endeavour to give you a potted history of our recent shows.  Gaz has a 1964 Mini Cooper.  Given that we sponsor the annual Mini and VW Bus Meet in our hometown, it made sense that both the Mini and the T4 make an appearance on our stand.  The main stumbling block was the fact that the Mini has been languishing in a relative’s garage for 17 years, playing winter host to Fred, the tortoise and somewhere along the way picking up a new furry occupant – a mouse.  But Gaz was on a mission.

Cleared of mouse droppings and boxes of long forgotten keepsakes (including a remote controlled skateboarder straight out of the 80s and a wooden Woodpecker cigarette dispenser), Gaz grabbed the toolbox and WD40 and set to work.

  

Unfortunately, the gods had other ideas and progress was slow to say the least.  The inaccessible fuel filter within the petrol tank was blocked and by Friday, the engine was sparking but still not drawing fuel. 

Knackered, jaded, beaten; all words, which could have described Gaz on Saturday morning as he left to set up.  All that hard work for sweet FA.

By the time I arrived to help set up, I was greeted by two familiar faces, Ben and Cerys, a couple we met at Dubs on the Wye.  Ben’s a VW enthusiast and Cerys is a Mini owner.  They had decided to take a punt on the show, breaking up their journey with an overnight stay in Shrewsbury and, luckily for us, Ben had brought along his heavy duty Towing Dolly, which he insisted on hitching up to our Golf to collect the Mini.  What a star!

Within 30 seconds of the Mini’s arrival on site, a tearful Gaz (bless) had had an offer on it and was soon surrounded by a dozen men - all staring, prodding the engine and offering advice on what to do next.

Having built the 1 litre race engine from scratch in his youth, we are thankful that Gaz had the foresight to retain most of the original parts, as the consensus was to return it to its original 1964 Cooper engine. 

The thing all classic motoring enthusiasts have in common is passion and a desire to see their favourite rides on the road.  That is why one parts dealer, throughout the day, systematically boxed up all the requisite parts for our Mini (worth just shy of £100) and allowed Gaz to buy them from him for 30 quid!  Talk about good karma!

Cookie

Setting up at leisure only 5 minutes drive from home is always a pleasure and I don’t think the stand has ever looked more organised.  We also managed to squeeze in a couple of cheeky drinks with this man, better known as “Cookie” from E4’s Tattoo Artist of the Year, and his lovely family.  The creative juices were flowing on Saturday evening, so all we can say is watch this space…

Next up was Camper Jam, which is always one of the highlights of the calendar.  We managed to launch a new T-shirt design with hours to spare before the start of the show.  Talk about hot off the press!

Camper Jam was hot - very hot - and very busy.  In it’s 10^th year, it was a great show and we had great neighbours on both sides, which included one fireman aka Brutebox Baz, four labradors (one who uses Jedi mind tricks to secure pork scratchings) and two "Happy Campers" from the Republic of Ireland.  

We also had the luxury of chilling around the campfire with our super organised friends on Saturday evening.  By “super organised,” I mean they brought the wherewithal to mix lip-numbing cocktails.  The only downside was our first experience of theft at a VW show.  Someone stole a rat from our rat bike.  No biggy, just disappointing.

Campfire and cocktails

Since then we have been posting out pre-orders of Vdubs in the Valley show tees and working on re-stocking an early Voodoo Street design, which seems to be suddenly in demand.

In our down time, we’ve made our first visit to Nozstock Festival, in deepest Herefordshire, notable for 3 reasons:-

1.  Excellent music, including Remi Harris (a leader on the Gypsy Jazz scene and highly rated by Jamie Cullum) and up and coming band and Nozstock regulars, The Stiff Joints.

2.  A fireworks display with a distinctly pagan feel.

3.  We managed to get Bez from Happy Mondays, to wear one of our bucket hats on stage.

Bez doing his thing

We also squeezed in the Camper & Bus Show at Eastnor Castle last weekend and decanted the 9 gallons of water, which fell on Saturday night from the top of our gazebos into saucepans.  It didn’t spoil our fun.  Gaz, on his own on Friday night, spent the evening with Retro Classic Clothing’s Adam and co. and on Saturday night, we whiled away a few hours (and a few cans) in the company of Simon and Celia (and family).  Thanks for your company and the amazing brownie Celia – we were fighting over it!

   

Pictured above, is Nala, Celia's canine niece, in her Voodoo Street bandana.

