Recently I was asked on a forum for information on Motorhead, this was my reply

"Ahhh, my friend, pull your chair closer to the fire and let me tell you of the days of high adventure. It was, I believe in the year of our Lordi 1980 although I've been known to misplace the odd decade here and there so bear with me on the exact date. It was a time when a great darkness had settled on the land, a time when things like "Work" and "a job" were just stories whispered by a toothless grandparent around the hearth on cold winter nights. A time when Irelands only export was it's people, when the few who owned a car would spend their days pushing it to the nearest petrol station and wait hours in the hope of buying enough petrol so that they could drive it home, a time when a mobile phone was a bakelite handset some brave soul had liberated from a phonebox with a wire cutters, an innocent time when parking cones retro-fitted with a red light bulb were the ultimate fashion statement for any self-respecting lads bedroom.

Yet despite the misery there was hope, rumours on the underground grapevine, word gradually spread, mouth to mouth for in those days Irish radio existed entirely on a diet of Stetsons and Wellies, the abomination that is Irish Country music. Whispers built upon whispers crumpled illicit publication's from across the pond with mysterious names like "New Musical Express", "Melody Maker" and the most prized of them all "Sounds" furtively passed from hand to hand until finally the day came when Saint Geoff Barton of the Sounds announced in a typeset clear and reasonably clean that salvation was at hand, Motorhead had released the "Bomber" album and whats more were going to play in Dublin, Ireland.

And verily it came to pass that I, a younger, thinner and more symetrically haired I gently bludgoned my parents into submission until they grudgingly lent (HaHa) me the money for a ticket. Eventually the night came to pass and I arrived at the not so secret location knowing at once that I was about to experience a life changing event. The windows of the venue were crisscrossed with masking tape (a la World War II Blitz era London) and the entrance was protected by stacked sandbags. With sweaty ticket stub clutched in hand I entered an Aladdin's Cave of metal debauchery. A thousand spliffs burned furiously, smoke so thick that blinking your eyelashes left trails that lingered behind you. Through the gloom, I spotted my mate Judas sporting his obligatory leather jacket and embarrassing clean Novice of the Road Rocker Motorcycle Club colours. Pulling out one of many crumpled joints carefully prepared earlier I wandered over to say "Hi"

As the people Judas was talking to came into view, a shiver went up and down my spine for I knew immediately that I was in the presence of immortals. To the left Fast Eddie Clarke calmly knocked back a pint of ambrosia, to the right Philthy "Animal" Taylor took a pull off a joint that in the real world gravity outside, would have required a heavy duty tripod to support it and in the centre of this trinity stood the Holy Father himself, handlebar mustache blowing gently in a warm cannabis breeze, the enormous mole on his cheek gleaming magically in the dim lighting.

And onto me God did speak "Alright!!..................are ya going to pass that spliff around or are ya going to stand there staring until it burns yer fooking nose off".

Somewhere, in the dusty packed up memories of my former life, a crumbled aging cigarette box contains the signatures of the Gods, memories of flashing lights, Judas in his traditional spot stage-left head inside the bass bins of the PA, hair, tobacco and crumbled hash flying past him as he tries in vain to skin-up. Motorhead arriving on stage on Harley-Davisons. An enormous wireframe bomber dipping and diving over our heads, strobe-lights mounted on it's spinning propellor blades threathening to decapitate the vertically endowed in the audience. The driving double-kicks of Phil's kit, Lemmy rigid before his mic stand, driving basslines and Fast Eddie Clarke, who took the Blues cranked it to 12 on the dial (Spinal Tap eat yer fucking heart out) and spat it out loosening my teeth, making my ears bleed and forever changing my life

Motorhead is the real shit. Pure, unadulterated Rock 'N fucking Roll. Say it like it is, warts (or moles) and all. No Pretense, No Remorse and No Rest Till Hammersmith"

Rest in Peace Wurzel, you lived it mate!