White Line Fever

In White Line Fever, Lemmy, the thinking person's Ozzy Osbourne, provides a completely unreconstructed, warts and all account of his excessive life--well, the bits he can, or cares to, recall of it anyway. "That was a great time, the summer of 71", he wistfully muses at one point, "I can't remember it, but I'll never forget it!" Leader of Motorhead for close to 30 years, Lemmy has had more drugs, drinks and girls than hot dinners. His mechanism really has gone--in 1980 his blood was officially diagnosed as toxic to other human beings.

Lemmy, born in 1945 and christened Ian Fraser Kilmister, was a vicar's son. His dad, however, didn't stay around long and he was raised, predominantly, by his librarian mother in Wales. A teenager at the birth of rock 'n' roll, Lemmy first took an interest in music after discovering, as he forthrightly puts it, "what an incredible pussy magnet guitars were". After spells in local beat combos he headed off to Manchester and then London. Here he became a roadie for Jimi Hendrix, played in Opal Butterfly, before pretty much ambling into space rockers Hawkwind's line-up during 1971. This was, of course, an era when the group "would get high in the park and talk to the trees--sometimes the trees would win the argument". Sometimes it sounded as if the trees wrote the songs, too. Four years later speedfreak Lemmy was sacked for "doing the wrong drugs".

Vowing to form the "dirtiest rock 'n' roll band in the world", he put together Motorhead, arguably the heaviest (and according to the Guinness Book of Records for about five years, the loudest) heavy metal band ever to grace a stage. Thrilling buzzsaw songs such as Ace of Spades, Bomber, Killed by Death and Hellraiser (as deep as their names suggest) gained them a legion of headbanging fans. And while Lemmy may spend a little too long berating his former record label Sony and griping about recent albums being overlooked, this sex, drugs and metal memoir certainly goes all the way up to 11. --Travis Elborough

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'Overnight Sensation' - Rated
As most other reviews have stated, this is an informative run thru' the life of Lemmy; from early days right up to the present and all the mayhem in between.
I was really interested in the amount he had in common [and hung around] with punk bands from the early days, esp The Damned and the Ramones [touring with the former, producing the latter], as well as the obvious metal/rock bands.
He's right though, how many people stopped buying Motorhead records after 'ace of spades'? I know I'm guilty and intend to remedy that by buying a couple of the later ones [probably 1916 and Motorizer unless anyone's got any better suggestions].
An excellent read though and written in a style you'd expect.

The pleasure is to play, makes no difference what you say.. - Rated
Have read this recently whilst on holiday. It didn't disappoint. Very honest, no BS account of Lemmy's life, warts and all (if you pardon the pun.)Not everyone will share some of his views on life, but hey, he won't be losing any sleep over that.

NO LIES - Rated
I WOULD LIKE TO READ MORE ABOUT THE DRINK AND DRUGS IN HIS LIFE - AND HOW IS HE STILL ALIVE

HE IS STRAIGHT TO THE POINT AND FUNNY.

A parable for the ages - Rated
Sure, lots of celebs enter extremely late middle age as well preserved national treasures; few do so on their own terms. Ian Kilmister--boomer, Capricorn, sometime loudest man on the planet--has lived his life like that Jimi Hendrix song: 'let me live my life, the way I want to'. Superficially, that might seem to add up to forty years of professional excess and little more, but as this work shows, it is actually a case-study in what it meant to grow up working class in the North of England immediately after the war. Nobody did a damn thing for him; he carved out what he did, despite a business that has ignored him, mispackaged him and exploited him pretty much since day 2.
Superficially, the book is about sex, drugs and the rest of it; in reality, its about the way in which popular culture has provoked profound social change in the UK and what it means to live through that social experiment--to live your life as an individual in an increasingly collective society.
Lemmy is at pains to emphasize that this is a life that has worked for him but would not work for everyone. He's quite happy to acknowledge that his libertarian views can translate into some un-PC attitudes--and mostly he's just *happy*, which is quite an accomplishment. Ever notice how successful people tend to be like elephants, reciting every grievance and every professional slight--despite a career full of them, Mr. Kilmister remains philosophical and phlegmatic about being thrown out of Hawkwind, the debacle of 'Another Perfect Day' and getting tossed aside by more record labels than he's had Malboros.
To repeat, this is neither philosophy nor literature, but if you want to know why folk like Dave Grohl seek out Lemmy to work with, then listen to 'Damage Case', read this book and you shall have insight.

Speed, booze, sex and rock'n'roll! - Rated
As I would have guessed, Lemmy comes across as a likable, down-to-earth sort of bloke and a larger-than-life character. I'm a great fan of his music-- it's the only heavy metal I listen to. It's a great read and Lemmy is very funny with definite views. Hawkwind fans will be fascinated by his tales of his years with that band. Dave Brock has admitted that firing Lemmy was his biggest mistake. (Lemmy is still bitter about that incident, with some justification, but if you listen to the more level-headed Brock there is another side to that story too.) Some stories, such as Huw Lloyd-Langton's unfortunate acid trip, which led to his disappearance and conversion to Christianity, don't quite tally with Carol LeClerc's account exactly. Sometimes it dies read like someone who drinks a bottle of bourbon a day rambling but great stuff anyway! I could hardly put the book down.