Lemmy

One of the best Motorhead stories I have ever heard came from my cousin. We had both seen Motorhead in an arena setting, and while the set was good, the barking midrange of the band wasn’t conducive to the amphitheater we saw them.

He figured that the band would really shine in a more intimate venue, and at the first opportunity, he saw them at one.

It was the House of Blues in Chicago where he ended up, a nicely appointed venue with good acoustics. To be fair, it’s also a chain-with venues in several U.S. cities, fully attentive to the bottom line of its locations with high-priced beverages and calendars that assured the maximum level of occupancy.

Motorhead filled the House of Blues in Chicago, to the point where he believes the show was oversold. He relayed a first hand account of the venue filled to the rim with fans firmly entrenched in their section of real estate and absolutely no intention of moving an inch. Most of these hard-nosed fans looked like they would straight-up shank you if you allowed yourself to enter into their personal space. It was one of the few shows he had been to where he felt the potential for personal harm.

To make matters worse, Lemmy and company were ambivalent to any notion of personal accountability. Their “free market” approach meant that they focused only on delivering the music that the roomful of ruffians had come to witness.

The music was loud-ear damaging stuff. And while my cousin watched his footing enough to avoid any physical confrontations, he was ill prepared for Motorheads aural onslaught. Having neglected to bring ear protection, he cringed during the moments where Lemmy yelled “Do you want it fucking louder!” and the soundman obliged by turning the volume up accordingly.

So maybe the strategic areas of an amphitheater is the better place, or maybe it should come as common knowledge that if you’re going to a Motorhead show, your ears will indeed bleed profusely if you dare to enter with anything below a pair of cotton balls.

The newly released documentary film Lemmy attests to this infrequently discussed Motorhead truth, but it also discusses the more noted myths of Lemmy Kilmister’s past including the reported tales of heavy speed usage, the number of women he’s bedded, and the reports that he spends a lot of his waking hours playing video trivia at the Rainbow.

To these factoids, Lemmy pooh-poohs the reports of how many women he’s slept with, cautions that he’s known many people who have died from excessive drug use, and admits that his longevity is out of necessity instead of actual talent.

Because when you’re a vital member of the evolution of rock music, your limitations can actually be your strength, and for Lemmy he wanted people to experience what it might sound like if you used a pair of Triumph exhaust pipes as headphones while someone throttles the engine.

For Lemmy, his heroes are the Founding Fathers of rock: Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc. You can tell in his appearance how he relates to their generationally divisive music and you can tell in his performance how he viewed the strength of their output. To match wits them, he knew he had to be louder and faster than their material to appear as worthy enough to respect their legacy. and the rest of those first generation rockers that he identifies with. One could argue that those members were blessed with more God given talent than Lemmy, but they’d also have to accept that Lemmy represents a nearly as vital place directly behind those Founding Fathers.

In that section is Motorhead’s ambiguous blend of punk and metal. The union gave birth to an unruly bastard, an offspring that had no time to tease its hair or compose a power ballad. There seemed to be one speed to Motorhead-no pun intended-and they had to wait until payday before they could afford to repair the breaks on that bad motherfucker.

Lemmy does a fine job of chronicling the obligatory time line of his life, and viewers get a nice overview of his musical output from Hawkwind and beyond.

There are moments in his history that seem to only get a quick glance before moving on; I can’t for the life of me remember if the film discussed much about his work with Wendy O Williams or Girlschool. That’s a shame, as I don’t know much about those periods and his involvement with Girlschools’s Kelly Johnson.

Unfortunately, both of those high profile relationships don’t provide another side of the story; both women have passed away and there’s no archival footage presented. Instead, there’s a parade of talking heads, from hilarious recollections from The Damned to the incessant yapping and nutswinging of the ever-present Dave Grohl. He attempts to say something profound about how Lemmy is more of the real deal than someone like Keith Richards-implying that there is some unwritten rock and roll code that somehow negates integrity with financial success. What makes the entire argument a bunch of hot air is Grohl’s own output of palatable rock that pockets his own wallet.

Meanwhile, Lemmy continues to live in a cramped apartment, stuffed to the ceiling with shit and littered with trash and cigarette butts. I’d be willing to bet that anyone reading this-including Dave Grohl-that if they were presented with either the lifestyle of Keith Richards or Lemmy Kilmister, it would be a landslide for Keef.

We all know that Lemmy is a badass without Grohl or anyone else’s comments, and most of them on Lemmy are merely fluffy praise and little meaningful antidotes.

The film does dig more into the human element of Kilmister, at least as much as he’ll allow. He brushes off any chance to speak about the mother of his son with recollections of how she lost her virginity to John Lennon. There is an acknowledgement of another child who he’s never met, but you don’t know if his ambivalence towards that prospect as an example of his lack of emotional connection or an eerie comparison to a similar path that his own father took when Lemmy was two years old.

The only moment of real human levity comes when the filmmaker asks Lemmy what item in his apartment is the most valuable.

“My son.” He says without hesitation.

His son is seated right next to him when he says it, but you get the sense that Lemmy didn’t just come up with the response for the camera. His son wasn’t prepared for the answer either; you can tell that he’s visibly affected with the response

While these brief moments of emotional content are nice, you get the sense of impending doom with Lemmy, like the subject matter is drawing closer to a close either by choice or by some kind of health surprise.

Yes, much is made about Lemmy’s resilience to controlled substance history and his penchant for a bottle of Jack a day, but he certainly doesn’t seem as mentally sharp as his frequent comparison, Keith Richards.

It’s more than the slurring of words or continual tales of rock nostalgia. The bounce is gone from his movement-the chance of certain danger eliminate. His Los Angeles residency is the retirement village he was able to afford and the parade of visitors and fans his nursing staff.

It’s a bit sad, but it’s reassuring to know that he’s safe and, yes, when that time comes, Lemmy Kilminster will be missed.

Lemmy will be used as a vital part of that eulogy, of course, but it would have been better served with more detailed elements of his musical history to ensure that those who watch it will immediately want to seek out his recorded work as soon as the credits roll.