Purchase Anvil, Metal on Metal from the documentary, Anvil: The Story of Anvil.
OK, I’m going to start this the wrong way, like some
apologist whose nothing but guilty of the thing he’s apologizing for…what do
they call that, when someone effusively apologizes for something in order to make
it seem as if they aren’t guilty of the exact thing they are expressing shame
about… hypocrisy?
And what exactly will I be protesting? That I don’t like
Metal. I really don’t. I did. But that was a long time ago. I’d rather you not
know that. But, now that I’ve written it, let’s leave it where it is.
I’m a little embarrassed at the fact that I used to think
the likes of Poison, Cinderella, Dokken, et al were the shit. Big S Shit. I wanted desperately to be able
to grown my hair long. I wore a torn and frayed denim jacket, festooned with as
many patches as I could fit on it: Def Leppard, Van Halen, Judas Priest, et al.
The main back patch was of Iron Maiden’s Eddie, dressed a British infantryman
from their greatest song, “The Trooper.” I wore wrester’s high-top shoes (I don’t know
where that came from, but it was the metal thing to do). I wore a mullet since
my hair is naturally curly and the only part that would grow reasonably
straight was the back. I looked like a tool.
I was abruptly pulled out of my teenage haze of hairspray
and spandex and Ibanez guitars when someone introduced me to R.E.M. It was a
simple change over, like a trigger pull. I went from listening to bad music,
because that’s what everyone else was listening, to being a music snob. Someone
who listened to good music. Someone who was openly critical of other’s
musical tastes. I would hazard that a
lot of you were/are the same…you know who you are. It’s OK; music appreciation
is part intellectual, part tribal, and all an affair of the heart. My
development of said musical appreciation is a long history, of which I gone into at
varying degrees in my writing for this blog, so I won’t digress too deeply into
my own tutelage and history. Except to
say: sometimes your past isn’t at as far a remove as you’d like to think.
Exhibit A: My Spotify library has many of Iron Maidens
albums
Exhibit B: I have an ipod playlist called “Hair Metal Faves”
Exhibit C: my obsession with the documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil
Directed by their former roadie, this film is a documentary
about Anvil, a little known metal band, and, is simply put: brilliant. It is both
heartbreaking and hilarious, but in the end, as uplifting a human story as I’ve
ever seen. The “tragedy” of the band fuels the emotional drive of the story,
and in a sense proves that the tragedy need not be one that moves us to despair
to raise the spirit to a place one finds a sense of thankfulness or
self-perspective. To get a sense of the
film, you should know: Anvil are a Canadian metal outfit that put out an album
in 1982 that is considered by most metal luminaries as singularly influential.
Metallica and Anthrax, Slash, Lemmy, Slayer all fill the film with stunning
testimony to the energy and excitement that Anvil brought to the stage and how
they seemed poised to reach the very pinnacle of metal triumph.
And then…nothing. Anvil disappeared from the main stream and
seemingly into the lore of bands that “might of.” But, they never really went
away. The film details the story of how mainstays Steve “Lips” Kudlow (lead
vox) and drummer Robb Reiner toiled through decades of obscurity and all the
inglorious humiliations of being a band that had tasted success but never quite
made it. Nor ever quit. There’s a lot to this film that makes it great. It is a
meditation of youthful ambition, on failure and will. It is about friendship
and family, but mostly it’s about grit. About never giving in and never giving
up. The movie is at times heartbreaking, but in the end, it’s an important
film—the message is powerful: stick to
what you know you want and what you’re capable of, despite what happens along
the way and all the people who will tell you that you can’t.
I started off talking about how I was embarrassed to admit I
used to be into metal. I’m not saying that Anvil was an amazing band—at least
not by my standards. I don’t really see the “influence” that the people in film
talk about. But, their story, their singular story, is inspiring, fable-like, joyously
uplifting. You don’t have to like metal to hope the members of Anvil have
achieved success, finally, and the kind of happiness that would bring. You don’t
have to like metal to cheer them at the end of the film, maybe even bang your
head, if just a little. Because, despite their “tragic” career arc, what you
come away from this film is that Kudlow and Reiner are happy, are capable of
being joyful, despite the near surreal oddness and frustration of their band’s
story. And that is where the sheer brilliance of this movie, and their story,
come to the fore: rarely will you ever see a lesson of determination illustrated
and perfectly as than in the story of Anvil.
If you haven’t seen Anvil
yet, go get it now. The film will stay with you and you just might get
their signature tune, “Metal on Metal”, stuck in your head. Which will be a
good thing, especially if you need to get off your ass and do something.
