LEMMY

Documentary Feature, Spotlight Premieres
D: Greg Oliver, Wes Orshoski

“You know I’m born to lose, and gambling’s for fools, but that’s the way I like it, baby; I don’t want to live forever.” So go the lyrics from Motörhead’s signature rocker, but for band founder, icon, and heavy metal veteran Lemmy Kilmister, nothing could be further from the truth. At 63 years old, he literally has lived forever, in music-industry years, and Motörhead, of which he is the sole surviving constant member, has achieved the sort of mythic status more usually accorded to gods and monsters and the Ramones. The amphetamine-fueled days of Kilmister’s road-weary youth – he was booted from his original band Hawkwind for being “too unpredictable” – may or may not be behind him (Oliver and Orshoski’s documentary is cagey on the subject), but it’s telling that in nearly every shot that features its grizzled, loquacious subject, a bottle of Jack Daniels is almost always close at hand. Lemmy is itself a mash note to the Jack-and-smoke vocalist whose fat, fast bass-playing forms the heart of a minor rock & roll empire. Shot over the course of three years, Oliver and Orshoski’s doc is a relentlessly fascinating portrait of that most voluble of heavy metal species, the Lemmy. May he live forever.

This article appears in March 26 • 2010.

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