MIKE DAILY - The BMX Society Interview

[S.Brothers]

It's been quite a while since we had an Official BMX Society Interview, at least outside of our collector spotlight series. It is therefore, a great pleasure to introduce what follows here. I want to thank Matt Hanemann. This site is so fortunate to have his vision and skills.

 

Mike Daily. A lot of you won't recognize the name. Many of you will... if you are a core BMXer, and you stuck with BMX through the 80's and beyond, at the very least you will have heard of his crew, The Plywood Hoods. THE Plywood Fucking Hoods! Friends, please believe me when I say... this is deep. This is the real seminal, core BMX shit... the underground that was so creative and so venerable that it seeped through to the more main stream BMX press and left it's influential mark. From those DIY beginnings in 'zine publishing, Mike went on to eventually work at Go The Rider's Manual and BMX Plus.

 

To me, Mike is in essence an artist. He is an author, a poet, an improvisational artist, a spoken word performer, a music maker... a 'zine craftsman. And significantly... a BMXer to the core. Talking to him and reading his words, you can feel the integrity, the earnest approach is palpable.

 

Read this interview... tell me this guy doesn't love BMX. He's one of us.

 

When the impetus for this interview hatched... it was just going to be a simple few questions to be used as an introduction to the resurgence of his Aggro Rag 'zine. I'm sure you guys noticed... I was pretty hyped on it. I love everything about the OG Aggro Rag... and I was so stoked that it was about to rise again -- a BMX Phoenix. I knew it would be good. When I got the actual 'zine in the mail and started digging in... I was blown away, or rather carried away... right back to the late 80's when skate and punk 'zines were a new phenomena, and in the pre-internet days... 'zines were our "network", they were how we knew that there were others "out there", who were into the same stuff, who shared our interests and best of all - it was not only reassuring and inspiring... but also accessible and open for contribution! We could participate... by submitting to existing 'zines or even doing our own.

 

Getting Aggro Rag #13 (a favorite number of mine so I considered it auspicious) took me back. I got the feeling of excitement and kinship - just like back in the day. I envisioned Mike, like a mad scientist, pouring over the raw text, cramming the interviews and features into pages and doing the layout in a total old school way. Cutting and pasting with scissors, doing page and photo cuts and glue and tape and a photocopier. I think he actually used photoshop, but humor my fantasy. However he did it... it was like he was back in the proverbial saddle. Mike was back. Aggro Rag was back... a lot of the same old characters were back and featured in the pages of the new issue. And it was absolutely chock full of content. Every inch of page space is filled with "the goods".

 

Anyway... the few introductory questions to help him re-introduce the 'zine turned into this. I'm very proud of it. Mostly because of the way Matt executed our vision of the interview. Matt always exceeds my high expectations. That said, Mike is an amazing interview subject. He answered the follow up questions before we even asked them. It was like he really understood how this site likes to approach an interview. How we like to go a little deeper and really get to know people. When I got the answers back, I forwarded them to Matt and we discussed it. It was clear... this guy; this interview... deserved our full BMX Society treatment. A 'zine pioneer like Mike Daily should not be relegated to a paragraph or two of text. We wanted to give back a little of what he's given us over the years with Aggro Rag. We wanted to blow him away. Honor him. Pay tribute to a pioneer of the BMX 'zine genre.

 

I present... the BMX Society's Mike Daily Interview.

 

Give your eyes a break and click on one of the pdf files. It is easier to read. The jpg's lose some resolution. If you want to print it... and we feel it is worthy, there is a high res version of the pdf. Enjoy.

Mike Daily Interview - Standard Resolution

Mike Daily Interview - High Resolution

 

[lboorse2]

Breezed over it quickly. Some really interesting stuff. I gotta dig in deeper this weekend when I get some free time. Might even print this out.

 

Matty - you've outdone yourself on the design. Awesome work guys!

[Spur]

Until that moment I had never considered a tomato a snack.

 

Fucking incredible interview! I really like seeing the GT Pro Series as a freestyle bike, so many of us did that to our bikes instead of buying a factory purpose built rig. Mike should replicate that one too.

[chromey]

This was a fun one.

Daily gave us some great content to work with - it was an absolute honor to put together.

 

I felt like it was the late 80s and I was making zines again - but this time without a photo copier and scotch tape.

 

'Zine - meets - full blown Feature Editorial.

[aggrorag]

BMX Society--Steve Brothers (Interviewer) and Matt Hanemann (Co-Interviewer/Designer)--has dropped my jaw to the jersey. I like that expression. Peter Fonda used it in the "Extras" for Easy Rider.

 

Thank You fellows for the opportunity to collaborate!

 

I'm honored to be featured.

 

Mike

 

facebook.com/aggrorag

 

 

Aggro Rag T-Shirt [Marc McKee Design] Pre-Order Until Aug. 22nd / How to Get Aggro Rag Freestyle Mag! The Hip-Hop Issue Number 13:

http://bmxsociety.com/topic/55197-aggro-rag-t-shirt-marc-mckee-design-pre-order-new-plywood-hoods-zine/

[TrulyOdd]

dig the interview.

 

the layout is incredible matt.

 

 

 

great job all around.

[RipVanWinkle]

Going back for a second read. Excellent interview. Thanks for putting it together.

 

Just grabbed a copy of Valley too. Right up my alley. ;)

 

[S.Brothers]

Good idea, Ron.

 

The new book he's going to publish sounds really interesting too, eh?

 

 

 

Moon Babes is a lyrical novel about

 

the demented Moon family—Rod, Chatauqua

 

and daughters named Suzue, Araya and

 

Ukai—and their attempts to survive in a bike

 

clubs-ravaged New Mexico town where cars

 

have been outlawed. “Rad meets Breaking

 

Bad” is how the publisher is describing it.

 

 

 

[Spur]

I don't want this to get buried at the bottom, in case any of you have missed it. Read it and learn about something outside of your everyday bmx realm.

[S.Brothers]

Normally we wait several days with interviews in the main forum...Mike requested we move this to the interview section right now, so that people not familiar with the site can find the interview using the home page link to the interview section.

 

So... on it's way there now.

[djdemo]

Great interview guys. The production quality is top notch! Matt, nice job!

 

Mike's obviously a class act and his contributions are huge!

[Roninfbn]

"tits"

[PandaProAm420]

Wow, thanks for the great interview!

By the time Agro Rag first came out, I more into skateboarding than BMX , but I do remember flipping through a few issues at See/Hear in NYC and being really impressed when I was dropping off issues of my own short lived Sk8a,art, and music zine "Bad Tuna Experience"(I no longer have any of these, if anyone from NY area ever read it or has a copy still, get at me!), Well done interview of a true roots BMX legend!

 

Drew

 

[donvader]

That was great! A great read and I bet that was fun to put together too. Nicely done!!!

[RipVanWinkle]

 

Just finished reading Mike's book "valley."

 

I couldn't relate at all, and it had nothing to do with the DMT in between the 2 sittings it took to knock this book out. ;)

 

Great read, Mike. I'll be following your work!

[S.Brothers]