The series of anniversaries of classic MOTÖRHEAD albums continues. This year it is 40 years ago that “Another Perfect Day”, the most underrated album of this band, was released. Of course it is one more reason to feel old, as I vividly remember the days when MOTÖRHEAD parted ways with guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke after the “Iron Fist” album in the midst of a US tour and the classic line-up fell apart. The replacement for Clarke was Brian “Robbo” Robertson of THIN LIZZY fame, who recorded the album “Another Perfect Day” which we talk about now. The album received mixed reactions back then, if I remember correctly. Some really appreciated it for being more musical, some disliked it for being not heavy enough. As far as I am concerned, 13 year old me thought it was a nice album, but not as good as the stuff MOTÖRHEAD released before. Over the years, my perception of the album changed a lot. The more I listened to it, the more I loved it. The reason is quite simple: it’s the enormous quality and variety of the songs. What makes “Another Perfect Day” really special is the combination of Robbo’s undeniable qualities as a lead guitar player and Lemmy’s way to use the bass guitar as a rhythm guitar. Just take the opener ‘Back At The Funny Farm’ with its harmonic guitar lead that has ear worm qualities that puts a stress on the song while the bass carries the song accompanied by the fantastic beat of Animal Taylor’s drumming. With ‘Shine’ and ‘I Got Mine’, we have two real smash hits that were chosen as the album’s singles. ‘Dancing On Your Grave’ is the most catchy song MOTÖRHEAD recorded until that day. The title track is a fantastic song in the tradition of songs like ‘Capricorn’. We even have a slight foreshadow of what was to come a few years later, as ‘One Track Mind’ with its slow groove, darker atmosphere and piercing guitars already has a hint on songs like ‘Orgasmatron’. Of course we have two great typically rolling MOTÖRHEAD rockers with ‘Rock It’ and ‘Tales Of Glory’. In the end ‘Die You Bastard’ comes along with a quite catchy chorus to finish an absolutely fantastic album. Despite their quality, the songs from “Another Perfect Day” nearly never appeared in the set list of later live shows after the (inevitable) split of this line-up and the restart of MOTÖRHEAD in 1984. The reason might be that these songs reflected a very complicated and nearly fatal time and constellation for the band, as Robbo seemed to have meant trouble forty years ago, not fitting into the already fragile structure of the band. Yet “Another Perfect Day” features some of the finest stuff MOTÖRHEAD recorded in their long career. In my humble opinion, this album is definitely among their three best albums. And with this anniversary edition there is a quite worthy version of the album available for anyone who hasn’t got his copy yet or those who are out for extra material, since we find a bunch of bonus tracks on this double CD release. After the album, we find the b-sides of the two singles of the album, just like on some of the older re-releases of “Another Perfect Day”. First we have ‘Turn You Round Again’, which was the flipside of the “I Got Mine” single, a studio outtake that didn’t exactly meet the qualities of the other songs on the album, yet it might have been a fine song on other MOTÖRHEAD albums. The “Shine” 12″ single featured two interesting live songs: ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ is a really cool version of an old Blues classic written by Willie Dixon in 1954 that really shows the abilities of Robbo, who definitely went through the Blues guitar school. He also adds new notes to ‘(Don’t Need) Religion’, as the guitar parts are different and more elaborate than the way “Fast” Eddie Clarke played the song originally. The last four songs on the first disc will be really new even for old MOTÖRHEAD fans, as they are demo recordings taken when the songs weren’t really finished. Even the titles are working titles: ‘Climber’ is an early, pretty basic version of ‘Shine’ with different lyrics, ‘Fast One’ turned into ‘Die You Bastard’ and ‘Chinese’ is an early take of ‘One Track Mind’. In the end, we have an instrumental version of ‘Climber’. And even though it is quite interesting to listen to these recordings, it’s up to you if you really need these. As far as I am concerned, I am quite sure that I won’t listen to them again, even a very long time fan of MOTÖRHEAD. But of course these are not the only extras of this anniversary edition. On the second disc, we find a complete show from the tour MOTÖRHEAD did after the release of “Another Perfect Day”. It was recorded at Hull City Hall on June 22, 1983, about two weeks after the show that was released as the “Live 1983” album in 