LEMMY KILMISTER

White Line Fever

book, pocket

Yeah, I know this book wasn’t written by Lemmy himself. Can you imagine Lemmy sitting down with a typewriter (don’t even think about a computer) and lay down 250+ pages of his life? I sure can’t. Actually, it is a good thing, because the book reads as if this journalist woman Janiss Garza sat down with Lemmy and he told her about Motorheads career and all she did was bring the stories into a chronological order and try to convey Lemmy’s stories as closely to his spoken language as possible. And it is those stories, whenever Lemmy takes a sideway to recall some memory that really put the flesh to this book besides the record-tour-record-tour-itinary that makes up a rock star’s life. I also know that what I am being served here is an image and of course the autobiography of a rock star has to fit the image that he has made up for himself, but heck, it is Lemmy we are talking about, not Robbie Williams. As far as I can tell or anyone I have spoken with, Lemmy is the real deal and he never put on a mask. Unlike Dean Martin who was running around with coloured water in a whiskey glass (though you can’t fake snipping a cigarette into your mouth with you hands down at your hips, which does make him cool) or Bruce Willis shaving his head and going out with strippers and such, Mr. Kilmister has never used the help of an image consultant. At least, I hope so. There have to be some true and real people left out there on the big stages of the world. There just have to.

“White Line Fever” is built like a Motörhead record, full of short and fast bits that go bamm, bamm, bamm, and inbetween a solo or two. Running along the skeleton of record releases and big tours you’ll meet a lot of people briefly, too many to really recall them, and tons of hilarious facts. There is some self-righteousness and historical redefinitions on Lemmy’s side of course, e.g. when he says something along the lines that Motörhead always played the gigs they contracted and it was the managers, tour promoters and so on who fucked up, and then recalls tales of bandmembers and him getting sick, being stuck in jail or just plainly fucking up here and there, but that is all fair since this is one man’s view, it is not a fully told story (this thing also bugged me with Johnny Cash’s autobiography and that is saying a lot, innit?) and Lemmy is mainly being fair to people in the long run. Record companies get their fair deal and that is just well also. Through all the shit and barriers that this band had to wade through to make it “big” (if they ever did?) and the incredible tales of drug abuse the humour and strong character of Lemmy shines through.

The book starts off and contains a lot of musical history right through, because Lemmy was there right through the British beat explosion in the Sixties, worked for Jimi Hendrix for a spell (not as a musician), breathed the psychedelic era with Hawkwind and predated the New Wave Of British Metal, made friends with Metallica and Twisted Sister and of course met a lot of people on the way from Eric Clapton to Dave Mustaine. There is also a lot of the unfortunately forgotten girl-metalbands from Girschool to the Cycle Sluts. (And I guess the reason that Lemmy was always a lady’s man – at least for a certain breed of women – goes to show that women judge by character.) Judging from an economic side and the nowadays so popular marketing side you might say that he had a long row of bad business decisions and even worse decisions image-wise, but then, do you think he would care? Not a fucking lot. The same goes for Lemmy speaking his mind on various issues such as the war on drugs, feminism and 9/11, which are all disguised as side remarks.

The best thing in this book, next to Lemmy’s way of speaking and his impenetrable black humour (which will by the way penetrate your own speaking invariably, so beware if people around you are not in favour of swear words), are – of course – the tons of funny little facts and factoids, which you might know that I am a sucker for. Did you know that Black Sabbath always took a little nap together in the early afternoon when on tour? Or did you know that Lemmy has a thing for horses and horse-riding? Or what to do with cheese and a pesty road manager? There is a lot to learn in this book – maybe that you should better be at home reading instead of touring with a real rock’n’roll band if you ain’t fit enough, right?