One of the last wildmen of the rock ‘n’ roll frontier is gone. He packed up his four-stringed axe, smoked a final fag, downed a quart of poison and kicked down the door to Valhalla, all to the strains of his band’s garage rawk rendition of Louie Louie.
Motörhead singer and bass player Lemmy Kilmister might have been killed by death but there’s no way he’s stone dead forever.
Lemmy was that scary but wise older guy who’d buy you beers and hook you up with weed when you were just a snot droplet learning to headbang. He was rock ‘n’ roll in a way most of us are too scared to be. He was the guy we wanted to be.
Lemmy raised an iron fist, flashed the ace of spades and got on his iron horse to ride away beyond the confines of square society, away from the safety of steady jobs and family bullshit. Into the wilds of rock ‘n’ roll, where the drugs were plentiful, the drink flowed, and the women were dangerous and loose.
At least that’s how we liked to think of him. Always standing there in his black leathers, warts and all, beckoning the innocents and squares to come on over to the dark side. That 3am world of doing lines of some nasty looking powder in a wet and funky toilet cubicle in some shit heel club. Down another vodka, chase it with a beer, crank me up, crank me up. Your legs turn to jelly and you think you can still dance. The DJ drops Eat the Rich and you somehow defy physics and chemistry long enough to perform a retarded boogie for the next three minutes. Most of us could live like that for a few years in our twenties, maybe for a few nights a week; Lemmy lived that life for probably a good 50 years.
Lemmy was the living, breathing relic connection to the dirt beneath the nails madness that sprung from the backwoods lunacy of 1950s rockabilly. Lemmy poured his soul into making music that raised a middle finger to societal propriety. Motörhead transcended the sectarian turf wars that used to mark out metal from punk from rock from thrash, etc – everybody respected Motörhead.
I saw Motörhead a couple of times. First as a pretty clueless 19-year-old kid from the burbs, along with a bunch of school friends. We were worried we’d get beaten up because one of us was wearing a poncy, distressed brown leather jacket. The show was at Festival Hall – an appropriately scungy venue – and the crowd was a solid sea of metalheads and bikers all decked out in black and blue. The hair was long. The atmosphere was rowdy. The music was deafening. It was awesome.
The second time was only a few years ago. This time Motörhead played with the original gangsters of Oz rock, Rose Tattoo, and a scarier crowd you would be hard pressed to find. Motörhead were every bit as good this time around, almost two decades on from when I first saw them.
If I was more like Lemmy, more rock ‘n’ roll, I think I’d be heading to a tattoo parlour now to get a portrait of the great man inked into my skin as a reminder of what rock ‘n’ roll still means in these sanitised times. Rough, dirty, grungy, and with a biting sense of humour, Lemmy and his ilk feel like a throwback to wilder times. As it is, I have to get a barbecue ready and clean up around the house a little. My wife and two-year-old will be home soon and I’m still sitting here in my underpants listening to my scratched up old copy of No Remorse. The beer in my hand is my one small concession to the debauched world of vice and good times Lemmy lived so well for 70 years.
“Only way to feel the noise is when it’s good and loud
So good I can’t believe it, screaming with the crowd
Don’t sweat it, get it back to you
Don’t sweat it, get it back to you
OVERKILL, OVERKILL, OVERKILL
On your feet you feel the beat, it goes straight to your spine
Shake your head, you must be dead if it don’t make you fly
Don’t sweat it, get it back to you
Don’t sweat it, get it back to you
OVERKILL, OVERKILL, OVERKILL
Know your body’s made to move
Feel it in your guts
Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t worth the name
If it don’t make you strut
Don’t sweat it, get it back to you
Don’t sweat it, get it back to you
OVERKILL, OVERKILL, OVERKILL”
