Motörhead: Keep Us On the Road (Live '77)

COMMENTER THANK YOU'S (#3 in an intermittent series).

(As MRML's thanks to the great commenters, those who add to the
conversation here, I'll be trying to fulfill some of their requests.
This one is for Biopunk, just 'cuz.

Yeah, generally speaking, I despise heavy metal and each and every one of the ten million meaningless micro-genres it has spawned. I could try to defend this loathing (I have before and will again) but slandering a long-lasting, wide-spread genre of music is hopelessly immature and utterly pointless. Really, if the music survives, it's because it fills some sort of need and my deep-seated belief that heaviness is the dullest possible metric of good music won't affect Joe Metal, nor should it. Really, if you break down any of my (or your own) genre hatreds, they're likely just a jumble of petty prejudices and personal preferences dressed up as objective criticism. So, rather than having me regurgitate why I believe that the early Motörhead weren't really a heavy metal band, let's simply admit that, all genre-babble aside, Lemmy kicks ass.

This out-of-print (and going for upwards of $350.00 on Amazon) collection combines the 1989 release, Blitzkrieg On Birmingham '77' with 1990's Lock Up Your Daughters' into one ferocious package. This is Motörhead in a crucial early phase when they were just a three-piece consisting of Philthy Phil Taylor on drum, Fast Eddie Clarke on guitar and the fearsome, guttural bass and vocals of Lemmy Kilmister.

Keep Us On the Road link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, what's your pet peeve genre?

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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