http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/umAxeO-QfmY&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0
Anvil! The Story of Anvil is sort of a metal version of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler: ’80s pop culture icon gives way to ’90s irrelevance, which gives rise to an attempted comeback this century. It even has a service industry hairnet scene. Both movies are more than the heartwarming stories they are made out to be. Anvil’s tale has even more bite, due to it being real life.
The documentary gets off to an unpromising start. It shows the band down and out, playing to tiny audiences, with fans that embody the worst of metalhead stereotypes. Thankfully, this is not a typical portrayal by outsiders that exoticizes or mocks metal. It is also not the uncritical, for-fans-only pap that fills many metal DVD’s today. Rather, it is a film about people. Metal happens to be the context.
Anvil frontman “Lips” Kudlow is incredibly candid and honest throughout. In fact, he is much more compelling as a civilian than as a musician. (Granted, the filmmakers focus more on his person than his music.) While Anvil may have been influential in their prime, it’s easy to see why they didn’t enjoy the success of contemporaries like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Priest, too, had lyrics with seventh-grade sexual humor, but they also had Rob Halford’s mighty pipes and an incomparable twin axe attack. Anvil had neither. They tried to compensate with hard work, but, as the film points out, bad management can ruin everything.
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For all of Anvil’s shortcomings, their degree of misfortune is still shocking. Now that old-school metal is hip again, it’s bewildering to see them get rejected by label after label as they try to stage a comeback. This Is Thirteen, the record they shopped around when the documentary was made, sounds like a million bucks, thanks to production by Chris Tsangarides (Judas Priest, Biomechanical). It actually cost 12 or 13,000 pounds; some of the movie’s most heartbreaking moments come when the band members grapple with this expense. Interestingly, their families are not all supportive. Some believe in these men’s right to pursue their dreams. Others view the matter with colder, more practical eyes.
Unlike Metallica in Some Kind of Monster, these men have little to lose and are thus easy to cheer for. But is “the right to rock” a constitutional right? These men have families and responsibilities, and they put themselves into situations where being in a band, especially one like Anvil, is potentially injurious not only to themselves but also others. The movies always tell us to pursue our dreams. Pursuing one’s dreams is the best reason for getting up in the morning. But when is enough enough?
Ironically, Anvil have delayed that point for a while with this film. It is the best possible publicity for the band, with more reach than a hundred publicists could provide. Now anyone who walks into the right movie theater (which now is a higher probability than with a record store) can see and hear Anvil. Additionally, Anvil’s inability to secure a record deal may have prolonged their longevity. Instead of being indentured to a label, they financed and sold This Is Thirteen themselves. Thus, they cut out the middlemen and keep all the profits. Their fans, who are older, are more likely to buy CD’s than to download the album. It was almost a brilliant move. That is, until I went to their website to buy the CD. It costs 20 euros or 25 Canadian dollars, currently approximately 22 US dollars. Evidently, the band still lacks good management.
Links:
Band website
Band MySpace
Movie website
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So glad to see some good things finally happen to these guys. They might be touted as virtual unknowns, but you won't meet a Canadian metalhead who grew up in the 80s who isn't familiar with their early work (Metal on Metal is classic). Anvil was as ubiquitous up here as Helix. Which was pretty darn ubiquitous.
Huge Anvil fan. Metal on Metal; Forged in Fire, etc… Not really a weak record in the oeuvre. Hopefully this will turn more people onto their music.
Good god, thanks for comparing this to The Wrestler and not to Spinal Tap, like the rest of the internet. Along with the rest of the thoughts presented, besides the Left Hand Path piece this is the best write-up on the movie I've seen in the internet metal-related sphere.
Stewart above is wrong, Anvil have a lot of very weak records. Everybody remembers Metal on Metal and Forged In Fire. Most of the other, numerous records are very weak. This is why they never got anywhere, too much product, not enough quality control. Heavy Metal moved on from what Anvil understood it to be and they made no effort to expand their visions for more than 3 records worth of vital material. Diminishing retreats on the same concepts since then.
Of course there's bands with much less talent than 3 records' worth and they're touring the world, that all is as you say, down to bad management. I wouldn't wish any band with such finite talent to end up at the top of the world because of good management (like say, Metallica) anyway, it is destructive both to the people involved (as seen in that horrible Spectacle, 'Some Kind of Monster') and it doesn't benefit the field of the arts either to have stuff like St.Anger or Death Magnetic out. Wouldn't wish it on anyone.
