Renaissance & Rebellion - Flipbook - Page 207
ORIGIN STORY: Northeast L.A. and the Birth of BMX
Bicycle Motocross is generally cited as beginning around 1972 after the film On Any Sunday
HULLY GULLY STUDIOS
Back around 1981, I took a lease on an old mechanic shop near the L.A. River on
was released, showing kids riding their Schwinn bikes off-road. Well, the little-known truth is
Fletcher Drive, at the border of Northeast L.A. My plan was to turn it into a rehearsal
that it began well before that. Closer to 1969/‘70, eminent domain wiped out entire swaths of
studio and early on, my friends’ bands would rehearse in there amongst the cars that were
neighborhoods through which the Glendale 2 Freeway would run, splitting our Northeast LA
still parked inside. Later the cars were moved and I decided to create separate soundproof
neighborhood in half. Despite “trespassing,” when the bulldozers came and grading for the freeway
rooms. At the time, some of my friends were in construction like me, including Dave
began, the local kids began riding their Schwinns in the ever-changing earthscape. When the
Tourjé who was my helper at the time. He and I also had a band together called the
Sylmar Quake hit in early ‘71 and Delevan Drive Elementary was demolished, we even converted
Forcefeeders with Greger Walnum, Jack Kennedy and others.
the worksite into a BMX track before being barred from the site. All the neighborhood kids were
involved, like Dave Tourjé who lived around the corner from us.
Things really changed when my dad Mike Burns got involved. He and his buddy Marvin LeBlanc
were part of the Bultaco Cemoto Motocross team back in the pioneering days of motocross. My dad
We began framing out rooms and soundproofing them, and the bands came and they
kept coming. As the punk scene in LA grew and grew, so did the Hully Gully, until it
became the rehearsal epicenter for LA punk rock.
At its peak, on any given night, you could walk down the halls and we’d have the The
saw what we were doing with our Schwinns and wanted to help us improve our riding. His logical
Red Hot Chili Peppers in one room, X in another, Los Lobos in another and The Blasters
conclusion was to make the bikes more like the motocross motorcycles he was working on in our garage
in the next. Every major band in the LA scene rehearsed there including Jane’s Addiction,
shop. So he began to cut and weld motorcycle goosenecks to replace the stock ones, used motocross
Concrete Blonde, Dwight Yoakum, Lone Justice, The Flesheaters, Top Jimmy and the
handlebars, replaced the long banana seats with small 10 speed seats and installed knobby tires for
Rhythm Pigs and many others. Even comedian Sam Kineson had a band rehearsing there.
more traction. These modifications became what are now known as “BMX bikes” and these high
performance modifications seriously improved our performance in our hijacked dirt track.
Several years were spent riding our nearly endless track that went for miles and constantly
As the punk scene waned in the later ‘80s, so did the Hully Gully and I eventually left
it behind. But in its time, it was an underground fortress of musical creativity the likes of
which has never been seen again.
morphed as the freeway grading continued. Hard to believe all that happened below what is
now the Glendale 2 Freeway.
–James Burns
–Bill Mentzer
HULLY GULLY STUDIOS
Forcefeeders at Hully Gully
Studios 1981. L-R: Bill
Mentzer, Greger Walnum
and Dave Tourjé
James Burns, NELA, early 70s