Getting ready for the Soap Box Derby at Eastnor

I will be updating our web store very soon, but with Skeg Vegas looming, it’s possible that we will need to re-stock before then, so bear with us. 

We’re excited about our first visit to Skeg Vegas.  It’s the furthest we will have travelled to a show and therefore we will all be shoe horned into the van, but we’ve heard many positive stories and have high hopes.  Maybe see some of you there!

A Drop of the Black Stuff

You may have noticed that Trainspotting 2 is released next year.  Now, we are 90s kids, from the same generation as Ewan McGregor and Trainspotting was a seminal film for us.  Putting aside the plot's dark heroin underbelly, Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life and Underworld’s Born Slippy are guaranteed to get us up on the dance floor, blowing our whistles and waving our hands in the air and the “choose life” slogan has been etched into our psyche. 

Robert Carlyle on the set of Trainspotting 2...

...is it a Voodoo Street bucket hat?

Before I go any further, what you are about to read is not a Ewan McGregor fan page, but a series of life events/coincidences which has led to a period of reflection and indirectly informed our work in recent weeks.

If you’re on Instagram, you may be aware that Ewan McGregor loves VWs and motorbikes and has in fact previously graced the pages of Hayburner Magazine, the cool independent magazine dedicated to all things Vdub (look out for our ad in the forthcoming issue). 

Hayburner Issue 20, out soon.

This week, he uploaded a photograph taken during a visit home, with his dad, on a break from a burn up outside the Green Welly Café near Rannoch Moor. As former motorbike owners, we loved the travelogue series he and his friend Charlie Boorman produced: “The Long Way Down” and “The Long Way Around” and our Highlands road trip this summer took us past the very same café, which is surrounded by roads just built for cruising on motorcycles.  

Johnnie Fox's Pub

So, we’ve been blowing the dust off some old photos and reminiscing.  Here’s a photo taken on a road trip around Ireland donkeys years ago outside the famous pub Johnnie Fox’s in County Wicklow (oh, the Guinness really does taste better over there)...

Babies

 …and here’s another of the two of us on that same trip when Voodoo Street was but a twinkle in the eye.

Incidentally, some years after this photo was taken, I took up a post at a TV/Video Production company, best known for pre-school children’s shows Wheels on the Bus and Underground Ernie, featuring a soundtrack from Miles Hunt of the Wonderstuff and a lead character voiced by Gary Linekar, which leads me to my last Ewan McGregor story.  He was the favourite to voice the character of Ernie and I remember sending a script to his agent.  She assured me he read it on a plane trip, but sadly he turned it down.

Although we are known on the VW circuit, we appreciate cool rides comprising any number of wheels; skateboards, BMX bikes, café racers, VWs, hotrods - you name it.  If it’s aesthetically pleasing in a classic kind of way, then we approve.  Our trip down memory lane has resulted in Gaz deciding to add to Voodoo Street’s collection of rat look motorcycle inspired stickers.  Given that my long departed grandfather was once asked to ride for a certain British motorcycle company originally based in Birmingham, a Voodoo Street “Norton” sticker it had to be.

Sadly I don’t remember my paternal grandfather, as he died before my first birthday.  I’ve also been frustrated in my attempts to get more details on this story, although I can confirm that one Ernest Taylor owned and rode a Norton for some years and turned down the offer to ride for Norton, as he was a humble and dedicated farmer (and probably had little concept of potential this opportunity offered).  Apparently he was known to bring back a sheep over the tank of his bike!  Not sure whether sheep get the same thrill from a motorbike ride as us humans, but these were different times.

We've also decided to share our love for Vdubs in a more obvious way by putting our Volks Whip logo on a T-shirt - bold white screen prints on black extended tees.

Volks Whip Tees on website now

This may look like a simple design or even the original VW logo at a glance, but switching the letters around was a bastard to successfully complete in the same proportions as the original.

New little back prints

We’re constantly on the look out for something new to play with.  Our reliable VW T4 is a workhorse, but our heart belongs to ratty vehicles that have lived a life and wouldn’t look out of place in a scrap yard.  Recently we’ve been looking at Ford Pops and Morris Travellers.  We test drove a Ford Pop around a farmyard last week.  It was surprisingly comfortable, given its age, but it was full of filler, the paintwork wasn’t original (matt black) and there were some strangely flared wheel arches.  In other words, too much work for the time we have at our disposal.  Still, we like them enough to have used one for our Black Friday ad, so don’t forget to check in tomorrow.  

