A couple of weeks ago, I found myself on a Moto Guzzi Griso (more on that in a future Year of the Goose installment) hurtling down I-5 from Seattle to Sacramento. The 1151-cc, eight-valve twin thrummed away at 4k, sounding for all the world like a B-17. Or Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister?s Rickenbacker bass. Can the the two things even be separated" For 600 miles, I rode along with the band?s ?Bomber? stuck in my head, across the Rogue River, over the Cascades, and finally down California?s dead-end-at-both-ends Central Valley. And now Lemmy is dead. But you probably already knew that. If your social media feed hasn?t blown up with tributes to the man, who passed away yesterday at 70, might I humbly suggest that you acquire a better grade of friends" Blazin': Philthy Animal Taylor, Lemmy Kilmister, and Fast Eddie Clarke, Motörhead’s classic line-up.
But Motörhead, man. Booted from Hawkwind after a drug bust at the Canadian border, Kilmister founded the band in 1975, the year I was born. 1916?about the closest the band came to American mainstream success?arrived in 1991, the year I got my driver?s license. I grew bad hair and toted my early-?70s Rickenbacker 4001 around in my ?75 El Camino with ?We Are the Road Crew? cranked as high as my two-speaker, eight-watt-per-channel stereo would allow.
They were the band that everybody could agree on, from the Nova-driving dirthead to the heavy-duty aesthete with a penchant for the lowbrow. Lemmy played with Th...