Ian Fraser Kilmister, aka Lemmy, was born Christmas Eve, 1945.
This week, I introduced my kids to The Young Ones. Comedy is as important to me as music or cinema and this short-lived BBC treasure from the early ‘80s hit me at the perfect time to play a massive role in shaping my sense of humor. God bless MTV for broadcasting late-night reruns of the cult classic in the U.S.; my older brother and I would tape them with the VCR, and I watched them every morning before school.
For the uninitiated: The Young Ones brought Britain’s alternative comedy movement into the mainstream, via BBC Two, with twelve half-hour episodes about four college students (and their landlord’s family) played by comedians Adrian Edmonson (Vyvian the punk), Nigel Planer (Neil the hippie), Christopher Ryan (Mike “The Cool One”), Alexei Sayle (the landlord and every member of his family), and the late Rik Mayall (Rick the anarchist). The first “series” (season for us Yanks) ran in 1982 and the second in 1984. MTV reran them the following year. (Comedy Central got a hold of them for a brief period in the mid-90s, and BBC America ran them again in the early 2000s.)
The Youngs Ones existed in a world that was both Margaret Thatcher’s England and a surrealistic reality populated by talking rats, angry washing machines, a lion tamer, an elephant, a mock crucifixion, and a lot of lentils. It was slapstick, violent, anarchic, and altogether wonderful, with a sweetness beneath its vulgar veneer.
In one episode, Vyvian eats a dead rat with a fork. A few years later, my first punk band, R.F.U. (Rejected Fuck-Ups), made stickers that read, “Munching on Dead Rats,” with a crude cartoon drawing of Vyvian, you know, munching on that dead rat.
Neil spends much of the very first episode trying unsuccessfully to kill himself, a fact regularly dismissed and ignored by his flatmates. (What’s so funny about suicide? Well, to paraphrase Anthony Jeselnik, The Young Ones just explained it to us.) Imagine a live-action Beavis & Butthead combined with a live-action Daria, crossing over with Monty Python, but in the ‘80s, with regular appearances from historical figures and skinheads. It’s the kind of comedy that seems dumb but is deceptively smart.
It wasn’t part of any pop culture conversation I was ever in back then, save for my best friend at the time and my older brother. (It was big enough overseas to spawn a primitive computer game.) The characters, storylines, outlandish situations, and regular breaking of the fourth wall blew my mind. It was like SNL, but weirder.
It was for me. As a pre-teenaged adolescent in blue-collar Southport, Indiana, being hip to everything The Young Ones was about felt like a subversive secret.
In adulthood, my VHS dubs gave way to DVDs (thank you, Amoeba Records), then pristine digital copies purchased from Apple’s iTunes, just before modern censors scrubbed an n-word from an episode (spoken by a cop, who were always portrayed as fascists). All 12 episodes found their way to YouTube, albeit in lower quality.
The Young Ones continues to bring me joy, especially in sharing it with my kids this week, and I’m still learning new things about it (secret fifth roommate? Say what?!).
Having bands perform on the show - usually right in the living room - was a stroke of genius, as music allowed the program to fall into the “variety show” category, vs. traditional sitcom, which meant larger BBC budgets. Even without the musical guests, The Young Ones would have charmed and enthralled me; but oh man, those bands.
As formative as the show would prove to be in shaping my comedic sensibilities (and kicking off my love for Dr. Martens), the musical segments introduced me to Dexys Midnight Runners, Madness, The Damned, and most importantly Motörhead.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone as cool as Lemmy, before or since, as he did singing “Ace of Spades” in The Young Ones living room. They all had a uniform of sorts, yet, their look seemed effortless, unpretentious; somehow street and rock n’ roll. The rasp, the posture/mic stand placement, the belts, the boots, the shades, the tempo; Philthy Animal blasting away. They looked like they all carried switchblades. There’s a moment where Lemmy points at the camera and sings directly at the audience. At me.
