Motorblog Happy New Year: To all Motorheadbangers out there.
Have a great time!

Motorblog Sheep In Wolves' Clothing (Part 15): Jackie Chambers emailed to say that as well as recording the new Girlschool album, they are also recording their version of 'Metropolis' for the Fan Club CD.
You knew that.
But you didn't know they have Fast Eddie Clarke playing on it, and he also plays on one of the tracks on their new album, too!
It's looking better all the time!

Motorblog So, Here We Are: travelling, with no other power than that of the universe, and fuelled by our own destiny, toward the year 2008.
What will it bring?
Well, as far as we are concerned, three more fanzines, and the fan club CD on offer within the April '08 issue.
Alan Davey either has or is getting close to completing his, as are Messrs Farren, Colquhoun and Taylor.
As are most of the other contributor's, I hope?
The closing date for the recordings is January 31st.
It's gonna be quite some CD!

Motorblog Great For The Kids: Fantastic! On the Christmas Day News, a feature about a man who won an EBay auction for a 'Winter Wonderland - Personal White Christmas' had the 10 tonne truck load of snow and 3 carol singers delivered to a local children's hospice, in Leeds.
Great to see those kids tasting the snow, playing in it, and having snowball fights, and it was quite some fantastic gesture by this philanthropist.
The 10 day EBay listing started at 99 pence, and this guy, a local businessman, paid £1,420 for it, which went to the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity, so the kids won all the way around! Marvellous!

Motorblog Sheep In Wolves' Clothing (Part 14): The Sweet Zeros, who chose '1916' for their track, have The Damned / Lords Of The New Church / The Brian James Gang guitarist, Brian James himself, producing the track. Thanks to my local MHB friend, Eddie Evans, I have witnessed quite a bit of Brian's production work, and it is rather superb to say the least.

Motorblog A year ago and just back from the op, Christmas didn't really happen as lungs and ribcage had yet to fully recover, so it passed by, largely unnoticed.
This year will be first in the ensuing but essential sobriety, and as a consequence, a strange one.
Without the 'off the shelf' habits, life changed, and now has more clarity, but the sharper wit brought casualties.
Those casualties have been absent for 9 months, brought about, largely, by the sharper wit; and blunted patience, also by a lack of understanding.
Within this sobriety, which must be lived through, like it or not, there should have been more understanding by those surrounding this rock of changes amidst an ocean of the unchanged. There are now 5 little fish within that ocean, and one we have yet to glimpse within the waves. And yes, whilst a little eccentricity and craziness might seemingly be prevalent these days in comparison to those passed, is this not better allowed for than having no one to allow for at all?

Motorblog Greg Lake: is the man who's going to give you my favourite, if atheist, (well, what else would you expect from me?), Christmas song, which I regard as the best of the bunch, (followed only by Shane McGowan and Kirsty McColl).
And I do not just simply choose it for those wonderful atheistic lyrics, but also because Greg Lake used to live about 2 miles away, in a suburb of Poole called Oakdale, and my old man worked with his many years ago at a local engineering factory.
Greg, of course, was with King Crimson, (Wimborne man - [another small town about 8 miles from here] Robert Fripp, [who's married to Toyah Wilcox] was also in that band), and also Emerson, Lake and Palmer, who I'm sure you must have heard of along the way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqOfXumI18A
Have a great time one and all!

Motorblog Mikkey Dee Interview: MHB 2745 IRON LADY sent through this 13 minute interview, in which Mikkey forecasts Motorhead's 2008 schedule, amongst other things, of course. http://www.rockster.tv:80/special.php?id=207&cid=0

Motorblog Sheep In Wolves' Clothing (Part 13): We have our missing track, Girlschool are in the studio and have chosen to do 'Metropolis.'
Huge thanks to all contributors who responded so positively and so fast, it's gonna be quite some CD!

Pleased so many have made contact regarding Issue 80, it had to be a bit special as it's quite some milestone to achieve, so it's great when you respond to say you thought so too.

Motorblog "I Went Down To The Crossroads": The wonderful Sarmad added Lemmy's 'The Head Cat' venture My Space site to the Links on this one. If you go to the Main Page, Click 'Miscellaneous' then 'Links' you can scroll down to find it. There's a live version of The Head Cat playing a cover of Cream's 'Crossroads,' which is knockout!

