It’s been a while since I posted anything about music in this blog, but today I felt like writing something about my favorite band of them all, Motörhead. More in particular, I’d want to write a bit about their last album entitled Bad Magic. It was released on August 28th in 2015, so it’s long overdue. This would be the band’s 22nd studio album, and I only came to realize later on that this would end up being Lemmy’s will more or less. The album is full of energy and fighting spirit, yet you also realize Lemmy is reminiscing about the life he led…
While I’ve had this album on CD and listened to it about a million times while driving, the vinyl version I haven’t played often. As you can see I bought some limited edition picture disk that looks neat, but happens to be fairly shitty in sound. It does however not change my perception of this album’s greatness. Quite sure at some point I’ll frame this one up against the wall when I get a proper vinyl version of it. To those that know me a little it won’t be a surprise that I’ve always been crazy about Motörhead, because of their loud nature, their complex-less attitude: We are Motörhead, and we play Rock ‘n Roll! What fascinates me to this day is how over 4 decades, Motörhead have continued to release interesting work while delivering massive live performances throughout. There’s many bands that also lasted 40 years or even longer, but only few of them remain doing really inspired work throughout. Anyway, you don’t have to take my word for it, you can just play this record (or stream it or whatever) and make up your mind about it.
Onto some of the music then? As I mentioned before, this album is full of energy, as it starts of with Victory or die, sang more like Victory or Death, but that might be a coincidence? It goes on along the same tracks with Thunder and Lightning, where Lemmy makes the perks of being in a band obvious: Get what you want, do what you can, you’ll get more pussy, when you’re in a band! Right after that it’s time to check in at The firestorm hotel, one of those typical stops on the road where you don’t go for the glory, haven’t I seen that place in a movie before? “Chaos rules in the empty pools of the firestorm hotel!” Anyway, I won’t go through all the songs one by one. There’s more of the melancholic songs I’d like to focus my attention on, as these are really worth a listen. In “Till the end…” Lemmy really reflects on life in something that sounds more balad-like than anything else. There’s some more heavy intermezzo then with “Tell me who to kill” and “Chocking on your screams“, before the only song they ever played live from this album follows: “When The Sky Comes Looking for you“. While the last song on this record is a cover, it’s a super mellow yet go-out-with-a-bang song, as Motörhead take on the Rolling Stones classic “Sympathy for the Devil“.
Soon after listening to this masterpiece I realized I had to make sure I’d take the chance to see Motörhead play on what might be their last tour. Unfortunately, there were no shows scheduled anywhere nearby, so I had to travel a little. I found out that there was a gig scheduled on the first of December in Gothenburg. I just moved out of there half a year earlier, so I rang up my former crew boss of The Gothenburg Crew and asked if I could come and work the Motörhead show. Obviously I could join for the load out, and as a bonus I got to see Motörhead one last time. It turned out that the band already had to cancel a few shows in Germany to still be able to play the Gothenburg show and a few more that followed. As drummer Mickey D. is from Gothenburg, they definitely wanted to assure he could play there for friends and family. Next to Lemmy safe guarding my whiskey collection there’s a frame with the crew shirt of that night, about 20 versions of the setlist, a used drum strick from Mickey D, a backstage pass and a guitar pick that reads “We are the Local Road Crew”. Definitely a nice gesture from the band!
One might wonder why I also tagged this post in the Burnout blues section? Maybe because most music also helps in getting a new perspective on things, it might help you reflect on things. This one definitely has been helpful in hard times, as have many records about which I will probably write something here in future. On a side note, we had a great first Record Fair at Rock Cafe last week, where I also brought back some nice records that I’ll probably be posting here too! Things have been a bit rough the past few weeks, but I’m glad I feel like testing out all that vinyl that’s still waiting here!
