Modern Vespa

A short anecdote about scooters, friendship and music:

Detroit's John Bunkley, longtime (30+ year) vintage scooterist, last week released his first solo reggae/ska/rocksteady EP on digital and Vinyl 12". https://johnbunkley.bandcamp.com <-stream for free-listen!

I met John in 2004 through scooter club gatherings. I was still pretty new to them and he had been riding them since the late 80's or 90's. He rolled up on a 1975 blue and white Serveta 150, and I was riding my first rebuild, a blue 1974 Vespa Rally 200. We got to be friends through rides and club hangouts.

We were both longtime musicians (him famously so from "The Atomic Fireballs" and "Gangster Fun"), but we had never worked on music together until just before Covid-19 happened. In Feb 2020 John came over to check out my music studio and we agreed to work on a project together. Covid broke out, and in April he started sending me songs that he had written. We were both in lockdown and I was in-between jobs. I took the songs and added musical layers, had a talented drummer play on them, edited / mixed, produced etc.

This is the first batch of those songs made during lockdown - two old scooter friends on their first music project together, made mostly without ever being in the same room.

announcement video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJP0WzBxZSY

glowing review that just dropped yesterday

https://beardedgentlemenmusic.com/2021/07/08/john-bunkley-sunshine-and-chocolate-ep-review/


Thank you for supporting your scooter friends!

sounding good!! Glad to see you are still out and about bringing scooterists and ska fans into the fold . I kid you not folks, without Rover Eric I'd not have bought that first Serveta and tried out this scooter thing.

That's a very nice testimonial, sdjohn. I do appreciate it. Thank you for listening, and i'm grateful to have helped give you some scooter courage.

Damn, I vanished off the face of the earth for a while and it's a really nice surprise to come back and find Rover Eric around and sharing cool vibes. Cheers

Welcome back. I'm mostly posting here so people don't think i'm dead.

I still do get messages from people who want paint codes, and I still get occasionally spotted by people I don't know on the street who say i got them into scooters through my posts here on MV, which is always bewildering and validating.

Rad tunes man... gracias for posting up.

Thanks for this post. I love reggae but know little about ska. Fun vid and educational/eye opening. Congrats to you both!

Confirms my personal opinion that cool people own vintage scoots

Super rad.

Please keep us in the loop when you drop the vinyl. You know I’m in.

thanks much Greasy - it's dropped!

https://thetellways.bandcamp.com vinyl is already out since February 2021 and orderable ($20) this is a full length album i produced with that band & I wrote most of the music.

https://Johnbunkley.bandcamp.com vinyl is orderable now, and will be shipping in early august. ($17) John wrote the tunes and i produced it. Myself, the drummer and the vocalist from The Tellways back him up.