Louie Louie/Tear Ya Down


Notes

By the end of 1977 Tony Secunda was Motorheads manager. He told Motorhead to do a single sometime in the beginning of 1978. Phil Taylor suggested that they would do Louie Louie, the 1965 US hit with the Kingsmen, and, according to the Babylon book by Alan Burridge they recorded a backing track. I don´t think this recording has ever been released. There are alternative studiotakes that has been released (see below) but I think all of those are later recordings. When Secunda didn´t seem to make anything happen after that recording, Motorhead went to Douglas Smith and asked him to help them out. At the time a booking agent and an associate of Douglas, Neil Warwick, had a favour to claim from Gerry Bron of Bronze Records and this resulted in a deal for one single for Bronze. They re-recorded Louie Louie and the flip side Tear Ya Down in the summor of 1978 at the Wessex studios with Neil Richmond as producer. The single was released in August 1978, although various Motorhead compilations lists 30th of September as the release date.

The single made it to no 68 in the charts. This really surprised Gerry Bron because he thought the single was terrible but when he saw the band and their fanatic following at a concert at Hammersmith on the 5th of November he just had to sign them.

Except for the version that is featured on the single, there are a few more studio versions that has been released over the years. In 1993 a different version surfaced as the second track on the B-side of the 12” version of the re-release of Ace of Spades on the WGAF label. This version did not have the keyboard, the sound and the production was clearer and it had a different solo. You could also hear Lemmy shout “Hit it!” during the intro and something like “Ok, let´s give it to them right now” just before the solo. The same version was also included as an “Alternate take” on the remastered Overkill album that was released on CD in 1996 on the Essential label. Another version, probably some kind of demo version, was included on the Stone Dead Forever CD with recordings that originally came from Eddie Clarkes archives that Receiver released in 1997. This version did include the keyboards but had a much more raw sound and also had a different solo. A fourth version was included in the Stone Deaf Forever Boxed Set, the John Peel sessions from November 1978. This version was quite similar to the one that was featured on the Ace of Spades re-release but the solo was the same as the original version from the single.

