When it comes to musical celebrities who’ve had a brush with scooters, then there are many. Paul Weller rode Lammies, Buster Bloodvessel – of Bad Manners – had Vespas, but were they ever really scooterists, to the point of turning up on 2 -wheels to a wet weekend in Exmouth?
It’s well known that Ian Brown, Mani and other members of the Stone Roses attended early 80s scooter rallies, but which other famous musicians were actually part of the scooter rally scene? Who else was involved in scooter clubs, and regularly riding from one end of the country to the other on 10” wheels.
Steve working on his SX200 in Pittenweem, around 2003. Within a year, the very first edition of The Complete Spanner’s Manual would be published, obviously helping to rebuild this particular type of jigsaw.
The Beta Band
Ironically, the most famous one is someone you may or may not have heard of, depending on how wide your musical taste is. Steve Mason, frontman of recently reformed Scottish genre-defying trip-pop outfit The Beta Band, is the real deal. He spent the late 80s and early 90s on the scooter rallies, riding all over the country from Fife. He remains a dedicated Lambretta nut. His latest Lambretta acquisition – a vivid green Indian GP – actually won ‘Best Original Paint’ at the 2025 EuroLambretta in Scotland.
Steve at the Coyotes Rally in Scotland with John McMillan (now Lambretta Club Scotland), laughing, and close friend Robin Bell
Steve’s Indian GP once belonged to South East London scooter celebrity, the Green Goddess, a.k.a Marie De Wit, as featured in this local newspaper’s ‘Glamorous Gran’ section.
Musical interlude
Between all this important scooter stuff, Steve also managed to carve out a career as a musician, first with the Beta Band until their dissolution in 2004, then as a solo performer, collaborator, and DJ. Last year the Beta Band re-formed and have been playing festivals and sell-out shows ever since. Hundreds of thousands of people around the globe have seen them play live. Millions have watched their videos.
Steve on stage at Hampden Park, supporting the Stone Roses in their final ever gig in 2017
Big support
How big were the Beta Band? Big enough to support Radiohead on a US Tour, and The Flaming Lips today. If the name still isn’t familiar to you, then search YouTube for their big singles ‘Dry The Rain’ and ‘Squares’, and the penny will drop. If you followed Mark Sargeant’s music column in Scootering Magazine in the 90s, then you’d be aware of the band and also Steve’s scooter connection, but that’s not why we are here…
Failure is…
Steve has just released a truly excellent autobiography called ‘Failure is Always an Option’ and within those pages is not just a mere mention of Lambrettas or the scooter scene, but a full chapter, including possibly the best description ever of how it feels to ride a Lambretta on the motorway. There’s also a less savoury story about a Rally 200 on a Greek island, but that one needs reading.
Scooters don’t appear as another sales avenue; references pepper the entire text because Lambrettas were, and remain, an important part of his life.
From one maestro to another: Steve proudly shows me a Ralph Saxelby-signed Rapido cylinder, destined for a future engine build
The audio option
It’s a skill to be able to convey emotions and mental images in print. This book is no barren, featureless desert of dry words but more a lush, descriptive oasis.
These are tales that are particularly well conveyed in audiobook format, coming directly from the softly spoken horse’s mouth. If you like good stories but don’t have time to sit down and read, I heartily recommend Steve’s audio narration as a great way to shorten a long journey. The only thing you miss with an audiobook is any photos or illustrations, or anything tangible to put on a bookshelf or lend to others.
Either way, you are catered for.
Musical influences
Steve’s musical influences – starting out from Mod and spreading in every direction, will be familiar to many scooterists. He played with several late-80s Mod bands at a time when the Mod scene was fragmenting and pursuing ever narrower niches of music and couture. Obsessing over a 3-year period in the 1960s can only ever be a cultural cul-de-sac.
Steve’s influences were far broader than that, and like so many people of our generation, the ‘second summer of Love’ and the advent of the Rave scene caught him in its spell. This was something happening now, not something to be observed only through rose-tinted spectacles. Dance music was contemporary psychedelia, not historic.
What comes across vividly is a desire to be uncomfortably honest and refreshingly genuine in these times of lies and fakery. As a tale of a working-class scooter lad done well, there’s a lot to identify with. However, the scallywag mindset underpins many of the decisions and pranks Steve and his bandmates got up to. To be an underdog, you must first think like an underdog.
An early 2000s Beta Band magazine shoot for Time Out magazine using Steve’s scooters
Crashing out
The Beta Band could have been far bigger than they were, but they were hampered by a predilection for self-sabotage. Like appearing on the cover of a leading music magazine with a headline stating that they thought their new album was rubbish. That sort of thing.
Steve suffered from manic depression, and the whole group were far more interested in making art than being successful, from a financial perspective. So dedicated were they to the cause of ‘not selling out’ that they turned down a million-dollar offer to have one of their tracks used on a US car commercial. Refused offers like that don’t come around again. The Beta Band collectively walked away from the bridge trailing a leaky can of petrol, and Steve flicked the Zippo.
High morals are costly. When the Beta Band split in 2004, they owed their record label £1.2M. How do you recover once the bubble bursts?
It’s very American to state that “failure is not an option” with swagger and bravado, but it’s also nonsense. Accepting that failure is also a possible outcome, but committing anyway is where true bravery lies.
Steve is an engaging storyteller. I heartily recommend ‘Failure is Always an Option’, not only as a book, but also a mantra. Particularly if you are about to set off to a rally on a vintage 2-stroke scooter…
Sticky
Images: Sticky and Steve Mason archive
Wanted: Do you have Video or Cine from the 1980s Scooter Rallies?
If so, Steve wants to hear from you…
Steve and Sharon on his old Stage 4 SX150, at the Heather Rally circa 1989
In the book ‘Scooterboys: The Lost Tribe’ I made the point that Scooterboy – as a grass-roots youth culture – is not given the credit it deserves. In the wide pantheon of British-born youth cults we were – until quite recently – entirely overlooked.
Don’t you find that odd for a culture that has sustained at least one national monthly magazine for over 40 years, often with other rivals running alongside it?
The UK scooter scene was not insignificant. I estimate at least 100,000 people have been on a UK scooter rally in the UK at some stage. That’s more than 1% of the population.
Steadily, the UK scooter scene is being discovered by outsiders. The Museum of Youth Culture in Camden, Huck magazine and books like ‘Failure is Always an Option’ have all increased awareness of ‘Scooterboy’ as a distinct tribe.
While the Scooterboy scene has been the subject of several books, it’s never been covered before in video documentary format. That’s something Steve thinks could be rectified, with a little help from our friends.
In order to be able to tell the story of the 1980s Scooterboy scene, we are therefore looking for original video or cine footage of the rallies; preferably stuff that hasn’t been broadcast or posted online before. Even if your footage has been uploaded to social media; we are still interested in hearing from you though.
If you think you can help, please send an email to scooterboydoc@gmail.com
