I’ve been grumbling for years about how metal bands hardly ever play in town, thanks to JAXX out in Springfield (and also lots of Baltimore clubs). Motörhead at the 930 Club makes sense, though, if partly because Lemmy and crew have a pretty substantial hipster following. I am no expert on the band, but it seems to me like they flit comfortably between a few different musical worlds, touring with metal bands one time, dirty hard rock bands another time, punk bands still another time. Currently they’re touring with the Reverend Horton Heat and Nashville Pussy, both interesting choices. It was a good line-up and a solid show.

First up were Nashville Pussy, a band I’ve been aware of for ages but had never much listened to. They were a lot more metal than I expected and I liked them a lot. The lead guitarist — Ruyter Suys — was super rad and bassist Karen Cuda was tough and hot. I have actually heard more stuff by singer Blaine Cartwright’s earlier band Nine Pound Hammer than I have Nashville Pussy, but I’ll check them out more. I am on a serious metal kick (my new favorite DC band is Rattler) and Nash. P. satisfied that itch more even than Motörhead did.

So far no clips on youtube for Nashville Pussy but here is a good one from the following night in NY.

Up next was the Reverend Horton Heat. Now, the Rev and me go way back. I’ve seen them 2 or 3 times before, though not for many years, and I like them a lot. The Reverend himself is one of the better guitarists I’ve ever seen and I really like his confluence of styles. Every now and then he goes off into a little too much of, say, a lounge-y swing-y direction, but generally he nails the surf/punk/rockabilly thing amazingly well.

This is a good excuse for me to dig through some old photos, because I have some shots of the Reverend Horton Heat doing a record store signing at HMV in Georgetown from like 13 years ago. As if I need to prove my bona fides, here is my friend Mike with the 1996 line-up (same as today’s except for the drummer):

Though I would say I’m a pretty big fan, I haven’t heard any new Rev. H.H. stuff in quite a while and wasn’t entirely sure how the show would be. In fact, would I even like it anymore? My musical tastes have shifted a bit since the Rev.’s heyday of the mid-’90s.

I needn’t have worried, it totally kicked ass. Heath is almost as much of a badass as fellow 50-year-old Nick Cave. In fact it is pretty exciting to see musicians of this generation, those around 50 who grew up on rock and roll and also experienced punk, grow older. There is a lot of fire left in some of these pentagenarians.

Here are a couple of clips of the Reverend:

“The Devil’s Chasing Me” (brief clip)

“Psychobilly Freakout”

So finally after two great performances we got to Motörhead! Rock on, right? Well, yes and no.

First off I don’t know Motörhead incredibly well… I probably have about 20 songs of theirs in my collection but no actual CDs or anything. I didn’t really get into Motörhead until I was older, after my metal fandom had been filtered through layers of grunge, punk, indie, and experimentalism. So I think they are rad, but I don’t feel a special bond with Motörhead the way I do with, say, Judas Priest or Iron Maiden. So I didn’t end up knowing many songs during the show.

But that wouldn’t have mattered. The main problem with Motörhead was the “oh my god it is too fucking loud” problem that I have experienced before on very rare occasions. I love loud music! I find it cathartic. I find beauty in loud music that many folks would run away from in terror.

But I knew from the moment I saw the wall of amplifiers on stage that Motörhead were gonna be maybe too loud. The last band I saw that was so crushingly loud was Dinosaur Jr at the Black Cat and I didn’t really like the Dinosaur show much at all (though I love their music!). Some things are just too brutal to enjoy, and the decibel level for Dinosaur really destroyed all my interest in ever seeing them live again.

Same thing with Motörhead. I stuffed my ears with paper and rocked out as best as I could, but it was just too loud. I know that’s kind of the point. And I dig it to an extent. But I am getting pretty damn old myself and just have to bow out of this kind of thing at some point.

Now — unlike that Dinosaur Jr show — I could still enjoy Motörhead’s performance and definitely had a good time. (I am guessing Dinosaur was significantly louder.) I was amused by Lemmy’s indecipherable commentary throughout — was it his accent or the ringing in my ears that made him impossible to understand? The music rocked and I found out via this last.fm review that the drummer was an emergency replacement.

Here’s a taste of some Motörhead — you don’t actually need earplugs for music on the internet:

So yeah it was an awesome performance, and a legendary performer, but it will not go down in my memory as a favorite show just because I can’t handle the volume levels anymore. Sucks but it’s true. But all power to Lemmy & co… hope I am still rocking and rolling for decades to come.

Here is the most famous Motörhead song as I go rest my ears:

And here is a snapshot from my cellphone: