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From wikipedia.org<\/a> \/ \u00a9 Mark Marek<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Following the recent death of singer and guitarist Chris Rea, whose 1986 song Driving Home for Christmas<\/em> has become something of a festive-season classic, a mate of mine observed that this was yet another example of a ‘musician who\u2019s associated with a perennial Christmas song’ expiring at Christmastime.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To support his thesis, he mentioned George Michael (responsible for 1984\u2019s Last Christmas<\/em> and died on Christmas Day 2015) and Shane MacGowan (co-singer and co-writer of 1987\u2019s Fairy Tale of New York<\/em> and died on November 30th<\/sup>, 2023 \u2013 okay, not quite in the festive season but I\u2019m sure the Christmas lights were already up in Dublin at the time).\u00a0 Referencing the singers of Merry Christmas Everybody<\/em> (1973) and I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day<\/em> (1973) and the perpetrator of Mistletoe and Wine<\/em> (1988) and Saviour\u2019s Day<\/em> (1990), my mate concluded, \u201c\u2026Noddy, Roy and Cliff better take extra care in Decembers to come.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Well, today is the festive-season day of December 28th<\/sup>, 2025.\u00a0 And it marks the tenth anniversary of the death of a titan of popular music: Lemmy, front-man with one of heavy metal\u2019s most brilliant bands, Mot\u00f6rhead, and a general all-round role model for how to live your life (i.e. loudly, always disreputably and occasionally downright badly).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was going to say that Lemmy\u2019s passing at Christmastime disproves my mate\u2019s theory that only the singers of Christmas songs die during this period.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve just checked and discovered that, though Mot\u00f6rhead never recorded a Christmas song, in 2008 Lemmy did get together with ZZ Top\u2019s Billy Gibbons and the Foo Fighters\u2019 Dave Grohl and made a cover version of Chuck Berry\u2019s Run, Rudolph, Run<\/em><\/a> (1958) for the same year\u2019s album We Wish You a Metal Christmas and a Headbanging New Year<\/em>.\u00a0 (Google AI informs me the song\u2019s vibe was ‘heavy, aggressive and sinister’.)\u00a0 \u00a0So maybe there\u2019s something in it after all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Anyway, Lemmy.\u00a0 What an amazing career he had.\u00a0 Legend has it that he managed the remarkable feat of being thrown out of Hawkwind for taking too many drugs \u2013 though more likely he was thrown out for taking the wrong sort of drugs, i.e., amphetamines, which the other, hallucinogenic-loving band-members looked down on.\u00a0 He tried to teach Sid Vicious how to play bass (with a predictable lack of success).\u00a0 He composed the greatest rock \u2018n\u2019 roll song ever, Ace of Spades<\/em><\/a> (1980).\u00a0 He also gave rise to the greatest joke ever \u2013 \u201cIf Lemmy had a fight with God, who would win?<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a trick question: Lemmy is God<\/em>.\u201d \u2013 which was funny because it was true.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here, by way of a tribute to the great man, is a review of a Mot\u00f6rhead concert that I wrote back in 2008 for the University of East Anglia\u2019s student newspaper, Concrete<\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s an excitable and breathless piece of writing but, well, I had just been at a Mot\u00f6rhead concert.\u00a0 Reading it now, I have a few regrets.\u00a0 I should apologise to the late Ronnie James Dio<\/a> \u2013 in the years since, I\u2019ve come to realise I like<\/em> ‘strutting spandex-clad idiots singing songs about elves and wizards’.\u00a0 Plus, Ronnie was no idiot.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And obviously, I regret the fact that the prediction made in the final sentence didn\u2019t come true.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n MOT\u00d6RHEAD<\/strong><\/p>\n UEA, November 21st<\/sup>, 2008<\/strong><\/p>\n If the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm ever creates a Nobel Prize for Heavy Metal, surely its first recipient will be Lemmy, singer, bassist and general driving force of Mot\u00f6rhead.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Founded in the 1970s, a decade when heavy metal consisted of strutting spandex-clad idiots singing songs about elves and wizards (e.g. Rainbow) or about their abilities in making vigorous love to the ladies (e.g. Whitesnake), Mot\u00f6rhead were a revelation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lemmy\u2019s hoarse roar was stuck onto a racket of guitars played at the loudest possible volume and at the fastest possible speed, a sound that helped to spawn the speed and thrash metal sub-genres and supplied Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and co. with at least 666 tons of inspiration.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lemmy was also an early and crucial champion of Girlschool, the groundbreaking all-female metal band who helped the music to shed some of its reputation for sexism.\u00a0 And in the segregated pre-grunge era, when heavy metal and punk fans weren\u2019t supposed to associate with each another, Mot\u00f6rhead was the one metal band it was okay for punks to like.\u00a0 Lemmy and the Sex Pistols\u2019 Sid Vicious were good mates and he even tried to teach Sid how to play bass guitar \u2013 unsuccessfully, it must be said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Taking the stage tonight after a short-but-well-received set from Toronto band Danko Jones and a ludicrous-but-loveable one from Saxon \u2013 ironically one of those hoary old-style metal bands that Motorhead helped to make obsolete \u2013 Lemmy, guitarist Phil Campbell and drummer Mikkey Dee went to work with their usual, blistering single-mindedness.\u00a0 Old favourites like Bomber<\/em><\/a> (1979) and Killed by Dead<\/em><\/a> (1984) got blasted out alongside items from their new album Mot\u00f6rizer<\/em> \u2013 though unsurprisingly the new stuff didn\u2019t sound entirely different from the old stuff.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Apart from a blues pastiche where Lemmy displayed some unexpected harmonica-playing skills, this was business-as-usual in the best sense of the phrase.\u00a0 Rounding off a perfect evening for the head-grinding crowd was an encore containing Ace of Spades<\/em>, surely the most brain-batteringly brilliant song in heavy metal \u2013 and possibly in 7000 years of human civilisation as well.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The big heavy-metal news this week was that Guns n\u2019 Roses had finally put out Chinese Democracy<\/em> \u2013 an album so named because it\u2019d taken so long to record that democracy could have feasibly come to China by the time of its release.\u00a0\u00a0 From tonight\u2019s showing, however, Mot\u00f6rhead will be going strong long after China has taken over Wall Street, bought up Coca Cola and put a man on the moon.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From blabbermouth.net<\/a> \/ \u00a9 Pedro Alonso<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From wikipedia.org \/ \u00a9 Mark Marek Following the recent death of singer and guitarist Chris Rea, whose 1986 song Driving Home for Christmas has become something of a festive-season classic, a mate of mine observed that this was yet another example of a ‘musician who\u2019s associated with a perennial Christmas song’ expiring at … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/lmmy-mural-Blbao-157x300.jpg\")
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