Friday, July 16, 2010

No Sleep

As Lemmy reminisces with his son and tells us a funny story about the other son he never knew, one suddenly notices a Nazi flag in the background. It is, to say the least, distracting, and hard to explain at first. Then it turns out Lemmy is a quite nearly offensively extensive collector of Nazi memorabilia. He has an entire wall covered in Nazi daggers. He has a happy-new-year card from Hitler himself, given to him by Ozzy Osbourne as a present. He wears Nazi crosses around an American army base and knows an alarming amount about German WWII tanks. And so, as one might expect, the film’s crew eventually asks him what he would say to people who might call him a Nazi. His answer is that he’s had six black girl friends, and, jokingly, that this must make him one the worst Nazis ever. And then he says “if the Israelis made the best uniforms, I’d collects theirs.” Lemmy is not a Nazi. He’s also right, seeing as Hugo Boss had and has had no hand in designing and manufacturing for any other army. And this type of fuck-you-this-is-who-I-am attitude, which is surprisingly most often kind, is Lemmy in a nutshell. A man with a tremendous ability to stick to his guns, a hoarder, a gambler, a drunk (although a functional one) by everyone’s account, the king of the handle-beard—Lemmy owes most everything he’s reaped to himself. You, and I, and most everyone we know, cannot say that.
Feature at fantasia last night, Lemmy, the yet to be distributed documentary about Ian Fraser "Lemmy" Kilmister, frontman and sole constant-member of the longstanding rock band Motörhead, comes with a simple overarching message: Lemmy is Motörhead. And as I went in a bit of a Motörhead fan, I exited a solid Lemmy admirer, feeling my skinny jeans, which everyone tells me are too tight, had been vindicated forever. Motörhead has the distinction of being almost universally beloved by punks, metalheads and rockers alike. Motörhead is also the creation, according to this film, of someone who pretty much hasn’t changed their hair, facial hair, clothes, habits or frame of mind in an admirably long time. Lemmy believes in himself; with no pretense and as consistenly as he breathes. To see this in action, to see a man who has figured it out for himself as Lemmy seems to, and considering the way he figures it, is odd. I mean here is a musician who godfathered metal, bridged it to punk and who swears Elvis, Little Richard and Jerry Lewis are the one’s responsible for the birth of rock n’ roll, period. This is, to put it plainly, a load of shit—Elvis didn’t have a creative bone in his body, nor did he write a single one of any decent song he ever performed, Little Richard is barely discernable (and sounds no where near as great) from his influences and Jerry Lewis was a very funny, powerful, joke, a jack of all trades and no founder of rock n’ roll. Any record geek will list at least ten names who had a bigger hand in rock n’ roll's inception than those guys. But then one must remember many, if not most, great musicians build from scratch, and do not collect, their musical culture. The best artists are consistently better than what they build on and from; Lemmy is evidence to this fact. He is an unstoppable force, something mostly brand new and entirely his own. Motörhead is a monument to his way. It matters so very little whether some of his opinions and ways are questionable to you and me; what matters is merely that Lemmy will be his Lemmy self, no matter what.
So what stays with me is the incredible brand of peculiar, natural and, somehow, modest sureness Lemmy seems to radiate throughout the film. I am left with a man who wears a denim Motörhead jacket, but that of the crew. A man who plays his base with the treble way up, and like a guitar. A man pressing the button on his “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” fish in his bathroom and who mouths along to the lyrics, stone-faced. A man asking about the Beatles mono disc-set at the local record store. A man glued to reams of Family Guy episodes on the tour bus. Constantly shaking hands with the One Armed Bandit. Who plays in a rockabilly band called The Headcats. Who owns a Playstation II. Who rubs more cologne on his face than anyone I will ever see. Who thanks no one for getting him where he is but his mom and his grandmother. Who never touched heroin and, at 17, sat still for three days after his girlfriend overdosed on it, in the bathtub, and died. Whom Hawkwind fired. Who has no respect for novelty, or The Darkness’ brand of it. Who fucked three (3) of his Hawkwind bandmate’s girlfriends after getting fired. Who miraculously made it to 63. Who has diabetes and high blood pressure. Who has his boots made special. Who is nice to, of all people, Dave Grohl. Who wears daisy-dukes. Who filled in on base for The Damned when Brian James left. Who only, seemingly, wears black. Who says, of Prince, “I’ve already seen Jimi Hendrix.” Who checks out the Pat Benatar section. Who jams out, for 20 minutes, with his 6-year-old son. Whom Kat Von D called “my dream man.” Who plays in a 120db band. Who introduces them by saying “We are Motörhead, we play rock n’ roll.”

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