As much as I don't want this blog to be completely consumed by nostalgic melancholy, recent events are dictating otherwise. On the back of the news of the loss of my dear friend Dan, I learned Thursday morning that former Motorhead guitarist Fast Eddie Clarke passed away at the age of 67. I'm not equating these losses, but it was just one more sad development in a surreal week.
I've invoked Motorhead so many times here already that I don't need to go into chapter and verse of how much they meant to me, especially their classic line-up of Philthy Animal Tayler, Fast Eddie Clarke and, of course, Lemmy. With Clarke's passing, that officially extinguishes the signature incarnation of the band (with all due respect to members from both prior and latter iterations).
But instead of rolling out another video from that band, here's a clip of Fast Eddie's next venture, that being Fastway, a hard rock ensemble that had originally featured bassist Pete Way from U.F.O. (hence the name... geddit?) Fastway also featured a Robert-Plant-cribbing vocalist named Dave, who later fronted a markedly different band called Flogging Molly.
This is not exactly a high quality clip, but I like it because I was at the show in question. Here's Fastway playing their first single onstage at Madison Square Garden in 1983. They were opening for AC/DC on the Flick of the Switch tour. I attended this gig with my high school friends Alex Plaittakis and Michael Armstrong.
Thirty-five years later, Fast Eddie Clarke is gone, Fastway is long over. AC/DC have called it quits. Madison Square Garden sill stands. I haven't heard or spoken to Alex Plaittakis in decades (although I'm still friends with his brother), and my friend Mike passed away while working at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
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