Motorhead

A few years back before I developed an aversion to a good hard day's work, I was working on a construction crew alongside a crew of Amish masons. The electricians working inside the house had a local country station blasting away all day, and this one Amish kid, sixteen maybe (he didn't yet have a beard anyway) was pleading with the workers inside to change the channel to Rock 104. "Metal," he hollered, "find the metal." Being the ever inquisitive anthro-musicologist that I am, I asked the Amish kid about his favorite bands. "Judas Priest is good," he replied, "but Motorhead rules!" Such an endorsement from such an unlikely source is testament to the pervasive nature of Motorhead. Make that the insidious nature of Motorhead, or better yet, perverse and insidious nature of Motorhead: minute distinctions that I'm sure would meet with Lemmy's approval. After all, humidity is pervasive. Noting the stealthy and seductive manner in which the hardest, nastiest, and most tenacious heavy rock act in history seeps into the consciousness of a God fearing teenage member of the most austere of religious sects requires special treatment. Perverse and insidious it is.

How Motorhead's music finds it's way into such far flung places is anyone's guess. After all, they've never been the radio staple that slicker, prettier metal outfits are. And yet, 25 years after Creem magazine dubbed them "the worst band in the world," the various incarnations of Motorhead have tenaciously fought through hell and high water to earn legendary status among critics and fans alike. It's that persistence, and insidious quality, that lends credence to Motorhead founder and bassist Lemmy's widely quoted axiom: "we have always been here, we will always be here, and you'll have to listen to us eventually."

Motorhead is the prototypical metal band. Bands like Steppenwolf may have anticipated the onslaught of heavy metal, but never in his wildest dreams could John Kay have ever imagined a band that so thoroughly embodied the aesthetic of his masterpiece "Born To Be Wild." Motorhead is a full throttle, ear splitting Harley ride against traffic that never runs out of gas or stops for roadblocks, because it's better to die in the saddle than live in chains.

Sure, other hard rock bands predated Motorhead, but Lemmy and company brought it all together in one tight package: all of the earsplitting intensity with no blues noodling, or progressive rock detours. All of the energy, anarchy and chaos of punk, but with serious chops to back it up. Heavy metal as we know it is loaded with various conventions, most of which can be traced back to Motorhead. There is of course Lemmy's trademark barking up at a downturned microphone. The tattoo emblazoned bare arms and white Jerry Lee Lewis shoes. What are now clichés in the hands of other bands are Lemmy's trademarks. Odes to orgasmic sexual obsession: Lemmy. Fight the power rants: Lemmy. Heavy metal, speed metal, death metal, thrash and grunge: Lemmy, Lemmy, Lemmy, Lemmy, Lemmy. How many metal heads does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Forget it, Lemmy's already done it.

In the liner notes to the band's latest release, WE ARE MOTORHEAD, Lemmy makes the apology, "as you get older, you get slower." If Lemmy is slowing down, you won't find much evidence of it on WE ARE MOTORHEAD. "We are the flame at night, the fire in the trash," Lemmy bellows on the title track, "We are Motorhead, born to kick your a**." The album starts kickin' from the git go, with Lemmy serving up ten ruminations on his two favorite subjects: unbridled lust and personal freedom.

The album opens with the blistering guitar barrage of "See Me Burning," yet another chapter in Lemmy's eternal search for the perfect woman---an "orgasmatron" as he puts it---a woman with enough stamina to keep pace with a rock and roller's maniacal sexual obsession, and yet strong enough to wad him up and toss him off after the party is over. In Lemmy's world, real men and women don't get all bogged down in sticky sweet sentiment. That's not to say that ol' Lem doesn't believe in true love, it's just that he doesn't separate it from the lust that lights the fire in the first place.

Guys like Robert Plant can claim to be progenitors of the sort of hysterical, histrionic howling of "squeeze me ‘til the juice runs down my leg" lyrics ripped off from old blues tunes. Lemmy's delivery is, well, pure Lemmy: somewhere between a growl and a groan. None of that operatic hysteria. Spewed from the spit pipe of Lemmy, odes to orgasm come off with all the eloquence and charm of Keats writing limericks. "You look like the ghost of Cinderella/you look like you'd go a country mile/where's the action honey/speak and tell me true/even if you don't know what I'm saying/ you look like you know the ones who do."

Lemmy's world is all about free will. Not that high morality, be-all-that-you-can-be and let the rest of the world be damned Ayn Rand idealism that Geddy Lee is always harping on. Lemmy's not about trying to live up to some pie in the sky ideal, he's all for living in your own skin. "You see the shape I'm in," he sings on ‘One More F***ing Time,' "it wasn't of my choosing/it's only bones and skin." On "Heart On Your Sleeve," Lemmy displays his scathing cynicism toward social conventions and institutions. "Use what you find in yourself to succeed," he advises, because "politics s**k, you'll be s**t out of luck/if you ever mess with the methods they use/no way to doubt, three strikes you're out/you against them, it's your freedom you lose."

When I think back on that Amish Motorhead fan, I guess it all makes perfect sense. After all, the Amish hold to the basic belief that staying close to God boils down to one simple premise: keep it simple. For twenty five years and counting, Lemmy and Motorhead have been preaching their own simple message: good lovin' and loud rock and roll will set you free and solve all of your problems. Oh, if were only so simple.