OK, I'm going a little off piste here but bear with me. Motorhead hated to be catagorised as a this band or that band. To Lemmy, his Motorhead were a rock 'n' roll band, no other label was warrented or welcome. They drew their influence from the blues and rock 'n' roll as opposed to the hard rock bands that preceded them like, Black Sabbath or Deep Purple. At the time they released the eponymous 'Motorhead' album in 1977 a new music blitzed London Town and whilst Lemmy and Fast Eddie Clarke had a few years on the capital's punk bands, the fact that they drank in the same pubs and frequented the same parties meant that this trio of two hippys and a punky drummer were accepting of and accepted by the punk bands and punk audiences too.
Nobody sounded like Motorhead, but if comparisons were to be made the noise that they made was not a million miles away from the early output of The Damned or the Pistols, the former in particular. Listen to 'The Hammer' or 'Motorhead' and decide which side of the fence that their music is on, punk or metal?
I have mentioned on these pages before that at the time that I started secondary school (1980), music was a tribal affair and whilst it wasn't really possible to be into all genres, there was no avoiding some familiarity with what your class mates were listening to. In my case quite a few were into Motorhead. Some of them were also well into the NWOBHM scene that was emerging at that time and whilst the likes of Saxon and Samson did nothing to me, I got the Motorhead thing. Then as now there is something both iconic and timeless about them.... especially the 'classic' line up of Lemmy, Fast Eddie and Philthy Animal Taylor.
New Musical Express (6th June 1981)
In the forty year career that Motorhead enjoyed they did attain a hard-earned legendary status, but like so many bands they only had a relatively short period during which they were really on fire and that was between 1979 and 1981. In that period, they released studio albums 'Overkill', 'Bomber' and 'Ace of Spades' and the live showstopper 'No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith'. Recorded mostly on the March 1981 'Short Sharp Pain in the Neck' tour, the album featured choice tracks from the three above mentioned studio albums plus early singles.
The album reached No. 1 in the UK album charts, a rare feat for a live album. Dr Feelgood had achieved the same accolade back in 1976 with 'Stupidity'. The Feelgoods, like Motorhead, were considered to be 'live' band. The concensus was that 'Stupidity' and 'No Sleep' were able to capture the live experience of these two frenetic British bands in a way that a studio album could not... warts and all... in Lemmy's case at least.
'No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith' is a glorious noise and for my money can sit in a Top 30 punk chart if it wants to!
Next time I pass through Stoke on another family history mission I will be sure to stop by Lem's statue in Burslem.
Over to the critics.
Record Collector (6th June 1981)
Well, they certainly got it.
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