Thank you, Lemmy, for the soundtrack of my life

This week's post is not, for once, about you-know-what. In fact, I'm not even going to mention it in passing.

Rather, my subject is my lifelong love of rock music; in particular, the loud, fast, aggressive form of rock known as heavy metal. It began in my early teens, when I discovered there was a great deal more to West Midlands favourites Slade than that Christmas song and I began exploring the back catalogue of such bands as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

By the time I was ready for sixth form, I was regularly going to rock gigs at the old Birmingham Odeon and had a record collection which took up much of two cabinets in the living room of our house.

It was then that I first came into contact with Motorhead, through their 1979 album 'Bomber'. As loud, fast, aggressive as they come and thoroughly hated by my parents, it was the epitome of heavy metal.

But it was outdone by the 1980 album 'Ace of Spades', still one of the finest metal albums ever made, in my view. And even that was outclassed by the 1981 live production, 'No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith'. I remember a magazine review at the time saying that 'No Sleep..' was heavy metal at its finest. Thirty-five years later, I still don't think there has been a better example of the genre.

All this, of course, is by way of acknowledgement of the death this week at the age of 70 of Motorhead's frontman and bass player, Lemmy. Tales of his off-stage exploits are, of course, legendary; of how his prodigious capacity for drugs and alcohol meant he should have been dead years ago.

But I'm not interested in that here. I'm interested in how he and his band sold millions of records by almost single-handedly creating a style which you either loved or hated. No-one sang like Lemmy; no-one played bass guitar like Lemmy; bands which today are considered rock legends in their own right, such as Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer acknowledge that they were inspired by Lemmy and Motorhead.

He once said "If I died tomorrow, I couldn't complain. It's been good." Which is a pretty good way to look at life and one which plenty of survivors of that thing I'm not mentioning this week might aspire to as they survey their life.

In the official announcement of his death, his band-mates urged fans to play his music LOUD in his memory. I have and I will continue to do so. And I'll remember all the good memories that music brought me over the years.

Seek out 'No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith.' You might love it, you might hate it, but you certainly can't ignore it. And we all want to be remembered in some way when we're gone, don't we?