Monday, December 28, 2015

LEMMY

A world without an animate, breathing, walking, drinking, rocking Lemmy is a world I have never known. It is a world foreign to me, a new world with less life, less drive, less will, less generosity, less reason, less equanimity... Lemmy WAS Motorhead, and Motorhead WAS Lemmy in a way that say Hawkwind was never going to be Lemmy or vice-versa, but in both Hawkwind and Motorhead, Lemmy granted Metal an indomitable forward inertial mass and momentum. Always onward, always forward, no sleep til. Unstoppable. Whether careening with abandon, crushing under treads of war machines, or trudging solemnly til death. I have spent a significant fraction of my life with Lemmy. Part of me will always belong to Motorhead and nothing but. I never got to see him live, and that I will always regret. My favorite Motorhead albums are the post-1916/March Or Die 90's albums Bastards, Sacrifice and Overnight Sensation, but I love all of them and have a strong fondness for Iron Fist, 'Fast' Eddie Clark's last album with the group and the one he produced for them. Here is an amazing trailer for 'Iron Fist' which I had somehow never seen before tonight! This may be literally the coolest thing I have ever seen and it would play before this would happen! Fast Eddie was replaced by Brian Robertson from Thin Lizzy, and Another Perfect Day )1983) was their only album with him, filled with beautiful, melodic leads and ornamentation. This also is among my all-time favorite Motorhead albums. Note: an earlier edition of this article went Iron Fist: Brian Robertson! which elided this whole section, and had me basically asserting that Brian Robertson played on Iron Fist which is CLEARLY NOT TRUE! My journalistic ethics/editing skills are buried under all of this phlegm and lack of oxygen, apparently. I am sorry faithful blog readers for leading you astray! Anyway, both Iron Fist and Another Perfect Day are among my most favorite Motorhead albums and are totally worth your time. For the record, Motorhead was unhappy with Eddie's production on Iron Fist (which honestly I like) and Brian Robertson's flashiness and fashion sense and spending too much time on preparing solos and leads and whatnot, which I also like, although it does not seem very 'Motorhead'. Here is Motorhead live with Brian Robertson in 1984 from the 1986 VHS Deaf Not Blind, with the awesome song 'One Track Mind' My favorite Motorhead song of all time, though, is "I Am The Sword" from Bastards (1993). This is the perfect Motorhead song because it encapsulates the grief, the weariness, the sorrow, the total lethality and never-ending carnage of war. It is not celebratory, but rueful and sad, angry at being used over and over again in this manner, for endless slaughter. From this general period, off of Overnight Sensation (1996)I also really like "I Don't Believe A Word" I HAVE SEEN THE SKY TURN BLACK!!!!! I have noticed that old, bitter, cosmically pessimistic Lemmy tends to be my favorite of all the Lemmys. To complete our tour of this, my favorite Motorhead era, here is the 'official video' for 'Sacrifice' from Sacrifice (1995) One of the things I love most about the mid-Nineties Motorhead was their almost blackened-death levels of harshness of attack and overall resolute grimness. This was a Motorhead that someone had (maybe?) played Bolt Thrower to. My favorite recent Motorhead song is 'Coup De Grace' off of 2013's Aftershock. It was the one I played the most in the Forester. It seemed especially heavy to me, but I like that album a lot, actually. It seems appropriate to stop with one of their most recent songs, 'Till The End' from Bad Magic (2015). We could always trust you, Lemmy. You never let us down. Love Forever & Ever & Ever Wait, though, I can't stop until never, but especially not til I have Motorhead playing 'Motorhead' live, because that would be wrong!!!! I had told myself that I wouldn't do this, but I feel like if not now, then when? And if not for Lemmy, than for who, ever???? So in the Spirit of Lemmy: Once Again & Always LOVE!!!!!! LOVE!!!!!! LOVE!!!!!!

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