Johnny Stuart's 'Rockers!' celebrates the biker style with panache and wit, showing how a love affair between bikes and speed became the original touchstones of a youth cult which continues to fascinate and endure,with its myths, magic and melancholy. In essence, and although they did not know it, Rockers - with their raw edginess, studied cool and search for excitement, sex and violence - were icons. 'Rockers!' achieves that rare marriage of immediacy and knowledge, through research and first-hand experience.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Rockers! Kings of the Road
The allegedly most shop-lifted book in London bookshops! " Rockers! ... Kings of the Road " is part socio-historical documentary, part style-bible, part-arthouse coffee table book; it has given birth to new generations of Rockers the World over.
By far the most complete and accurate book on the subject filled with fantastic photographs and archive graphics.
Written by a totally committed and highly informed expert on the subject, this is not the usual biker exploitation / pulp fiction shallow or condescending cr*p you normally find written by some bozo of a journalist that has never gotten his fingernails dirty or kick started a four-stroke once in his life. It is as close to a Bible as the Rocker / biker world will get.
Researched at length and detail, Johnny met and spoke many of the original characters, trawled the picture libraries for all the best period photos and found many kept by original rockers from the 60s. It is warm, respectful and pretty damned accurate.
Quite frankly, it is so good that no one ever bothered to try and write another and although it was writtenin the 80s, it still sells all around the world today. Timeless.
Rock on.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As a South Londoner I went up to The Ace Cafe back in the 60s. This book is an excellent one that tells the story of that particular era in an unpretentious way. Great photographs are there to illustrate our way of life back then.
I would recommend this book to everyone - doesn't matter if they are not interested in bikes but want to know more about that era.
I would recommend this book to everyone - doesn't matter if they are not interested in bikes but want to know more about that era.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is one of my top shelf books, that is one that is not 'lent out'.
It's difficult to explain to subsequent generations how exactly the times were. Certainly the 'Rocker' years for me were exciting and eventful. Many friends were lost to the open road and it's dangers. But what camaraderie, what tales to tell as you get older, but who wants to listen to an old Man?
Of course with any culture urban myths creep in to become fact. The Record on the Juke-Box at Johnsons, down to Death Hill and back before it stopped now seem unrealistic (Google maps make it 4.6m each way, 9 miles in 2 1/2 minutes?) but certainly the engine on the kitchen table was a must for us in terraced houses, the Saturday ride to all the South London dealers (oh, Pride and Clarke's eh?)and of course a 'fag on' while riding was OK, after all it couldn't blow into your Helmet, you didn't have one!
Top book, top photographs and now a real bargain (look to secondhand if need be?) You may just recognise someone in the book.
The Japanese Rockers (more there than here now?) must be scanning the pages with their magnifying glasses for detail.
Conclusion? Over 40? Buy it. Under 40? Carry on with your Play Station, risk free mundanity.
It's difficult to explain to subsequent generations how exactly the times were. Certainly the 'Rocker' years for me were exciting and eventful. Many friends were lost to the open road and it's dangers. But what camaraderie, what tales to tell as you get older, but who wants to listen to an old Man?
Of course with any culture urban myths creep in to become fact. The Record on the Juke-Box at Johnsons, down to Death Hill and back before it stopped now seem unrealistic (Google maps make it 4.6m each way, 9 miles in 2 1/2 minutes?) but certainly the engine on the kitchen table was a must for us in terraced houses, the Saturday ride to all the South London dealers (oh, Pride and Clarke's eh?)and of course a 'fag on' while riding was OK, after all it couldn't blow into your Helmet, you didn't have one!
Top book, top photographs and now a real bargain (look to secondhand if need be?) You may just recognise someone in the book.
The Japanese Rockers (more there than here now?) must be scanning the pages with their magnifying glasses for detail.
Conclusion? Over 40? Buy it. Under 40? Carry on with your Play Station, risk free mundanity.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
good book worth having
good book, its all in black and white but still agood quallity book worth having,all the photos are from the period
Published 9 days ago by Ken Hart
5.0 out of 5 stars
A textbook for those who weren't there.
I approached this book with an open mind as, after all, in 2012, we are now some 55 years from the commencement and heyday of the Rocker era. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Rocker
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rockers ,by Johnny Stuart.
Exellent book, and very well written,it tells it the way it really was.Takes me back to the 60,s when we used to go cafe racing ,and sit by the jukebox . Read more
Published 8 months ago by alan coates
5.0 out of 5 stars
ROCKERS !
Fantastic book (A4 size, glossy cover, paperback)
My dad was a rocker in the 1960's in Brighton and was there during the fight between the mods and rockers on Brighton pier. Read more
My dad was a rocker in the 1960's in Brighton and was there during the fight between the mods and rockers on Brighton pier. Read more
Published 17 months ago by kimi
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rockers! Kings of the Road
What a wonderfully evocative, insightfull read. I was swept away on a roller coaster ride of memories that made it hard to put this book down. Read more
Published on 7 Nov 2009 by Steve
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kings of the Road
I have to agree with most of the other review here. A brilliant in depth account of the lifestyle, with only one other book approaching the depth of repoting contained with it's... Read more
Published on 22 Mar 2008 by A. R. Smith
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