MÖSH YOUR ENTHUSIASM (10)
By:
February 1, 2024
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of metal records from the Eighties (1984–1993, in our periodization schema). Series edited by Heather Quinlan. Also check out our MÖSH YOUR ENTHUSIASM playlist at Spotify.
MOTÖRHEAD | “ACE OF SPADES (CCN REMIX)” | 1993
Unlike much of what passes for the sobriquet Heavy Metal, particularly stateside, Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades” (originally 1980) is a fanatically low-grade and pungent aural experience, the kind of record that makes your feet stick to the floor of a smelly cavern carpet that’s been 500-times doused with warm lager and glue.
There was some consternation, initially, when the piece was remixed into a 1993 pseudo–Acid House banger — a little late to the game and somewhat exploitative. The cuts are poor, the electronic elements après-garde and it goes on way too long. But only one criterion should be applied to Motörhead records — did it get Lemmy more beer and drugs money? If the answer is “Yes,” then it’s a good Motörhead record.
However, had I a time-machine, I would eschew heroics on grassy knolls; avoiding 1601’s raucous “Hamlet” premiere after-show party (Shakespeare and the troupe’s relief at having gotten away with this early Zucker Brothers parody must have been immense); and blowing The Beatles’ 1968 minds with real Apple products from the present day, thus consigning Magic Alex to the dustbin of diodes. Tempting as these events are, they pale in comparison regarding my concern for the total lack of gambling awareness that Lemmy’s lyrics exhibit here.
Throughout the piece, Lemmy refers repeatedly to the ace of spades, but seems entirely confused as to whether this is a good card, bad card, or a mystical omen. He should have been told, in clear and simple terms, that Satanic mystical associations bring no extra value to an ace in the game of blackjack. Indeed, if it’s the case that “it’s all the same to me,” then Lemmy’s record at the blackjack table, a game that offers marginally better odds than other card games at casinos, would have been atrocious, his poor play only exacerbated by the fact he gets dice-based craps mixed up with blackjack at one point, referring to “Seven or eleven, snake eyes watching you.”
Sometime in 1982, I imagine taking the hapless Lemmy to one side, across the ungainly swirl of a low-rent casino in a dull neon British seaside town — knowing smiles looping at us from the kindly septuagenarian lady dealers — and quietly explaining his errors, and how he could keep so much more of his beer and drugs money if he’d adhered to my wise words.
Would he thank me or punch me? Perhaps both — and in this where we glimpse the brilliance of Motörhead. It makes you smile sweetly and want to punch someone at the same time, and that’s a duality of effect that, regrettably, modem culture rarely serves us.
MÖSH YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Heather Quinlan | Crockett Doob on Metallica’s ENTER SANDMAN | Dean Haspiel on Mötley Crüe’s HOME SWEET HOME | Jack Silbert on Poison’s TALK DIRTY TO ME | Adam McGovern on Dio’s INVISIBLE | Mariane Cara on Faith No More’s EPIC | Heather Quinlan on Blue Öyster Cult’s SHOOTING SHARK | Steve Schneider on UFO’s DIESEL IN THE DUST | Carlo Rotella on Primus’ JERRY WAS A RACE CAR DRIVER | Erik Davis on St. Vitus’ BORN TOO LATE | Greg Rowland on Motörhead’s ACE OF SPADES (remix) | Kathy Biehl on Twisted Sister’s WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT | Nikhil Singh on G.I.S.M.’s GAS BURNER PANIC | Erin M. Routson on Metallica’s ESCAPE | Holly Interlandi on Helmet’s MILQUETOAST | Marc Weidenbaum on Celtic Frost’s I WON’T DANCE (THE ELDERS’ ORIENT) | Amy Keyishian on Living Colour’s CULT OF PERSONALITY | Josh Glenn on Scorpions’ STILL LOVING YOU | Alycia Chillemi on Danzig’s SOUL ON FIRE | James Parker on Godflesh’s CHRISTBAIT RISING | Miranda Mellis on The Afflicted’s HERE COME THE COPS | Rene Rosa on Type O Negative’s BLACK NO. 1 | Tony Leone on Slayer’s SOUTH OF HEAVEN | Christopher Cannon on Neurosis’s LOST | Brian Berger on Black Sabbath’s HEADLESS CROSS | MÖSH CONTEST-WINNING ENTRY: Tony Pacitti on Metallica’s THE CALL OF KTULU. PLUS: CONTEST RUNNER-UP: James Scott Maloy on Accept’s MIDNIGHT MOVER.
JACK KIRBY PANELS | CAPTAIN KIRK SCENES | OLD-SCHOOL HIP HOP | TYPEFACES | NEW WAVE | SQUADS | PUNK | NEO-NOIR MOVIES | COMICS | SCI-FI MOVIES | SIDEKICKS | CARTOONS | TV DEATHS | COUNTRY | PROTO-PUNK | METAL | & more enthusiasms!