RIP Lemmy

[Mr_Bojangles]

Yes it was his time and yes he packed more living into one life than most people will dream of but I'm still bitterly sad at his passing.

It's not fake plastic emotion from me.

I meant more people that only know Ace of Spades and are all aboard the grief train on Facebook.

Re-reading that post I must've been upset when I did that.

 

[blackshadow]

Poor bugger was on his last legs for a while by the sound of it and didn't know that cancer was taking hold.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/n...d-celebrated-70th-stared-down-cancer-20151229

 

[Beerfish]

So glad I got see them back in 05. He ****ing blew the doors off the place too. Was awesome.

 

[TooFar]

He was certainly an odd character, but also a pioneer and a Rock legend. RIP

Young Lemmy in his Space Rock days.

 

[Paul Kersey]

Wonder what the crowd and band took that day.

 

[blackshadow]

Wonder what the crowd and band took that day.

There's only one thing for hawkwind....

 

[bombersfan4000]

Poor bugger was on his last legs for a while by the sound of it and didn't know that cancer was taking hold.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/n...d-celebrated-70th-stared-down-cancer-20151229

About 3 years ago motorhead cancelled a heap of shows due to Lemmys health, from then on you could tell he wasn't well as he lost a heap of weight and didn't loom well

 

[Damon_3388]

 

[mianfei]

I meant more people that only know ‘Ace of Spades’ and are all aboard the grief train on Facebook.

Re-reading that post I must've been upset when I did that.

Ace of Spades was #22 on Joe S. Harrington’s Top 100 Albums – which seems so ancient now since it was written as far back as 2001 to 2003, but I will always recall it because it altered my perception of music so much, even if I had no desire to copy Harrington’s tastes.

22. Ace of Spades – Motörhead (Bronze, 1980):
This was their magnum opus, but their fate was already assured by this time – after three absolutely wonderful albums, the greatest “power trio” since Hendrix waxed an LP that defined speed-metal aggression and punk fury at a time when those boundaries were first being crossed. At first, the hordes of metal were opposed to punk, and vice-versa, probably due to the difference in hairstyles more than anything. Lemmy, a true journeyman who’d toiled through the whole British scene and had always been on the wrong side of everything – kicked out of HAWKWIND, how bad can it get? – was NOT aghast at the breakneck fury of punk. To Lemmy it seemed like an inevitable conclusion. Here was a guy who actually saw the Beatles at the Cavern Club – he was THAT old, so he knew punk of a gutter variety, going back to rock’s goddamn first decade…like Frank Zappa circa “Bobby Brown,” he was NOT in fear of a bunch of 20 year old shaveheads with objects stuck through their earlobes and nostrils. Taking a swig of Carlsberg, he took one look at them and said: “Oy, you think THAT’S bad, listen to THIS…” Then he gave them albums like Motörhead, Overkill, Bomber and Ace of Spades. In three short years, Motörhead had established a legacy to rival their spiritual stateside brethren, the Ramones, but no-one in America was listening…until this album. Lumped in with the “new wave” of metal coming out of England at the time (Saxon, Iron Maiden, etc.), Motörhead was far less reliant on guitar virtuosity, concentrating instead on an absolute juggernaut of whipping guitars, freight train rhythms and of course Lemmy’s trademark gruff vocals.

Not quite punk, not quite metal, it was a WHOLE NEW FORM OF MUSIC, and it helped rock finally cross the barrier into SHEER AGGRESSION and RAGE, making possible everything from Henry Rollins to Metallica to Big Black to Nine Inch Nails. Making sheer FORCE-as-idiom a reality was what it was all about, even though the great thing about Motörhead, unlike those later losers, was that they didn’t lose the ROCK’N’ROLL quotient either. Lemmy made sure of that, because rock & roll in its original form was his BIRTHRIGHT (as epitomised by the “Born to Lose/Live to Win” credo that he adhered to). Therefore, guitarist Fast Eddie Clark always had that CHUCK BERRY as well. Lemmy as a lyricist was no slouch of course – has any song ever put it better than ‘The Chase Is Better Than the Catch’? That is really what it is all about, and the “you know I’m born to lose/And gambling’s for fools” part of ‘Ace of Spades’ is pretty sage as well. Not a joke band by any definition, they are probably, as far as consistency goes, one of the greatest groups to ever rock the gospel. Vindicate them, venerate them, since only the Ramones and AC/DC can claim an equal arsenal. Taken together, they were the three post-atomic Super Powers of the Super Rock era (with apologies to the Dictators, of course, who fell just short of nuclear due to their limited lifespan. Had the Dictators stayed together for six more months they would have reached it). One other thing about Lemmy you gotta admire is that he tried every drug and form of liquor known to man, with relentless abandon (which is how he did everything) but he never died, which was probably his saving grace. There is a lesson in there somewhere.

Motörhead, although they never dented the Top 100 on Billboard – neither did Lemmy’s previous band Hawkwind – achieved substantial commercial success in Europe and had tremendous influence on the thrash metal bands who were to be the cutting-edge of white music and culture during the Reagan and Bush Senior Eras. Metallica said that without Motörhead, there would be no Metallica. Like AC/DC, Motörhead saw their music as simply rock and roll, but took it in a totally new direction – although, perhaps because they never achieved commercial success in the States, Motörhead were lauded by critics from the start.

 

[TooFar]

Lemmy singing about pushing his life to the limit. From Slash's underrated first solo album.

 

[blackshadow]

I watched the doco Lemmy on US Netflix yesterday. Absolute ripping doco and insight into the man.

 

[Running Dog]

Good write up in the Review (Weekend Australian, 23-24 April), by Mick Wall. Hard to disagree with the conclusion that Lemmy was a "Great British eccentric."