A <pedant> writes </pedant><pedant> On Telling Your Mother She Looks Like Lemmy One of my earliest memories of early childhood is the time I informed my mother that she looked She was quite upset by this, as you can imagine and there was a short period afterwards when I was not her most popular son. (She only has the one.) I forgot about the whole thing, until just recently, when I realised, twenty years too late, that I'd in fact meant it as a compliment. I don't think I'll ever find a way of explaining that though, especially as my more mature and discerning (cough) eye can no longer pick out any particular resemblance between my mother and the ex-Hawkwind bassist. There is clearly some kind of gender / sexuality issue going on here - a confused situation, made all the more confused by the obvious fact that it is all clearly something that neither my mother nor Lemmy would wish to enter into. Perhaps it explains my metaller phase. I was never a full kit, long hair, patch jacket over leather kind of metaller. I was a short-haired, horrible jumper wearing spod who once found himself eating lunch at college on the table all the metallers were sitting. They were talking about Slayer, who I had only recently discovered, via the same guy who put me onto Extreme Noise Terror. Being proper metallers, they didn't care what I looked like; if I was into Slayer, that was enough. For the first time, I was accepted by a group of people who were cool, at least in their own eyes. I was a failed metaller, outwardly, but it didn't seem to matter. The music was all that was important. Looking back, I owe those guys a lot. It all sounds laughable now, of course, and perhaps you are one of the people who believes that metal is and was a load of rubbish. Certainly there isn't much that I used to listen to that still gets me, but Hawkwind are still blinding, and trust me on this, the first Motorhead album is not what you think it's like. Plus, I never met a stupid metaller. Ever. Later on I failed to become a goth, met an awful lot of complete dorks in the process, and, worst of all, ended up with the permanent inability to wear anything other than black clothes. The message is, or should be, clear. Mothers! Play your children Motorhead records from an early age! They are never too young! Oh, and if they say you look like Lemmy, by chance, take it as a compliment. It can be meant that way. Honest. </pedant> (This seems ok - Bad Editor)
May / June '97 #4 - flagging faintly |