I didn’t realize it then of course, but the lineup of Motörhead I saw the first time (and many more times via subsequent rewatches), via grainy VHS recording in our little apartment, was one that (at first) only existed from January till February 1984.
Lemmy Kilmister – vocals, bass
Michael "Würzel" Burston – guitar
Phil "Wizzö" Campbell – guitar
Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor – drums
(A small hangup: this episode might have been the start of my annoyance with TV directors who never know which guitarist is playing the solo. Then again, given the tone of The Young Ones, perhaps it was intentional in this case. It drives me nuts.)
“Bambi,” the one featuring Motörhead which kicked off the show’s second season, is my favorite episode of The Young Ones. The boys make their way to a TV show called University Challenge, where they square off against four counterparts from a more “posh” school. (I’ve since learned that it was a collision of two different comedy styles, as well.) The opposing team featured Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry (who earlier appeared on the real University Challenge), Emma Thompson (!), and Ben Elton. I’d write more about “Bambi,” but I don’t want to spoil anything. Just watch it.
The episode also features the great Robbie Coltrane, who reunited with most of the cast, and Motörhead, in the 1987 black comedy Eat the Rich. (You know the song.)
I went to my first metal show in February 1988. (DIO was the headliner, but I was there to see Megadeth. Savatage canceled for some reason.) Megadeth headlined my second metal show, with Warlock and Sanctuary, at Indiana’s Arlington Theater in May of that year. November 18, 1988, I returned to that venue to see Slayer, Motörhead, and Overkill. (I had my Slayer shirt purchased that evening until this year. I sold it to someone in Japan for $200 after accepting I am unlikely to fit in it again.) Lemmy had the same guys as The Young Ones performance all back in the band. It fucking ruled.
Lemmy was my first “celebrity sighting” after I’d moved to California in 2001. The stories were true: he wasn’t hard to find in Hollywood. I spoke to him for a few moments. He was rad. I told my friends back home, “L.A. rules!” The following week, at the same place, I saw the singer for Crazy Town. (“Actually, L.A. sucks!”)
In November 2003, now a reporter for MTV News who primarily covered movies but was also the only person in the California office who cared about metal, I was sent to the set of the “Shake Your Blood” music video to interview Dave Grohl. Southern Lord released his Probot album, which featured different metal legends on every song. For this video, Grohl had Lemmy on vocals/bass (duh) and doom icon Scott “Wino” Weinrich on guitar. The concept was simple: the band plays. Suicide Girls dance.
(Here’s my November 2003 written set visit report for MTV News.)
I was there to interview Grohl and otherwise be a fly on the wall, but there was no way I wasn’t going to talk to Wino, let alone Lemmy. At some point, I gathered the courage to approach Mr. Kilmister. I asked him to leave the outgoing message on my cell phone, a silver Sprint flip-phone that I don’t think was even capable of SMS messaging. Of course, I told him to say whatever he wanted. He happily obliged.
“Hello. You’ve reached Ryan’s shiny little cell phone. He can’t talk right now because he’s in the bath with an alligator,” he said. “So leave a message if you want…”
“Or FUCK OFF!”
Brilliant. I soon after realized that voicemail greeting served as something of a “personality test.” See, he never said, “This is Lemmy.” So people would call me and leave a variation of three different kinds of messages. They went like this:
Most common: “DUDE, how did you get Ozzy on your phone? Wow!” (The Osbournes TV show was still a pretty big deal around this time.) Second most common: “Dude, FUCKING LEMMY!” And lastly: “I tried calling you, but I must have the wrong number.” (One person even said, “I got some Middle Eastern dude’s phone.”)
My immediate supervisor at MTV at the time told me I had to change it because it was “unprofessional.” I refused. (I don’t think she could name all four Beatles.)
I never ran into Lemmy, nor saw Motörhead perform, after that. But this week, showing “Bambi” to my kids (twice! And they are already quoting it!), Lemmy’s iconic look, sound, attitude, and vibe felt as revelatory and awesome as it did to me in 1985.
