I vividly remember the first time I saw Motörhead play. It was October 18, 2003 and the venue was London’s Hammersmith Apollo. There were health-and-safety-defying pyrotechnics, inexplicable women in bikinis cavorting onstage and half-full pint glasses arching their way through the air before crashing into the sweaty crowd. And in the middle of it all, behind his trademark Rickenbacker bass – the one with the elaborate, almost Medieval wooden carving on the body – was Lemmy, a man who for who no surname, no introduction and no apologies were needed. At that point he would have been well into his late 50s, but he showed no signs of slowing down, shutting up or deciding to escape to the country and resigning himself to work on a glum acoustic album. And thank fuck for that.
Following the sad death of [a]Motorhead[/a] frontman and all-round Jack Daniels-guzzling, axe-wielding icon Lemmy on Monday (December 28), tributes pouring in from the rock community have been universally eulogising. "He was a warrior and a legend," Ozzy Osbourne tweeted, while Butch Walker added: "Nobody came close being the Rock God that you are".
Countless political figures have turned to hip-hop in an attempt to attract voters and mollify the public: George Osborne proclaiming his love for NWA and Michelle Obama rapping about why kids should go to college, just to name two recent examples.
Flooding in the north of England and its surrounding areas has dominated the news this Christmas and devastated many, with two neighbouring recording studios in Leeds among those most severely affected.
This week saw the likes of Bono, Hozier, Kodaline, The Script, Ronan Keating and more take part in a Dublin tradition of busking in the city for charity on Christmas Eve. They aren't the only famous faces caught busking recently either, with Madonna, Courtney Barnett and Steven Tyler all spotted on the streets lately.
It started with one tweet. Then another. Soon #DepressABeatlesSong was trending worldwide, all thanks to one individual, whose original tweet – not the best of the lot, if we’re honest – you can see below.