See ya!

Where The Wild Things Are

No, this isn’t a blog on Donald Trump or my state of mind when I thought there would be a Marmite shortage.  This is about a little Voodoo Street Indian summer hiatus whilst awaiting the arrival of some new products.

Well aware that October often heralds the start of the English monsoon season, we’ve been making the most of the sunshine and taking to the great outdoors. The surreal sunsets we all experienced a couple of weeks back kicked it off.  Like the rest of the central region, we shared our sunset photos on social media, naively believing that we were the only folks to have captured these fiery skies, which seemed to indicate the imminent arrival of alien visitors.  You be the judge.  Here are a couple of ours. 

The Aliens Are Coming!

Woodland Sunset

Not bad eh?  Until you see this one (below) captured by a certain Mr Salt of Penkridge, allegedly taken at the back of the local tip. 

Penkridge Recycling Centre?

Real or fake?  All we know is that the housing market has spiked in that area in recent weeks!

To avoid switching on the SAD lamp, (big f*!k off lamp which simulates sunlight and wards off the blues associated with seasonal adjustment), we’ve been hotfooting it around the place as much as possible, seeking out pockets of wilderness on our doorstep.  

Yesterday, I decided to throw on a Voodoo Street extended tee to show that girls can wear them too and to give our eyes a rest from screen use, we took off for a walk in one of our favourite places. 

Only 10 minutes by car takes us to this country estate at Enville, which is occupied by the family of the former Earls of Stamford. The family name was Grey, best known through Lady Jane Grey, who was Queen of England for just 10 days in 1553, before being beheaded by Mary Tudor.  There’s a right of way in front of Enville Hall, which leads up onto the hills.

Enville Hall Estate

  

Enville Hall's Cricket Pavillion

Enville Hall Lake

Once on the top, the views are incredible and aside from the occasional passing car, you will not hear a man made sound.

That tree has seen better days.

Pretty sure this isn’t a fashion statement, but can anyone shed any light on why this sheep is wearing a harness?  He did seem to have quite a punk attitude we noticed, aggressively nibbling at other sheep, so maybe he was influenced by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's style from the SEX Boutique days after all.  Or maybe I'm overthinking this.

Sheep Fashion Icon

Punk Chic Sheep

There are other forms of wildlife of course and I encountered a couple at a family member’s 80^th birthday party last weekend…and no, I’m not referring to Gaz.

A conversation with a retired farmer and his wife from Herefordshire, was pretty genteel until talk turned to their farming days.  They told me that they can still see their old farmland from their new bungalow, but that the new owner has planted trees on the land and is no longer using it for farming.  Apparently it’s his intention to grow a forest to leave for future generations.  As honourable as this is, I asked how he was making a living from it.  The answer was not quite what I expected.

“Well, he made a lot of money from magazines,” said Jean.

She could have left it at that, but instead, chose to add, in audible-to-everyone tones and with a raised eyebrow: “PORN mags!”  I had resigned myself to discussions about The Great British Bake Off, turning 80 and the weather we’ve been having, so this took the wind out of my sails!

Finally, in an unusual twist, the octogenarian in question, Jimbo, cut his cake with a ceremonial sword!  Wild thing!

  

We also headed to the Shropshire hills and paid our monthly pilgrimage to the Church Stretton Antiques Market.  I know, I know, this evokes twee images of pottery, mirrors and watercolours, but the Church Stretton Antiques Market does a good line in the bizarre and macabre, which appeals to our dark sense of humour.

For example, mounted Emu feet.  Sorry, but I just can’t take this image to the grave alone.  You have to share in it.

  

£85.00 - Anyone....?

There is also plenty of taxidermy gone wrong, but I’ll spare you from this.

Anyone know which animal this skull may have belonged to?

Horse

Here are some pretty cool and of-the-moment teapots.  I was tempted, but the eye watering prices put paid to that!

Finally, we came across this creepy ancient lift – straight out of a Hitchcock film – named after us.  The view down the lift shaft almost gave me vertigo!

  

From wildlife to wild rides, Gaz has been drawn to this rat style sit up and beg Ford Pop with its original engine but with a Heath Robinson turbo set up.  It's been ruled out of the running now, but looks amazing doesn't it?  

Next up, I will be boring you all about Halloween amongst other things.   In the meantime, stay safe and don’t talk to clowns!