The verdict is in and was never really in doubt: Lemmy is sui generis. Sui genius, too.
Lemmy who? Nevermind; if you don’t know, you won’t understand (you need to know, but you’d need to know a lot of other things –way too many things– in order to facilitate first-name-only recognition).
I saw them live in 1994 and was astonished he was still alive, then.
This has, in many ways, been the year of Lemmy: he was featured in Spin (wonderfully and disgustingly, in an issue that featured the anti-Motorhead poseurs U2) and in a recent issue of Rolling Stone (wonderfully and disgustingly, in an issue that features uber-anti-Motorhead pop confection Madonna).
Do yourselves a favor and check out both pieces if you can.
Here are some particuarly delightful tidbits culled from both pieces:
“People ask me, ‘Who is the king of heavy metal?’ Ozzy Osbourne says. “And it would absolutely be Lemmy. Lemmy, to me, is the epitome of what being a rock star is all about.”
“They used to say LSD wouldn’t work if you took it two days straight (Lemmy says). We found out if you doubled the dose it did.”
Ozzy: “On the ‘Blizzard of Oz’ tour (where Motorhead was the opening act) Lemmy had a plaid bag with three books and a notepad. No change of clothes. His fucking rider was seven bottles of bourbon, eight bottles of vodka, two bottles of orange juice, and that’s fucking it! He’s not fucking human.”
“It’s very much up to you, how you shape your life,” (Lemmy says). “I mean, I missed out on human relationships. But looking at relationships that I’ve seen along the way, I don’t think I’ve missed much.”
In his (2002 biography) ‘White Line Fever’, Lemmy admiringly points out that The Beatles were ‘hard men’ from rough parts of Liverpool. ‘Ringo’s from the Dingle, which is like the fucking Bronx.”
Lemmy (as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix in ’67) used to grab a chair (every night) and sit in the wings to watch Hendrix play. “There was no point in trying to learn from him. You couldn’t tell how he was doing it. It was like magic.”
“Every band that’s used special effects has had ‘Spinal Tap’ moments. The more elaborate you try to make your show, the more likely you aer to end up looking the cunt.”
“We weren’t a dreamy, trippy band. We were a black fucking nightmare. We would lock all of the doors of the venue so people couldn’t get out.” Throughout the show, the band who have five strobe lights going–pointed directly at the audience rather than the stage. Lemmy says the bandmates would throw acid onto the crowd out of a dropper. They’d also spike audience members’ drinks with LSD. “I don’t remember anyone complaining,” Lemmy says.
Lemmy recalls heading to the Roxy, a London punk club, to check out the fuss. “I was standing at the bar…getting all sorts of suspicious looks, when I heard a voice behind me say, ‘I used to sell acid at your shows!’ It was Johnny Rotten.
He didn’t meet his son until he was six years old, and he remains wholly unapologetic about this fact. “They’re not real people before that anyway.”
He does not own a computer.
“I’d rather die than live the life that would mean completely giving up everything that makes life worth living.”
