It was is neither a shock or something tragic in it. Lemmy had been struggling with health in recent years. Cancelled concert with Motörhead was becoming a habit. The last album was full of the same symbolism. It went instinctively toward the end, we knew it all along.
On Christmas Eve he filled 70. Yesterday he died. And despite all these previsions, we knew where the bar, outperformed its novelty as blytungt down for many of us who like rock’n’roll. Facebook and Twitter were papered with mournful greetings and sad statement.
was not just another death in the musicians’ ranks. This was the day when someone took power from the PA system. At least it felt that way, one gets the often somewhat sentimental and bombastic when confronted with death and thus are reminded that everything is transient. Even Lemmy proved that to be there, he also. But that Lemmy would die was still an absurd thought.
There are just a few weeks ago I saw a picture someone had shared on Facebook, it must have been from the latter half of the 80s, under one or another festival, where Lemmy stood and grinned at his mustache with several distinguished musicians around him. They were members of Guns’ N Roses, Metallica and Megadeth, band that has sold an incredible lot more slices than Motörhead.
The longhaired musicians, all a head shorter than Lemmy, stands all looking up at idol, like a bunch of småfnisende teenage fans. Lemmy in caps, wearing a leather jacket while he sipper to a glass of Jack Daniel’s and Coke. The comment under the picture was something a la “Lemmy is entertaining some female fans.” I laughed loud and long. It was an image that said more than a thousand words.
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, rock musicians who are alive and who have sold unimaginable many more plates one Motörhead. Nevertheless, there are not many left who are on his level in terms of myths, status and deservedly legendeprefiks before his name. Keith Richards. Iggy Pop. Angus Young. And then one can begin to argue who belong and not the exclusive club.
But anyway where quarrelsome nor difficult one wants to be, it is entirely self-destructing contesting Lemmy position in rock, where a mixture of some timeless rock classics, an extremely hard life; where intoxication, nihilism, promiscuous and hedonistic lifestyle has been on edge until it comprehensible, as well as a perpetual tour with Motörhead.
Apartments shows with Motörhead, after he broke with drug space rockers Hawkwind . Discographies and year are available anywhere the Internet. In Norway they played well over 30 concerts from 1985 and until the end, now in December.
I’m a real “late bloomer,” as it is called in good Norwegian, When it comes to Motörhead. While I thought that Motörhead was a mediocre heavy band, which only becomes more and more embarrassing to think the older I get. But I saved me luckily into with honor like less intact, rescued by The Ramones, as Lemmy wrote a tribute to the Motörhead album “1916″ from 1991, and thus he got me into the fire. Later I become thoroughly introduced by colleagues and music friends, where the catalog was acquired and delved into.
I think that Motörhead is a kind of litmus test on whether you get the proper rock or not. Of course you can say in good company that Motörhead is not your thing, you’re not a huge fan, that you rank both the one and the other band higher than them. You will hardly be especially bullied or idiot positioned for that reason.
But if you draws doubts Motörhead status, messing with Lemmy position or uncover a lack of respect for both and simultaneously claim to understand you on rock, it is synonymous with a brutal reputation suicide. Rightly. Motörhead and Lemmy has as much appeal and high status among those who crave traditional and hard rock, metal, punk or other strains are released by rock played at high volume with electric instruments.
There are not so many of these in music history, as no one feels entitled to fuck with. Lemmy is one of the few. Johnny Cash was also a way. You could say that Cash is not your thing, but you can not say that Johnny Cash was lame. For Johnny Cash and Lemmy is anything but stupid, no matter how tight cliches and myths stacked immediately their names mentioned. And they will never be replaced. Simply because they were both pioneers and have been making rock as we know it today.
Lemmy speak in the film “LEMMY: 49% Motherfucker. 51% Son of a Bitch “(2011) about life in the days before it at all existed rock’n’roll, a phrase that sounds quite sick, but actually voting. And how his head was totally rearranged by seeing The Beatles at the small club The Cavern in Liverpool for over 50 years ago.
