Motorhead’s “On Parole” album has the distinction of being Motorhead’s “fourth” album as well as being their “first” album. Recorded in 1975 with their original original lineup (Lemmy, Lucas Fox and Larry Wallis; with Philthy Animal Taylor also in the latter sessions replacing the drums on all but one song), it actually didn’t get released until after Motorhead was fairly successful with their “Bomber” and “Overkill” albums. As Lemmy says in the liner notes when it came out, “It is badly mixed, indifferently played and does not have Dr Clarke on it. Buy it (if you are a collector, no doubt you will) only with the awareness of these facts. Most of the songs were done better on the ‘Motorhead’ album. However, it is part of the story. So there.”
Well I am a fan and a collector and I think Lemmy’s being a little harsh on it. It’s a pretty solid album, and yes, it’s not as good as their other albums at the time, and also true, it is a part of the story. Lemmy did say it was “badly mixed”, well on the blu ray of this set, there may be the version he would have wanted released. It contains a new remix of the album. Actually, FOUR mixes on the album. An “Atmos Mix”, “5.1 mix”, and “Stereo Remix”. All 2025 remixes by Steve Wilson. The purists don’t have to worry: Nothing was taken away, as there’s also a “flat transfer” of the original LP.
They didn’t waste a CD on the original album, which is smart, since we all have it already, so why would we need to have it again? CD1 contains the “Stereo Remix”. Truth be told, the remix is not that drastic. Things are slightly clearer and there’s a little more stereo separation in the instruments, but when all is said and done, it’s Motorhead. Loud, rough, down and dirty.
Disks 2 and 3 are basically what I bought this set for: the sessions. While not as extensive and complete as the Stooges “Complete Funhouse” box set, it does remind me of a lot of it in that you get multiple takes on the songs (for example, “Motorhead” has an instrumental take 1, the album take, the backing track of the album take, instrumental take 2, take 5 without vocal overdubs, take 5, and even an instrumental guitar riff) so you can hear how the songs progressed and hear different versions. In between a lot of it is some studio dialog. So if you want to know what it was like to be in the studio with the first incarnation of Motorhead, here you go!
CD 3 is really interesting. Most bands when they release a “jam” from the studio, they’re just a 1 or 2 minute little ditty they played just to get warmed up. Not Motorhead. There’s 3 “jams” on here. The “Jam/On Parole” instrumental jam is 19 MINUTES! There’s an “Iron Horse – Born To Lose” jam that’s about 5 minutes, which is just Lemmy and Lucas Fox (or is it Phil?) playing together. The “Fools” instrumental jam is 12 minutes! I think it’s so cool that the producer (was it Dave Edmunds on this?) decided to hit ‘record’ when they were playing these and even cooler that they released them so we could hear them!
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