Motorhead: Leaving Here

"We only knew three chords but we arranged them pretty well."
Lemmy Kilmster

I too had a metal phase. It was the sixth grade and my Classic Rock station spun Dio-era Sabbath (Heaven and Hell) That Other Guy*-era Iron Maiden (Self-Titled), the resurgent-era Judas Priest (British Steel) and of course, prime-era Motorhead (Ace of Spades). By the seventh grade I'd gone backwards to a sixties rock phase before moving moving sideways into that long-term obsession that is punk rock.
*I know it's Paul Di'Anno, I just don' t care all that much.



I haven't listened to any of those aforementioned albums since 1981, other than Ace of Spades. Re-listening to it in the cold light of the 21st century it remains a bludgeoning work but it's not an archetypal heavy metal album like the others. For a long time, Motorhead transcended heavy metal, building an audience of bikers, punks, acid-heads as well as heshers. (Of course,when they came to Winnipeg, a North American banger hot spot in the eighties, the radio ad went "Heav-y! Met-al! Motor! Head!" with lotsa echo.)




Motorhead simply are, as one album title had it, rock n' roll. On their debut single with its Chuck Berry-isms and its cover of the Birds' (via Holland-Dozier-Holland!) "Leavin' Here", Motorhead sound like a super-charged pub-rock band. After all they began on Stiff (for this single) then moved onto Chiswick, both labels associated with former pub rockers playing punk/new wave. Of course they suffered none of the hide-bound conservatism of that genre and stole bits from the entire history of rock n' roll ( Lemmy and early co-leader Larry Wallis both played in seventies psychedelic bands - Hawkwind and Pink Fairies respectively). It's a guttural, grungy rock n' roll - "everything louder then everything else" went the slogan - that's influenced a million bands, too many of whom missed Lemmy's impish humour.



Download White Line Fever/Leaving Here 7"

"If Motorhead moved in next door to you, your lawn would die."
Lemmy Kilmster