Keep It Together: the Pink Fairies / Deviants book mentioned a couple days ago: Enjoying this as and when reading time permits. Astounding to learn in the early chapters that Russell Hunter was brought up here in Upton, Poole, Dorset and that we both attended two out of the three local schools.
Russell finally went on to Wimborne Grammar, whilst I deliberately failed my 11+ to avoid going there, enabling me to attend Lytchett Minster Secondary Modern. The latter is about a mile away, whereas Wimborne Grammar was and is about 5 miles, on a coach. Back then, I suffered travel sickness very badly, and even the 3 mile trip to Poole on the bus would see me vomiting; so, by scuppering my chances of going to Grammar school I therefore avoided throwing up over everyone on the school coach every morning. I did, eventually, manage to grow out of the travel sickness, initially, by sitting in a front seat where the scene outside came towards me. I found the flickering motion in side and back seats caused by everything flashing past, brought on the sickness.
So if you, or anyone you know suffers, get them to sit in a front seat.
Travel sickness doesn't seem quite so common these days, both our kids were driven around literally from the moment they were born, so they got used to it right from the start. But in my youth, few people owned cars, and a bus ride was once every so often. The funny thing is, though, I didn't suffer travel sickness on trains; so maybe that flickering motion from the side didn't affect me as it didn't flicker quite so much, as on a train, the scenery is further away?

Motorblog Sheep In Wolves' Clothing Part 12: Mick Farren has just emailed with the amazing news he and Andy Colquhoun have regarding their version of 'Lost Johnny' for the Fan Club CD; Philthy Animal Taylor is playing drums on the track!
Now, is that knockout, or what?
My extreme thanks go to the three of them, it was great having Mick and Andy on this, let alone Philthy, so that's absolutely excellent!

The other tracks are gradually getting recorded, we assume; and 'no news is good news,' as they say.

However, Roger Neville-Neil also emailed recently to tell us that Spirit's Burning are pleased at how their version of 'Ace Of Spades' is going down over there in San Francisco.

And Alan Davey is getting close to completing 'Stay Clean.'

Motorblog 'Keep It Together' Book Launch Party: This event has been on the Main Page for a few weeks, and attendance, for me, was a must, not only to represent Motorheadbangers, but also to actually meet author, Rich Deakin, whom I had only known as both an MHB and an email friend for some years.
And it was Rich who approached me at The Inn On The Green pub/venue on Portobello Green in London, as I have my likeness on this website, but he doesn't on his, so I didn't have a clue what he looked like? Also, after hundreds, if not thousands of hours put into a book such as this, my attendance was also out of both the huge respect and knowledge that the hard work had been done, and this, the launch / signing, was one of, if not THE most glorious bits; Rich Deakin's Finest Hour!
But this was to be something of a 'Lightning Raid' for me. Acts, artistes and Pink FA, a Pink Fairies tribute band, (with Blacken, MHB 999 on bass, and Hawkwind's Terry Ollis as one of the two drummers), were also going to be doing their thing, but with my Wedding Anniversary the day after, I had to be back home and ready for those 'celebrations,' so the full menu could not be enjoyed on this occasion.
And the party / launch was a good and enjoyable 'do,' the MC5's manager, John Sinclair, read Mick Farren's introduction to the book just before we were treated to Kalki Hula Girl, (who is an attractive young woman wearing black French-style underwear whilst whirling 'Hula-Hoops' around her limbs and torso quite extraordinarily!), then Slim Tim Slide, (who was in fact, one-time Uncle Harry's City Kids fanzine-ist, Tim Rundall, another good guy whom, once again, I've known for many years from afar, but finally met that evening), and photos of both, (if they indeed come out OK, it was uncannily dark in there!) may well be forthcoming in Issue 81 of our fanzine in April.
The book, of course, is a 'must' for every MHB, as the Pink Fairies / Deviants AND Motorhead (amongst many more) emerged from that once-amazing and unique Ladbroke Grove scene, and their stories, naturally, inter-connect, so rather than relate anything further about the party / launch, (as more will be revealed in a full report in said April fanzine), I can only recommend Rich's fabulous book, which is available from the Publisher, Headpress, at http://www.headpress.com/ or http://www.amazon.co.uk/ and it will make a magnificent Xmas pressie!

There will also be a similar party / launch for the book in LA early next year, when Mick Farren will be in attendance and, you never know, even Lemmy might be going along?

The book is already on http://www.amazon.com/ (by searching 'Books' and 'Rich Deakin') so American MHB's should be able to get their copy soon, as the publication date is again for early for next year.

Motorblog Please Don't Touch: http://youtube.com/watch?v=n9blBsm56lI for the first, and quite possibly, the only time, ever, LIVE!

Motorblog The 80th Edition of the Motorheadbangers World: fanzine went into the mail box at 07.25 this morning and is now on its way to you.
80 Issues, bloody hell!
Hope you enjoy it.