ticket

hello there

yes, a "best" thing of the year is coming, look you see. however, for now what comes to mind is that one moment of pure comedy gold from 2015. i speak, of course, of that moment where that kanye west fellow declared himself to be "the world's greatest living rock star".  the humour - hopefully deliberate and intended - in this was derived from the fact that, of course, it is the case that he is patently the least qualified to make such a claim. it was all a bit like when Frank Spencer took on jobs he was ill-prepared for in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, allowing for the fact that, as a wife, that Ching CardCashIAm woman does not hold a candle to Betty.

some jokes, of course, get analysed and taken a part so that we may understand them all the more. such conduct reveals that in order for it to be the case that the kanye claim is true and not funny, some five hundred or so deaths within the world of rock and roll would need to happen. sadly, we had one of those required deaths on the day today.

we, the world, lost Lemmy today. it is with interest that i note that the machines which now automate and edit the NME see this as being no barrier to encouraging people to purchase tickets for Motorhead gigs, as you can sort of make out in this picture.

my introduction to Lemmy was via the world of comedy. i think the first time i will have seen him and his class band in action would be when they guested on The Young Ones, being the band booked for a party, if i recall the episode. after that, it would have been via Bad News that i learned of his greatness.

just as i dug in and explored all of the cultural references which Frankie Goes To Hollywood laced their records with, so too did i do that with Bad News. that's how i came to discover the boss, awesome and, if you will forgive the obvious play on words, ace music of Motorhead. i have a fair few albums of theirs on vinyl, from what i remember his eminence Norman B'stard borrowed my CDs of them several years ago and has not had reason to return them. 

the legends of Lemmy are, perhaps, as interesting and as impressive as his music. legend has it, for instance, that he holds the record for the highest number of sisters from The Nolans slept with. he's also responsible for what i consider to be the greatest bootleg story of all time.

i suspect that we won't see a mad rush of people buying Ace Of Spades or Orgasmatron as a tribute in order to make Motorhead number one as a tribute - Lemmy was, after all, no Cilla Black. from my perspective, i suspect i will remember him as much for his eloquent, intelligent and insightful intellect in interviews as much as i shall the awesome, hard hitting rock he gave.

hard rock, or if you like heavy metal, has a curious relationship with England. for the most part society generally frowns upon it, yet around the world i see British metal bands being celebrated and loved. in this regard, Lemmy was right up there with Ozzy Osborne and Billy Idol in being embraced by, in particular, America more than ever was the case at home. not that there was an absence of fans at home, of course - far from it, and we're all very sad to see this day come.

in mourning Lemmy, spare a moment to think of the plight of kanye west. he was already ahead of Sammy Hagar in his quest to be the world's greatest living rock star; now he just needs to patiently wait for another 498 deaths as sad as this one to happen.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!