The rest is, as known history. Roadie for Jimi Hendrix. Casual work as a guitarist. Incorporating in Hawkwind. Fired from the same job. The formation of Motörhead. Sideburns, mustache, warts, Jack & amp; Cola, narcotics, groupies, mass discs and tours, more of the same up and down and in rerun.
Never anything whining about pressure. Complaining of their own health. Or how bad it is with fans who constantly want to talk to you. Lemmy lived with, for and with her fans.
My Friend and former colleague Alf was the one foisted on me the first five we Motörhead discs for “1916″. We have had many musical quarrels over the years, and many are still not finished debated, but Lemmy and Motörhead we agreed.
And so was fixed fare on Christmas Eve in plate sjappa we worked together, that we sold all Motörhead slices at half price, take note without announcing it. But Lemmy had a birthday on Christmas Eve, and such manner hailed, on so on a more than subtle way.
We laughed often of this, that such a little “Christmassy” artist birthday on Christmas Eve. And I think the purely personal that it was fun to figure out the band’s biggest single, iconic “Ace of Spades”, came out on my own birthday in 1980, with the band dressed up in Santa Claus suits on the cover.
And I used to say to Alf that it is going to be infinitely sad when people like Lemmy door. We will then lose one of our own, that one of the main exponents of unpretentious and uncompromising rock will disappear and that it liberating and necessary counterpart to helseproklamerende health tyranny ster we disappear.
When used always Alf seeing fatherly on me and say quietly, “He Lemmy, Egon. He dies never . He Lemmy can not die. He Lemmy é not like that like us. So relax. ” This was the last Christmas Alf and we also got the opportunity to say that Lemmy can not die. Obviously he was made of flesh and blood, he too. And it makes me very sad. That the original drummer, Phil “Philty Animal” Taylor, would die in September this year then means that only “Fast” Eddie Clarke left from the glory days.
I remember not exact what year it was, but it at Rockefeller in Oslo sometime late nineties, and I saw Motörhead for the third time. They started habitual coolt that Lemmy stood under the overly loud hooked microphone and bellowed out, “Good evening! We are Motörhead and we play rock’n’roll! ‘. As he always did.
This was the course to get goosebumps everytime. But what I remember best is a moment of magic in the middle of the same concert. I think that they had blown off a grueling version of “Damage Case” from “Overkill” dial. All set. Everything worked. Lots fists in the air. Lots of sweaty bodies and wet hair. Lots of hair. Beer in sacking flows. Collective happiness and infantile madness so just rock at its best can be.
When the song was perfectly finished, it was one of those moments that are not possible to attach to tape or film. You must be there to understand it. And right here we realized all that. This was such a moment. And I do not know if it was the same on Lemmy, he was already an old man with several thousand concerts in the belt.
He stopped still up, looked toward a searchlight and spat out her cigarette against the barriers scene sparks flew up, blew a thick plume against the blue shone from the ceiling. Then he said, while he almost nodded to his own conclusion: “Yeah. We ARE rock’n’roll! ‘. It is one of the toughest I’ve ever seen, the five seconds there.
And was what they were, Motörhead and Lemmy. Incarnated rock’n’roll, so it was meant to be in its original form. Tough, provocative, dangerous, assertive, relentless and unite downstairs for those who love it. Asking Lemmy rest in peace seems completely pointless, a man who more than anyone has opposed peace and harmony throughout his adult life.
There are rather nothing to suggest that he even thought of something new or eternal life in the hereafter. But there is every reason to feel a sorrow today, because now we’ve lost one of the foremost and most historically and objectively greatest exponents and legends of the foremost and finest cultural expressions the way we know. Or rock’n’roll, if you want.
Measured up against Lemmy gets most of the industry some trashy goblin ladder.
So thanks , Lemmy. For everything. Shit worked.
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