Motorblog Motorhead Video Biography: This is now down to £12-72 (+ Postage) from Amazon themselves with nextday delivery. But the reviews accompanying the listing, both on Amazon and Play.com, both look a bit bleak. Judgement will be held until I watch it myself.

Motorblog The Man Who Won't Lick Stamps (Part 2): Part One is included in the 'Essays' on this site if you need to find the reasons why?
So I am getting some stamps and the girls know I won't lick them, so I'm sticking on the self-adhesive ones whilst she (who shall remain nameless) is licking those for Europe. Suddenly she jolts forward and smiles: 'Oh, I almost swallowed that one and gagged!'
I smiled.
She said: 'Don't say a word, I know what you're thinking!'

Motorblog Steve Vai / Inferno: Picked up this flying around t'Internet on this boring, wet, cold and rainy Bank Holiday Monday, and it's well worth a look - http://vai.com/AllAboutSteve/postcard_040601.html

Motorblog If It Ain't Stiff: And if you don't know the rest you should take another look throught the April Motorheadbangers' fanzine. It was a 90 minute TV documentary tracing the history of the Stiff label, and, as ever, if you enjoy this kind of thing, as I do, it was quite enthralling. Founders Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson told the story whilst Larry Wallis, Kirsty MacColl, Tracey Ullman, Madness, Nick Lowe, Elivis Costello and the myriad of other Stiff stars coloured in the often madcap reality of this unique record label.

Motorblog Rich Deakin: Has been a good friend and ally longer than he's been a Motorheadbanger. Much of the reason behind this apparent lapse is due to writing a huge book titled 'Keep It Together - Cosmic Boogie with The Deviants And The Pink Fairies.' It should have been published a month or so back but hasn't seen daylight just yet and, if you know a little about either or both of those bands you might guess Rich's task was by no means easy.
Deviants and Pink Fairies were both the brainchild of Mick Farren, and Rich asked him to write the forward for the book, which he did. But Mick's colleage and lifelong good buddy, Andy Colcohoun, wrote some music in his LA studio and asked Mick to read the Forward over it; and it's titled 'Ladbroke Grove' and sounds just like this http://www.myspace.com/keepittogetherpinkfairies It's well worth a listen and you can also click for some pink Fairies Live At The Roundhouse music on the same site.
The book is on Amazon if you Search 'Rich Deakin' and I feel sure he'd be pleased if you pre-ordered a copy.

Motorblog Fast Angel: Former Little Angels frontman Toby Jepson has now replaced John 'Harv' Harbinson as Fastway's lead singer for the upcoming dates by Fast Eddie's re-formed classic band; see http://www.tobyjepson.com/ for finger-on-the-pulse info.

Motorblog Just Flew In: Cut the grass last evening with Jane. We have this bench seat in the back garden, and I sat down for a break/to take a look at the result of our labours when something came over the garage roof like a rocket and through the gap between the honeysuckle arch over the path and a shrub.
Quite a few small birds were around, they're nesting and seem to queue up this dry weather for a drink from the spout running the water into the garden pond; and they went apeshit. Guessing it may have been a bird of prey, I stood up and walked over to look in the direction this rocket went, and flying low across the grass toward the top of the garden there's a bird of prey, maybe a Kestrel (?) flying low with a bird gripped in its claws.
And yes, as human beings we find this sad, but in a round about way it reminds me of a Buddah story from our holidays in Thailand, wherein, to cut the long story short, he says "The animals who prey do not have an Asda or Wal-Mart so this is what they have done for thousands of years to survive and will continue doing."
That I also found a grey squirrel dead in the road at the front of the property, and picked him up and buried him made it one of those odd kind of evenings...
And of course, the time-difference means I'm writing this on May 24th and it's logging as May 23rd, quantum leaps again...

Motorblog You Must: Log on to www.myspace.com/skewsiskin to hear a track, titled 'Metal In Your Face,' from their brand new album; 'Peace Breaker - it's shit-hot! The Skew's are now on the Motorhead 'Zenith' tour through France as Special Guests. There are three other tracks on the above site including the knockout Siskin cover of The Who's 'My Generation.'
And if you don't have their 'Album Of The Year' you better stand in the naughty corner facing the wall.