To reply to your question, to what end should grown up men with families pursue (pipe?) dreams… I think the Anvil people weren't starving. Food service industry, alright, well… that's a living, isn't it? They supported their families and they played their metal, hoping for a big break (that came in the most peculiar of circumstances… there's not many bands that have made a success our of being unsuccessful) so I don't think they should have given up at any point in their lives. Most of the truly great Heavy Metal albums that altered our lives also were the result of people working on them as an aside, to their 'real world' concerns. They weren't made by bands that were going for world domination or bust. That's the nature of Heavy Metal, any success to be achieved is an ingressive one, a monument to one's internal drive to conquer themselves.
This is what I keep from the documentary also.
Strength of Steel; Pound for Pound; Worth the Weight; Plugged in Permanent; Absolutely no Alternative; Speed of Sound; Plenty of Power; Still Going Strong; Back to Basics, and This is Thirteen: All strong, all with great tunes and listenable as hell.
I appreciate music that sticks to its personal vision and doesn't wax and wane with what the kids want, which is more than I can say for most of the schlock people froth for these days.
The way Helm prattles on about "humanity" and then disses one of the most palpably "humane" ensembles in Heavy Metal is richer than a tub of Chubby Hubby~
Anvil performance Photo by Brent J. Craig
This sounds great. Netflix queue position number 6 million.
FYI: Anvil are now represented by Slayer's management and Metallica's attorney. Amazing..
Brent – photo credit added. Thank you for the info, and apologies for the omission.
Helm – I felt tension in the film between the band "doing it for the love of it," which means they would be content with their lack of fame, and their pursuit of external rewards, which admittedly have been unjustly denied to them. The latter – "rock star status," to put it bluntly – may be a valid goal, but pursuit of it can lead to suffering, as this film shows.
Umlaut – Amazing indeed. I hope Anvil can ride this wave to better things.
So I'm some sort of hypocrite because I don't like all these Anvil records? And I 'dissed' them because I don't like all their output? I have great respect for Anvil even just for the early material. The terms in which you read my posts are cheap and that's your fault. Please check.
Cool movie, but people should watch it/buy it/whatever because it's good, not out of pity or solidarity or whatever. Anvil have a lot of bad songs. They have good ones too.
I usually try not to read your posts, Helm. But when you pass poor, uninformed judgment on a band you seem to know little about, I can't refrain.
If you think Heavy Metal has "moved on" from what Anvil perceived it to be, I will kindly direct you to a wealth of "new/old" Metal, some which has even been featured on this site.
I discussed with you in private but I feel the issue is unresolved. As I am not sure I'll ever get the chance to finalize this, privately, here is a summary:
Your accusations are incorrect. I am intimately familiar with what I am discussing, unless I say otherwise. That we disagree in tastes does not mean you are right in thinking me uninformed. You are instead, idly insulting me, which I didn't expect.
The issue of Heavy Metal having moved on and to what regard is best discussed with someone who isn't sniping outside of a conversation while apparently trying hard, and failing, to disregard the other talker. We'd probably not disagree as much as you think we would if this was discussed properly.
If you're going to try to not read my posts, try harder. If you're going to keep replying to me, try harder to extend the benefit of doubt towards people you hardly know.
I remember the guy who ran one of Anvil's former labels owed Anvil royalties and when he didn't pay them, Lips and co. literally crashed his office, grabbed him, and dragged him to the nearest ATM and forced him to withdraw the money owed to them. Classic Toronto Anvil moment.
Nonetheless I have yet to see this movie.
I just noticed on blabbermouth that Anvil will be opening for AC/DC in the States somewhere.
I hope their current management can parlay the interest from the film into some lasting viability!
I liked "Metal On Metal" when it first came out, but was always disappointed by the few subsequent releases that I heard later. I do plan on seeing the film, though.
I wonder, what other bands would make for interesting melodrama in documentary form?
Well, VH1 specializes in band soap operas. Usually they're banal and condescending, though. The filmmaker here has done something special and made this a genuine story of interest, not just a "haha washed up rock star" deal.