Lemmy was fascinated by World War II and there’s something about Motörhead that always makes me think about the sentimentality and celebration of Christmas.
So yeah, Christmas Eve, 1945? That sounds about right.
Rest in Power, Lemmy.
P.S. Würzel & Philthy hosted the 1990 Christmas episode of MTV’s Headbangers Ball and someone on YouTube was badass enough to condense all of their segments.
P.P.S. Rik Mayall starred as the title character in Drop Dead Fred, an unhinged comedy that polarized the hosts and listeners during a 2019 episode of my favorite podcast, How Did This Get Made? He can also be seen in the opening sequence of An American Werewolf in London. John Landis saw Mayall and Edmonson perform while in the UK and offered to write parts for them. (Only Mayall believed him enough to turn up on set.)
Hard Rock Digital Song Sales
The week of December 26, 2020
Trans-Siberian Orchestra “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)” (1996) Gold
Trans-Siberian Orchestra “Wizards in Winter” (2004)
AC/DC “Thunderstruck” (1990)
Disturbed “The Sound of Silence” (2015) Platinum x3
Trans-Siberian Orchestra “O Come All Ye Faithful / O Holy Night” (1996)
Trans-Siberian Orchestra “Mad Russian’s Christmas” (1996)
Falling In Reverse “Popular Monster” (2019) Gold
AC/DC “Back in Black” (1980) Platinum x3
Metallica “Enter Sandman” (1991)
Queen “Bohemian Rhapsody” (1975) Platinum x8
Metallica “Nothing Else Matters” (1991)
AC/DC “You Shook Me All Night Long” (1980) Platinum x3
Nickelback “Rockstar” (2005)
Kansas “Carry On Wayward Son” (1976) Platinum x4
Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child O’ Mine” (1987) Gold
Mammoth WVH “Distance” (2020)
Queen & David Bowie “Under Pressure” (1981) Platinum x2
Bon Jovi “Livin’ On a Prayer” (1986) Platinum x3
Small Town Titans “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” (2018)
Five Finger Death Punch “A Little Bit Off” (2020)
Evanescence “Bring Me to Life” ft. Paul McCoy Platinum x3 (2003)
Led Zeppelin “Stairway to Heaven” (1971)
Queen “We Will Rock You” Platinum x4 (1977)
The Hu “Sad But True” (2020)
Bad Wolves “Zombie” (2018) Platinum
Billboard Hard Rock Albums
The week of December 26, 2020
Queen, Greatest Hits (1981) Platinum x5
AC/DC, Power Up (2020)
AC/DC, Back in Black (1980) Diamond x3
Guns N’ Roses, Greatest Hits (2004) Platinum x5
Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Christmas Eve and Other Stories (1996) Platinum 3x
Metallica, Metallica (1991) Diamond
Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin (1971) IV Diamond x2
Pearl Jam, Ten (1991) Diamond
Foo Fighters, Greatest Hits (2009)
Deftones, White Pony (2000) Platinum
Linkin Park, [Hybrid Theory] (2000) Diamond
Five Finger Death Punch, A Decade of Destruction (2017)
Aerosmith, Aerosmith’s Greatest Hits (1980) Diamond
Bon Jovi, Greatest Hits: The Ultimate Collection (2010) Platinum
Jimi Hendrix, Experience Hendrix: The Best of Jimi Hendrix (1997) Platinum x2
Van Halen, 1984 (1984) Diamond
Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody (Soundtrack) (2019) Gold
Def Leppard, Hysteria (1987) Diamond
Mötley Crüe, Greatest Hits (1998) Platinum
Trans-Siberian Orchestra, The Lost Christmas Eve (2004) Platinum x2
Trans-Siberian Orchestra, The Christmas Attic (1998) Platinum x2
System Of A Down, Toxicity (2001) Platinum x3
Metallica, Ride the Lightning (1984) Platinum x6
Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin (1969) Platinum x8
Guns N’ Roses, Appetite for Destruction (1987) Diamond
This is the FREE version. The full Stream N’ Destroy experience is only a dollar.