Los Angeles, California: Lemmy, the indefatigable leader of Motörhead, once warned that if his band moved in next door to you, your lawn would die. So it’s a good job that the band’s toots lay in the brick-and-concrete underworld of London’s Ladbroke Grove, a part of the same hard rock multiverse that also gave us Lemmy’s old bandmates in Hawkwind, his good friends in the Pink Fairies, and so many more.There were very few lawns to kill for miles around.
Lemmy left us a decade ago - on December 28, 2015, to be precise. So it’s only fitting that, just 10 days shy of the actual anniversary, the Fairies themselves deliver the ultimate tribute to our fallen hero, a gut-tearing reworking of Motörhead’s own original statement of intent… “Motörhead”!
"Motörhead" was written in Los Angeles during Hawkwind’s 1974 US tour, after Lemmy borrowed an Ovation guitar from the Electric Light Orchestra, and took it out on the balcony of the Hyatt Hotel at 7.30am.
It became Lemmy's final recording with Hawkwind before his firing in 1975—of course he took the title for his own next band, and swiftly rerecorded the song as well, first for the band’s proposed (but unreleased) debut album, then for Motörhead's first UK hit single.
Almost everyone involved in this new recording has fistfuls of Lemmy memories… including two special guests, the late Hawkwind saxophonist Nik Turner, who played alongside him for three epoch-making years; sci-fi author and poet Michael Moorcock, who regularly performed and recorded with the Hawks throughout that same period, and now brings his unmistakable vocal roar to the Fairies.
Of the Fairies themselves, Paul Rudolph - having jammed multiple times with him in the legendary Pinkwind hybrid - actually replaced Lemmy in Hawkwind after a drug bust saw him peremptorily sacked from that band. And, a few years (and several more bass players) later, Alan Davey stepped into that same role, suddenly charged with playing the same tumultuous bass lines that his Hawkwind-loving younger self had grown up playing along with
Indeed, it was Lemmy’s bass solo on Hawkwind’s “Time We Left This World Today” that got Alan into playing bass in the first place. “It's got lots of note bending, growling bass chords and a bass/guitar solo element about it. I had no interest in [playing] music till I heard that.”
Alan’s friendship with Lemmy grew from there; the pair would hang together, jam together… on one occasion, they almost recorded together, and would have if Lemmy hadn’t relocated to the United States on the eve of their studio date.
It was Alan who brought “Motörhead” into the Pink Fairies’ most recent recording sessions, a tribute not only to his old friend, but also to the symbiotic relationship between the two groups. Original Motörhead guitarist Larry Wallis, had replaced Paul Rudolph in the Fairies in 1973; fellow co-founder drummer Lucas Fox was a Fairy across their last two albums. And Alan himself has been leading his own Motörhead tribute band, Ace of Spades, since the end of the last century, with Lemmy’s full support, of course.
“I ran into Lemmy at the Hawkestra gig,” Alan recalls. “He turned up at the rehearsal and immediately said to me, ‘What’s this Ace of Spades band ya doing, Al, and why ya doing it?’
“I replied, ‘Cause I love the songs and I love playing them.’
‘That’s good enough for me,’ said Lemmy. He gave me a hug and his blessing to carry on with it and use the name Ace of Spades.”
It’s odds-on that Lemmy would heartily approve of the Fairies’ take on the anthem, as well. A guttural roar that comes screaming out of the Fairies’ latest album, the all-covers Covered In Pink, it’s the ultimate collision between Motörhead’s unrelenting sonic attack, and the Fairies’ role in the birth of space rock, with Alan’s predatory bass, Paul’s wildfire guitar and One-Legged Pete’s avalanche drums, Turner’s untrammeled honking and Moorcock’s vocals… in fact, there’s no need to try and describe what happens next. Just listen and feel your mind melt.
The full Fairies album will be out on January 16. For now, though, you’ve got “Motörhead.” It’s magnificent.
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Track listing
1. Garden Of My Mind
2. Rosalyn
3. Cracked Actor
4. Baby's On Fire
5. Motörhead
6. Communication Breakdown
7. American Woman
8. Right To Decide
9. Milk And Alcohol
10. The Loco-Motion
11. Mississippi Queen
12. Do It
13. Dum Dum Bala Bala Bow Row...Yeah!!