Motorblog Blast Furnace And The Heatwaves: The first part of 'Seven Ages of Rock' was televised on Saturday evening and dealt, largely, with the incredible impact Jimi Hendrix had upon the music scene and those of us who were there and of an impressionable age. I say that because my brother is 4 years older and completely missed anything resembling The Who, The Beatles, Jimi, The Stones, you name them, but instead enjoys 'music' like The Yetties and Nancy Sinatra. On the other side you have my wife, Jane, who has always been a huge Rolling Stones fan, sees very little in Jimi's music yet by the same token enjoys Neil Young immensely. This I find odd because Neil Young and Jimi aren't too far apart, but that's women for you (as you might be aware).
But the Seven Ages of Rock defined that particular era when Jimi turned the world on its head, and the following 6 programmes will hightlight a few more bands whom, in some people's opinion, did the same at later dates and in different eras.
Charles Shaar Murray was (and will be over the next 6 parts) interviewed quite frequently during this first episode, and remembering his name from an MHB's fanzine interview by Mick Farren as being the (then) NME scribe who'd started a band named Blast Furnace and the Heatwaves, who in turn supported Motorhead at the 'Iron Fist and the Hordes From Hell' gig when 'What's Words Worth?' was recorded; so I checked him out within Amazon's 'Books' section.
And 'Charly Murray,' as Mick Farren referred to him, has been and is quite a prolific author and won an award for his book on Jimi Hendrix; knockout! As the titles rolled on this Saturday evening programme I noticed his name at the very top of the listing as 'creative consultant' or whatever. And seeing his listings, this ties in with a book he wrote along the lines of the Seven Ages of Rock and has now, with a BBC budget, turned it into an easily digestible opus for TV; (and no doubt the DVD box set at a later date), which is again, knockout!
I feel sure the next 6 parts will be just as good, but I don't think they'll be quite the same as Jimi's was for me personally. They will feature personalities and bands who were icons for those a little younger than I, but for my age, Jimi was the man.
But then of course we have Motorhead who have an 'across-the-board' musical style who seem to cater for and embrace the Jimi buffs and the punk fans, which fits in nicely as that's pretty much what Lemmy has always aimed for.

Motorblog Motorhead Video Biography 2 DVD Set: is released tomorrow, May 21st. Details have been posted both here and on the Message Board before, but you can check the product details on-site anyway. www.play.com have it up for £17-99 delivered (including postage) vs the www.amazon.co.uk price of £20-24 (+ postage - or their 'Supersaver' deal is cheaper but it takes longer!) so Play saves us £2-25 which is better in our pocket than Amazon's. It looks to be a great item for MHB's everywhere and includes Wurzel's 1st interview since leaving the band, plus Robbo, Lemmy, Phil, Mikkey et al. Nice to chill-out and watch over next weekend's Bank Holiday, perhaps?

Motorblog Fastway Live Dates: With Fast Eddie Clarke on guitar, John 'Harv' Harbinson (Stormzone) on vocals, John McMannus (Mama's Boys), bass, and Steve Strange on drums, dates currently are: June 9th Sweden Rock Festival, June 10th Download Festival, Donnington Park UK, June 16th Fields Of Rock Festival, Holland, June 25th Grasspop Festival, Belgium, and June 28th as Special Guests for Tesla at Shepherd's Bush Empire, London.

