OFF: Motorhead Review

[Chris Warburton]

I found this double header review in the latest issue of "The Wire" and
thought the rest of you might find it interesting, entertaining or
informative:
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Fushitsusha / Gold Blood (Charnel Music CH 30 CD)
Motörhead / Live On The King Biscuit Flower Hour (King Biscuit Flower Hour
KBFH002 CD)

The latest live releases from the ultimate power trios represent the two
approaches to organising noise and chaos - rock's dialectic between a
surrender to waves of splintering reverberation and the mastery of
blitzkrieg riffage.  These twin poles of madness and sex are embodied by
the two frontmen:  Fushitsusha's Keiji Haino is the prototypical
blackhearted, pained genius, while Lemmy is so quintessentially rock 'n'
roll that he ranks alongside Elvis, Madonna and Fabian as a one-named titan.

"Gold Blood" documents Fushitsusha's appearance at San Francisco's Great
American Music Hall in 1996.  The show was simulcast by a local radio
station which accounts for the excellent sound (although compared to
Haino's PSF releases, the packaging is very shoddy).  But in the search for
fidelity, the record loses a bit of oomph.  While the improved detail makes
Haino's sheets of noise shimmer more than usual, and bassist Yasushi Ozawa
and drummer Jun Kosugi are actually audible in the mix, some of Haino's
intensity is lost.  Which is a real shame because he is on top form here:
his blinding white-outs of guitar flurries incandesce like they do on his
best PSF records, while "This Trembling In My Core, With Which Of Your
Cellls Couldn't It Hold Hands!" is real slash 'n' burn punk venom.

Recorded in 1983 at one of America's ur-Metal haunts, L'Amour East in New
York, Motörhead's "Live On The King Biscuit Flower Hour" is the
bacchanalian flipside to Fushitsusha's tortured ego/body immolation.  As a
Live document, it pales next to "No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith" - not just
because Robbo's on guitar and not Fast Eddie, but because there's no
fucking bass.  Nonetheless, the first four tracks are real shitkickers and
harness the power of chaos, where Fushitsusha dive headlong into the eye of
the storm.  The centrepieceis a brilliantly messy version of "Iron
Horse/Born To Lose" in which Lemmy sounds like a bottle of Jack Daniels as
he growls "Wasted forever/Ferociously stoned" - not even AC/DC have come up
with burn-out poetry that perfect.

Although Lemmy would probably laugh at Haino's waif falsetto, the two of
them should jam together: they both reduce their instruments to pure
sensation machines and, as Lemmy says in the interview that ends the disc,
"We like a road accident in England".
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I think that last quote should probably be "We are
".

That's enough typing for now...see (some of) you on Wednesday!

ChrisW

ObCDs (bought today):
Ginger Baker Trio - "Going Back Home"
"Death To The Pixies"
Abdullah Ibrahim - "African sun"
Motörhead - "No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith" (remastered/Bonus Tracks)
"I can't believe my point of view is the only correct one." - Jerry Garcia