1991. The track list is of course quite similar to that album and it’s as unusual. It’s no wonder that MOTÖRHEAD focused on the back then recent album during that tour. But all the classic hits that became standards on their later tours are missing here. No ‘Overkill’, no ‘Bomber’, no ‘Ace Of Spades’ – that’s not what you expected when you attended a MOTÖRHEAD show. Instead we have songs like ‘Shoot You In The Back’, ‘Go To Hell’, ‘America’ or ‘The Chase Is Better Than The Catch’. Probably the setlist of the tour was kind of a compromise, as Robbo seemed to have been uncomfortable playing older songs that were written without his input – in the end of his days in MOTÖRHEAD he even refused to play those songs which led to his demission. The older songs we have here also sound different, as Robbo puts a new spin on these classics. Some might say this is freedom of art, others will talk about desecration here. At least these interpretations are unique. To return to the recording I was talking about: the quality is very rough, sometimes it’s booming, sometimes it’s distorted, but it’s always authentic. And it’s a historical recording that documents a special short time in the history of MOTÖRHEAD that will be of interest for any fan of the band. I prefer this live recording to the one we find on “Live 1983”, as this is not only partly legally released. In sum, this release is a fine way to celebrate the anniversary of an album that deserves more attention. I also have two links for you: www.imotorhead.com and www.bmg.com

As in the previous years, the series of MOTÖRHEAD re-releases of the 40th Anniversary of the records continue this year. 1982 and 1983 was a turbulent time for Lemmy and drummer Phil Taylor. After they – due to internal band problems – had kicked guitarist Fast Eddie Clarke out the door, former THIN LIZZY axeman Brian “Robbo” Robertson was actually only hired to finish the booked tours. He then stayed on with MOTÖRHEAD for the sixth studio album “Another Perfect Day”, not least because Phil Taylor’s enthusiasm for THIN LIZZY – to produce an album with Lemmy and Phil that forever will stand out from the discography in terms of musical arrangement. However, Robertson is also the one who leads the band into a phase of internal problems and is fired again during the tour for the album somewhere in the middle of Europe. Exactly this “Another Perfect Day” has now been revised on behalf of the rest of the band and management in a valuable way and comes via BMG in different formats. The offer includes the classic double CD in the proven mediabook format and two vinyl offers. These vinyl offers are a vinyl mediabook with the melting warpig sleeve, which contains three records and tells the story of their time with Robbo on glossy pages inbetween, including his clothing style, which is rather inappropriate for MOTÖRHEAD. The three-record set is also available without book, as a normal black vinyl or golden vinyl version. In addition to the original album, which has been improved a bit in terms of sound, where the shrill sounds in Robertson’s solos have been taken away, the B-side of the ‘I Got Mine’ single and live recordings of ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ and ‘(Don’t Need) Religion’, which were on the ‘Shine’ single, have been added. In addition, there are a handful of still very bumpy demo versions of several tracks. ‘Shine’ is called ‘Climber’, the well belched ‘Die You Bastard’ goes by the name of ‘Fast One’ and behind the ominous ‘Chinese’ hides ‘One Track Mind’, still in a very hollow version but with an intresting jam-part in the end. The second CD or two of the vinyl records house a previously unreleased live performance by the trio on June 22, 1983 at Hull’s City Hall. The sound quality is surprisingly good, but Lem’s vocals are partly very sludgy, while the instruments are thundering through tracks like ‘Back At The Funny Farm’, ‘Dancing On Your Grave’, ‘Rock It’ or ‘Marching Off To War’. Brian’s refusal to play the band’s classics is already pretty evident here, even though there are still older songs in the set like ‘Heart Of Stone’, ‘Shoot You In The Back’, ‘Go To Hell’ or ‘Bite The Bullet’. But MOTÖRHEAD without their real classics? Well, it’s an experience belonging to that time. One can enjoy this live document, be astonished about the worlds that lie between Robbo’s precisely melodic guitar playing and the punky-itching sound of both the others. However, in the long run, it remains what it is: a time-document! “Another Perfect Day” is an absolutely great and outstanding album, which fans today have long since made their peace with, but which still falls a little behind when considering the MOTÖRHEAD discography. Time to change this! www.imotorhead.com, www.bmg.com