Motorblog Miss Marple And I: Yes, the Agatha Christie Miss Marple, indeed, (for more info go to the Wikipedia site and search Jane Marple), and with most if not all of the 10 Miss Marple books on film, they have been televised recently with varying actresses in the starring role, Joan Hickson, in my opinion, being the best (but they're all very good!)
What I enjoy about the Miss Marple films most is the era in which they were set, and more especially, the settings in the village of St. Mary Mead. If not in the geography sense, then the old cars, tradesmen and people on the old bicycles of the day, the village shops and the immense attention to detail with the clothing reminds me, in many ways, of this village of Upton as it was in my very early youth.
And agreed, human nature can't have changed much as Miss Marple is always investigating one or more murders, but in many other ways it was such a time of innocence, a time when a Big Mac was a large raincoat, and people smoked cigarettes but were not frowned upon for doing so, and indeed, didn't die from the effects. And not only was it a time of innocence, it was a time of friendship and the people of the locality getting along with one another. These days friends and neighbours don't have this friendship in such great abundance, but they had it back then because it was just after the war. Unfortunately, when there is a war, everyone, much like the weather, has to suffer it, and thus everyone spoke to one another and got on well as it provided a common ground. These days, other than the weather, there doesn't seem to be any common ground whatsoever, and generally, people just don't seem to bother if they are friends with anyone or not.
But over the last 30 years I have been fortunate enough to find this kameraderie within the Motorhead fans I have come to know through my role in the band's fan club. And yes, the common ground, of course, is Motorhead, and if not always on a personal face-to-face basis, we converse and email and sometimes tip one another off about new releases and re-releases and where they can be found, via this Blog, and also on the Message Board.
I must say, though, as I have to take daily walks lately, I've noticed, quite obviously, by travelling on foot how many more people I meet than I did in the car, and, I'm pleased to say, many have become new friends to stop and talk to, or maybe even just good to know if only on the nod of the head and a cheery "Good morning" basis. Also, now that we are being asked to help take care of our environment, if we walk around our locality instead of jumping in the car, not only will it cut down on the emissions, it may even help win some new friends, neighbours and / or acquaintances into the bargain.

Motorblog Quite Amazoning! Now and again via this wonderful Motorblog oracle I have made comment about my Ranking within the Amazon.co.uk review system. Yes, avid writer as I am, from time to time I write reviews about recently purchased albums or books. It's fun and I enjoy it and considering when I began my Ranking was something like 11,000 and whatever I was quite astounded to find it is now 893.
The reason for this?
Well, I have reviewed 118 items out of which prospective buyers reading the review/s have given 246 votes; and hence, Amazon's man-with-an abacus has calculated this esteemed Ranking of #893.
Quite pleased with that.

Motorblog Missed The Boat: If you happened to miss out on the new T-shirt design featured in the April fanzine, you can still get one of George Chin's amazing Motorhead photographs, so don't delay, send your order to George today.

Motorblog Who's Watching You? is a new book by Mick Farren and John Gibb available through the Amazon,co.uk and .com and all good book stores, Internet or otherwise.
070551 so it was 56 years yesterday and I had a few nice cards, a DVD from my son and another from my wife and some great books from Roger Neville-Neil. Jane and I also had a look around a couple of local nurseries where she found a book called 'The Herb Bible,' from which her head emerges to feed us, go to work and go to bed, and I found a nice shrub for the front garden.

Motorblog Fast Eddie Clarke Anthology: This double CD set is now listed on Amazon and due for release on June 4th. Working on it from time to time since January with Mick Stevenson, Fast Eddie himself and the guys and gals at Sanctuary Records; we persuaded Eddie to dig out some rare gems from his archives.
These include a couple of tracks not yet available on CD with Curtis Knight's Zeus, two more with the band named Continuous Performance from the demo's made just after Eddie left Blue Goose; three of the demo's with Pete Way on bass which won Fastway their contract with CBS Records, plus a 2005 gem titled '21st Century,' on which Eddie plays acoustic guitar for the first time on record with a band called Black Electric. All in all this is an excellent double anthology which can be pre-ordered from Amazon right now.

Motorblog More Dates For The Band: Well, we have one every year, so on this year's, being 7-7-07; Motorhead play the Stravinski Auditorium at Switzerland's Montreaux Jazz Festival, no less, something of a first there and quite an achievement for the band.
Then, in August they play two dates as part of Japan's 'Summer Sonic,' the first at Maeshima in Osaka on the 11th, and then at the Chiba Marine Stadium in Tokyo on the 12th.
If you check out the full itinerary in the 'Fan Club' section of this site, along with the by now familiar November UK dates the band are pretty busy from here on right the way through the year.
My thanks to Sarmad for keeping that part of the site up-to-date.

Motorblog The 1st Of May: And it's great news as a UK Motorhead date, (midst their summer festival appearances across Europe), has been announced for June 16th at London's Royal Festival Hall. Here, the band will be opening 'Jarvis Cocker's Meltdown Festival,' (and there we were wondering how he filled his hours, so this must be it), and it's a knockout venue, too, as I went there with friend/local MHB Eddie Evans to see the MC5 a couple of years ago. Tickets go on sale soon, I believe, check with the venue website.