Your Confusion My Illusion
Referring to a line in a song by Graham’s favourite band, Joy Division, it also encourages a closer look at the scooter, inferring that there might just be a little bit more than meets the eye…
Back in the day
Graham explained that in the last 18 months of senior school, most of the lads in his school thought they were Danny Zuko and the girls thought they were Sandy. In the meantime, the Jam were just emerging on the scene and Madness had come along with Orange Street. While all this was happening, Graham was wearing Lois jeans and trying to get away with wearing a white Fred Perry, and struggling to fit a tie into it for school. “A year later Quadrophenia came out and then everyone wanted to be Jimmy or Steph. I just wanted a scooter.”
Influences
Graham is Manchester born and bred and music has always played a big part in his life. “I was fortunate; from where I lived I could go and see a band just about every weekend locally. I got into Joy Division after listening to them at a mate’s house; when I first heard them they blew me away. Unfortunately though at that time Ian Curtis had just committed suicide and they’d come back as New Order. I liked early New Order and watched them play all over the North West as they still played a few Joy Division tracks. The amount of times my dad came into my bedroom asking me to turn that morbid music off or at least down was never ending. My favourite Joy Division song was/is, Atmosphere. The words, “Your Confusion My Illusion” just stand out. Ian Curtis just became this iconic legend in my mind.”
Scooter style
“I’ve never really been into themed scooters myself, I’m more into plain fast scooters. Around the time of the development of Your Confusion My Illusion I owned a Lambretta GP200 and a Lambretta Li125 Special and then I started wanting a Series 2; I loved the model, all except for the front mudguard.” With this in mind Graham managed to get hold of a Series 2 Li125, which he restored. Alongside this he also wanted to build an RB engine for one of his scooters and seeing that he had a spare small block engine, while doing this he thought, “Why not marry up what I like