Late one
Saturday night, 1987. My best friend Richard Pope and I are watching
“Headbangers’ Ball”. Yes kids, there was such thing as music videos on MTV and
better yet, those music videos actually involved musicians. This was pre-Guns
and Roses for us, so we anxiously awaited the next Motley Crue, Ratt or egads!,
Poison video. Sometime around midnight, we switched back after the commercial
break and saw three mean, dirty looking bikers playing a mean guitar, furious
drums and an angry growl unlike anything I’d heard before or since. With my
every-sentence-must-include-an-f-bomb teenage attitude, I asked Richard “What the fuck is this?!” He shook his
head and with the same stunned expression I surely had, then turned his
attention back to the TV.
This band
was most definitely not from the spandex and hot chicks scene we were into at
the time. Far from it. They were louder and faster than anything in our meager
cassette and vinyl collections and before the final verse, they were something
we knew we wanted more of. Something we needed more of. As the song was winding
down we watched the bottom left corner of the screen. As the final unified
bass, drum and guitar notes emanated from the tiny speaker, the caption read Motorhead.
Ace of Spades.
We looked
at each other again. “Have you heard of
these guys?” “No! You?!” “No.” Again, “What the FUCK was that?!” No
lipstick, no hairspray and not a trace of bullshit. Just pure, loud and
aggressive Rock & Roll. Every band we had seen up to that point had their
whole image and wardrobe painstakingly created, down to every last bullet belt
and studded wristband. Hell even Angus Young, lead guitarist of one of the
biggest no-frills, in your face bands in history had his little schoolboy
outfit and satchel. But not Motorhead. These guy looked like they just happened
to be sitting at the bar and took (or maybe even stole) the stage.
Lemmy, the
name; and Motorhead, the attitude; soon entered the lexicon of our bored yet
ready-for-anything teenage lives. Any time someone would say “Lemme get…” or “Lemme see if…” we would shout in unison “LEMMY!!!” During an early scene of the Blues Brothers when Dan
Akroyd’s Elwood is admonishing John Belushi’s Jake, Jake replies “Well what do
you want me to do, MOTORHEAD!” Suffice to say, we roared as if the Chargers had
just scored a touchdown. At church summer camp throughout my teen years Lemmy
himself was as revered as any guitar hero we had known, at least among my
brother, Richard and I. And everyone seemed to want to get on the Motorhead bandwagon.
It didn’t
stop there. Not much later, our neighbor knocked at our door and asked “What the hell is that noise?!”
“Motorhead!!!” my brother and I responded in unison. From that day on, he
referred to my brother and I as Motorhead and my mom was known as Mrs.
Motorhead.
Lemmy’s
death, the death of Scott Weiland preceding it and the later death of David
Bowie has churned up some long-brewing thoughts on the state of music.
Technology has made music and for that matter any type of media and information
readily available. Gone are the days we would wait anxiously by the radio to
hear our favorite songs; no more are we required to wait in line for a midnight
album release. Every song we could want can be found online. Bands don’t start
in the garage anymore; they start online and god forbid, on Youtube and the
myriad talent/reality shows. Most of what is popular out there is music only in
title; even the least discerning ear can tell there is little musicianship
involved. As a society we have come to rely on processed, non-organic foods, so
it’s no surprise we have done the same with our music.
The old
posters used to show singers, guitarist, bass players and drummers in their
element, thrashing about as they churned out screeching vocals, face-melting guitar
solos’, thumping beats and pounding drums. Now, we see either choreographed
lip-synching (to auto-tuned tracks) or even worse, some guy with his hands held
high over his head, as if he actually accomplished something; while standing
over two computers made to look like turntables. I hope that somewhere, out there is some kid
who saw his uncle mourning the loss of Scott Weiland; a young girl who took
notice of how her parents have been playing David Bowie the past few days; a
disenchanted teenager who keeps looking at the Motorhead banner in his
neighbors garage. They are the hope.
This may
sound like a typical “Back in my day…” diatribe. Every generation spews them to
the next. It’s what we do. But if we keep it up, real music will end up being
what we don’t. Rudy Valee was the first “Pop” superstar, and his fans couldn’t
understand why their bobby-soxer children listened to Frank Sinatra. The Bobby
Soxers couldn’t understand why their kids listened to Elvis, Little Richard and
Chuck Berry in the 50’s. Their kids couldn’t get the Who, Led Zeppelin and
Black Sabbath. Bands like Aerosmith, AC/DC and Guns n Roses helped bond a few
generations until the last real musical movements, grunge and the full-circle
re-emergence of the singer-songwriters like Jewel, Jack Johnson and Dave
Matthews.
The music
over the past century has varied as much as the cars we have driven, the foods
we eat and the way we communicate. But it all had one common vital thread
little seen these days.
Actual
musicians writing and performing with musical instruments…
As you all know, my dreams of rock
and roll superstardom never came to be. But years ago at that church camp, we
had a few moments of glory at the end of the week “talent” show. We did what
they call an air band performance. We didn’t have the balls to do a Motorhead
song as we knew they would never allow it. Yet had we known about Jim
Morrison’s performance on the Ed Sullivan Show we probably would have went ahead
and done some Motorhead. Instead we chose a few of our late 80’s idols. One
year we did something from Skid Row and the other was naturally Motley Crue.
The name of our band?
The Ace of Spades…
