White Line Fever - Lemmy Kilmister - GuitarTalk Community

White Line Fever - Lemmy Kilmister

IceCreamMan

I ordered this to read whilst on leave and it was delivered to me yesterday morning together with Paul Di'anno's and Pamela Des Barres autobiographies.

I started reading it at about 6 with the idea of just reading it for a few pages then keeping it for the beach.....hohohho finished the book in time to watch everton klap man city but i digress.

If you are a Lemmy/Motorhead/Rock n Roll lifestyle fan this is an excellent read. Lemmy spends a bit of time on his childhood an upbringing but the meat of the book is the hawkwind/Motorhead period specifically the meteoric rise of Motorhead in the late 70's. Not much space is dedicated to his time working for hendrix and his honesty in that regard is admirable. (he could easily have inflated his importance on the hendrix tours but quite honestly says he was just a gopher type person).

With Lemmy what you see is what you get....school drop out ,picked up the guitar and by his own admission was not very good at it , was given a bass and had to play live that night with it and promptly continued with the bass. No hoity toityness with Lemmy at all. A detailed description of his drugging and his penschant for groupies.

Lemmy been around the block thats for sure. an excellent read however only available as an import and takes about 14 days to deliver .

Edit: One thing Lemmy cannot be faulted on is honesty ,right down an simple honesty and calls a spade an ace of spades but i digress. Motorhead toured with Ozzy as openers in the USA and his view on RR is that he became a much better player after his death as muscicians often do. ?

Seventhson

Did he use lsd?

IceCreamMan

He admits to being more of a speed head than acid head but has used lsd ... he reckons his penchant for speed was one of the reasons he got booted from hawkwind, the rest of the band were all doing acid and he was the only one on speed at the time ... ?

Seventhson

Hahaha. Yeah he seems more of a dude that does speed

Have you seen the doc on Dave mustian from megadeth? He did more drugs than Thompson from fear and loathing?

IceCreamMan

Lemmy mentions dave in his book..megadeth opened for motorhead in the states and he mentions dave was high as a kite ......

LooneyAtTheGate

Lemmy was definitely more of a speed guy - 'I was born with the hammer down, I was built for speed'.
And Motorhead means speed freak. :woohoo:

Cool must read this! Also the one on Paul Di'anno.

Seventhson

IceCreamMan wrote: Lemmy mentions dave in his book..megadeth opened for motorhead in the states and he mentions dave was high as a kite ......

Dave was always high as a kite lol. Once he was so high he could not perform a show,he was puking every where. You must watch the doc on megadeth on you tube it is very good.

Bob-Dubery

Seventhson wrote:
IceCreamMan wrote: Lemmy mentions dave in his book..megadeth opened for motorhead in the states and he mentions dave was high as a kite ......
Dave was always high as a kite lol. Once he was so high he could not perform a show,he was puking every where. You must watch the doc on megadeth on you tube it is very good.

I don't see much humorous about such situations.

Look, I don't make moral judgements about people based on what substances they like to ingest - I really don't. However if somebody gets so out of it that they can't perform then that's unprofessional, disrespectful to the people who paid money to see you perform and it's also sad and unedifying to see a person that you admire in that state.

A while back I took my wife to see a show that was going to be headlined by a well known and very, very good guitar player. I hadn't seen him playing live for some years but knew how good he was, she had never seen or heard him play. He was monumentally and very obvioyusly stoned when he got on stage. That in itself didn't bother me, but what happened next did. He proceeded to give a show that consisted of half-arsed noodling, a very loose rendition of a Dylan song and long rambling monologues. He let himself down, disappointed the audience, and if you mention his name to my wife all she will remember is the long, rambling monologues.

OTOH I can remember a very well known sports person who I had to "look after" at a function. "Looking after" this person basically involved fetching ridiculously large drinks at very frequent intervals. I remember wondering how the evening was going to pan out - he had to give the key speech and then present some awards - but he spoke well and clearly, was steady on his feet (which amazed me, but there you go), was warm and witty, fielded questions gracefully and gave good answers etc etc. I wouldn't advocate drinking that much in that period of time, but he did the important things which were to present himself well and to treat the occasion and the audience with respect. If I'd seen him throw up on his shoes or something I'd have been angry and also sad because I would not want to have the memory of that man in that condition.

