Saturday, November 5, 2011

William Van Dyke "Swapmeet Special"

I looked all over the internet for this clip, and the only one I could find was on YouTube, from a Speed Channel program clip. It's William Van Dyke's Swap Meet Special, done live at the Buffalo Chip, during Sturgis 1982. Check the size of the crowd at the Chip! Also, check out the makeup of the crowd at the Chip.....a little different cut of attendees back then.

The clip originated from the the Easyriders' Video Magazine #1, in 1988. The good part of this Van Dyke segment is you'll get not only see Van Dyke at his best, you'll also get a couple quick shots of Phil Ross kickin' up his heels at about :46, and 1:00 into it. But.... this is such a sanitized version of this clip by Speed Channel, I almost thought about not posting it. I can maybe understand them blurring out the boobs, but they cut an entire verse of the song out of the video - for no other reason I can think of - other than not wanting to piss off some advertisers, I guess. The missing verse goes, to the roaring approval of the crowd:

"Well, I don't want no Honda, or no Kow-a-sock-ee,
Them Japanese motor-sickles is a little too plastic for me!
So Give me a Harley-Davidson, that's the one for me.
Hey, it's a swapmeet special, I rode it over for you to see".


Do yourself a favor, and hunt up a copy of the Easyriders Video Magazine #1, it's not bad. Segments like the Van Dyke one, and others like "JD John" Cameron and Lance Tidwell talking about, and riding their Flxi sidecar rigs make the video worth getting - it's only in VHS format as far as I know.

4 comments:

damion saunders said...

I actually have this on DVD. Not sure where it came from but it does exhist!

Bacon said...

this is cool Rich

fingers said...

hey rich shoot me your address i got something for you
fingerslom@yahoo.com
fingers from cheektavegas

steveb said...

simpler times