This is a story by Howard Thompson who used to work for Bronze at the time: "The first time I saw Motörhead was at Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Manticore complex, an old cinema they’d bought and converted to a rehearsal facility and recording studio. I had received an invitation to a showcase from their handler at the time, Frank Kennington, suggesting that Island Records might be interested in putting out their records. Since my job was to take a look at everything out there, I accepted. So I go on the appointed afternoon and, upon entering the building, encountered a deafening roar not unlike that of a low-flying airplane. When my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness (the only illumination was provided by the little red lights on the amplifiers and these fast moving bright white 'flashlights' flying about the place) it became apparent that while Motörhead were playing, a couple of Hells Angels were riding around the otherwise empty, seatless auditorium on their bikes. The din was staggering and it wasn’t long before the handful of us that had shown up promptly sought the peace and quiet of London's traffic outside on Fulham Broadway, where the fumes and stench were slightly more acceptable. Needless to say, the showcase didn’t exactly pan out the way they had hoped and it wasn’t until a couple of years later when (new manager) Douglas Smith called me at Bronze Records and asked if I would consider signing the band. By this time, they’d lost 3 record deals (an album ‘On Parole’ had been rejected by United Artists) and they’d just been dropped by Chiswick Records after their ‘Motörhead’ album had failed to light up the charts. Stiff Records had done a single with them too, but were prevented from releasing Leaving Here c/w White Line Fever by U/A who claimed the band were still under contract to them when the songs were recorded. At the time, Bronze’s biggest artists were Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Uriah Heep and Osibisa, so it wasn’t exactly the first label a manager would bring their clients. In fact, it was the last. Doug admitted to me that he’d been everywhere else and, unless Bronze signed the band, they would probably have to break up. I told him that I wasn't really interested, but he convinced me to come and see them one last time, this time at Dingwalls, a club in Camden Lock. I agreed, mainly because I had cut acetates and the lacquers for (his other client) Hawkwind’s ‘Urban Guerilla’ single when I was at Trident. I liked Douglas and I’d also quite liked Motörhead’s eponymous single, although I thought its production left a lot to be desired. The band now had 'Fast' Eddie Clarke on guitar and, this time, they were just awesome! Not only did they rock the packed house, but everybody in the room was wearing a Motörhead t-shirt and a 'bullet belt' (Lemmy's trademark) so clearly there was an audience for them. I was very excited by what I saw and told my boss, David Betteridge, we should agree to Doug's suggestion of a singles deal which, upon some degree of success, would convert to a multi-album deal. Their idea was to go into a studio and cut a version of ‘Louie Louie’, Motörhead-style. To this point, I'd not actually met the group and now it was time to put that right. These guys had a pretty fearsome image. Apart from just looking like they'd eat babies for breakfast, they were friendly with the Hells Angels - Lemmy rode with president and founding member of the Oakland chapter, Sonny Barger, when he was in town - and their drug intake was legendary. Lemmy had been fired by Hawkwind for forcing them to cancel some Canadian shows due to some customs officials mistaking speed for coke and throwing him in jail. It's not like I hadn't been around musicians who took drugs - hey, I'd even tried a few myself - but these guys just seemed so hardcore. Doug (or Drug-less, as the band called him) suggested I drop by on the second day of recording so when that day came, I went to Wessex Studios and knock on the control room door. It opens, and there’s Lemmy, clad head-to-pointed-toe in black. He barks, “Yeah? Who are you?” “Uh…Howard...from the record company”. “Wait...” and he begins to unroll his shirtsleeve, extracting a polythene bag of a white-ish powder. He sticks a switchblade into the bag and draws out a blade-tip full of what I figure is amphetamine sulphate and holds it under my nose. “Snort that”, he commands. This gets repeated for the other nostril and when that’s done, I make a move to step inside but “Hold it”, he growls, and goes to fetch something from inside the room. He returns clutching a tall can of Carlsberg Special Brew, gives it to me, and orders, “Drink that...all of it...now!” I comply, wondering what's coming next but, as soon as I’m finished, he steps aside, ushers me in, offers me a seat at the center of the mixing desk and tells producer Neil Richmond to "turn it up, and hit ‘play’". Both sides of the single thunder from the speakers and from that moment on, I become a huge admirer of Lemmy and the guys in Motörhead, particularly the 'Philthy' Animal Taylor and Fast Eddie version. ‘Tear Ya Down’ is the B-side to Louie Louie and remains, to this day, a favourite getting played regularly on North Fork Sound. That single did well enough to chart (#68) and the band clawed their way onto Top Of The Pops, thanks to some skillfull maneuverings by Bronze promo-dude, Roger Bolton. To get on TOTP, a record had to be in the top 30, but somehow Roger pulled it off. That was the start of the band's climb to fame and, by now (I hope), fortune. Jimmy Miller was brought in to produce the pioneering and utterly glorious ‘Overkill’ album and the rest is history".

Tracklist

  1. Louie Louie
  2. Tear Ya Down

Related releases

W o r l d w i d e   r e l e a s e s ,  7"

Label

Catalogue no

Origin

Date

Notes

Trident Acetate UK 1978 Acetate
Trident Acetate UK 1978 1-sided Acetate, Tear Ya down
Festival K7254 Aus 1978 Issued without picture sleeve
Bronze BRO 60 Ire 1978 Issued without picture sleeve
Bronze BRO 60 UK 1978 Promo
Bronze BRO 60 UK 1978
Bronze BRO 60 UK 1978 Test pressing
Bronze BRO 60 UK 1981? "Original" label
Bronze BRO 60 UK 1982? Green label
Earmark 41032 Italy 2004 7" Box set

W o r l d w i d e   r e l e a s e s ,  C D

Label

Catalogue no

Origin

Date

Notes

Raw Power RAW BX 140/Disc 1 UK 1999-04-19 10 CD Box Set
Universal 0600753-308080 EU 2011-06? In skull box