Jack-Flash-Jr

I've refrained from commenting on the thread lest I incriminate myself... I strongly believe in gathering experiences of all types in order to get a fully rounded world/reality view. That said, Bob is spot on. The key is maintaining some grace while high/drunk whatever whether you are performing or just in company. At some point the cool factor is swamped by the sad factor. For some people high as a kite works (Jimi) and for some it doesn't...

IceCreamMan

Jack Flash Jr wrote: I've refrained from commenting on the thread lest I incriminate myself... I strongly believe in gathering experiences of all types in order to get a fully rounded world/reality view. That said, Bob is spot on. The key is maintaining some grace while high/drunk whatever whether you are performing or just in company. At some point the cool factor is swamped by the sad factor. For some people high as a kite works (Jimi) and for some it doesn't...

REading Paul Di'anno's auto and the sad factor you mention comes into play ...a whole lot.... actually reading paul's autobiography is incredibly depressing for me ... that man had/has demons far bigger than he could handle .... there is a baseness in his book that shocks me but he is honest about that upfront .... no punches pulled ...

rock n roll has always had drugs around , these guys have been living outside of the norms fo society ...they come na go as they please they're off the grid ...its an element outside of the the music that attracts me ...they certainly live far freer lives than the rest of us do .....

jimi died of an OD , nothing sadder than that ,nothing...while he could play guitar he had demons

Bob-Dubery

Jack Flash Jr wrote: I've refrained from commenting on the thread lest I incriminate myself... I strongly believe in gathering experiences of all types in order to get a fully rounded world/reality view. That said, Bob is spot on. The key is maintaining some grace while high/drunk whatever whether you are performing or just in company. At some point the cool factor is swamped by the sad factor. For some people high as a kite works (Jimi) and for some it doesn't...

Sure. Like I said I don't pass judgement about a person's character because they like a little whatever to get them through the gig or whatever. And where do you draw the line? I have seen plenty of players who like to take a drink on stage with them and who I presume had another "loosener" before getting up there. I have a John Martyn DVD which shows him clearly pissed when he walks on and shows him down-downing beers between songs - which isn't what floats my boat (and didn't do his health any good in the long run) but he didn't disgrace himself with sloppy playing.

There are substances that I have a real hatred for. The kind that enslave people. I understand the urge to take your mind on holiday, and I've done a bit of it myself (not for years now), but I remember a friend who got hooked on Mandrax and who was totally ruined as a person. Our friendship bit the dust too - you couldn't allow him into your home because you knew the moment your back was turned he was going to grab the tape deck or a piece of jewellery or something and run off to fence it to buy more drugs. So I hate Mandrax (not the people who take it) and I am not fond of other highly addictive things like Heroin that make slaves of people.

The danger area is where some fan confuses the artist's habit with the art. Apparently there were, at one time, Charlie Parker wannabes who deliberately took junk because they figured that's what you needed to do to play like Charlie Parker. Parker, reportedly, was astonished by all of this, saying that he was enslaved by the drug and that it had nothing to do with the creativity.

I'm also wary of concluding that people had demons or whatever. Hendrix ended up in a very messy situation, but then a lot of the people around him didn't have his best interests at heart. He ended up with demons, but I'm not sure he bought them with him in the first place.

Maybe I'm too far under the spell of Richard Thompson who has been a teetotaller for years, keeps a dry house and even gave up coffee a couple of years ago. None of this seems to have done his creativity any harm (though he seems never to have been a big time substance abuser).

BMU

I don't think anyone is mistaking Dave Mustaine (in his younger years) for an example of professional virtue and balanced living.

IceCreamMan wrote: Motorhead toured with Ozzy as openers in the USA and his view on RR is that he became a much better player after his death as muscicians often do. ?

Hmmm. Finally it is said. ?

nick

Just bought this 8)