Anvil! The Story of Anvil :: A Movie Review

Before I even start with this review, let me say that the only Anvil song I know is "Metal on Metal" and up until last night, I thought it was by Raven. That's how off my radar these Canadian fuckheads were. Let me also say that this morning I downloaded their first 3 albums and they are actually pretty fucking rad. In a cheesy Canadian 80's metal band kinda way.

I've never written a movie review before, so I'm not sure what I'm doing here. Let me just say that if you like MI, you're gonna LOVE "Anvil!". The peeps that made it basically read MI and thought: "Shit, let's make a fucking movie! We'll find a has been band that never was and make fun of them like they do on that blog!" Well, gents, you've succeeded! 

I laughed, I cried (from laughing), and laughed again (mostly at the ridiculous Canadian accents). This documentary starts with an "Anvil primer", if you will. A short introduction to who Anvil were. Then they start to lay it on THICK. Too thick, actually. Scott Ian, Fuckhead Lars, Lemmy, Slash, Johnny Zazula and even Tom Araya go on to lie about how amazing Anvil were. It must look really convincing, but to those of us who know better, it's all a bunch of horseshit. Anvil sucked and were NOT this super influential band without whom Slayer, Metallica, Anthrax and GnR would exist. That's just not true. Tygers of Pan Tang had more to do with 80's metal than Anvil, for fucks sake! I know the film makers had to make these guys seem interesting somehow, but give me a break! Playing guitar using a dildo does not make you a musical genius, it makes you a balding, aging sad, sad Canadian. If people really knew how lame a band they were, this movie would never had gotten the budget to be made and I would have spent last night alone, at home working on my yoga and watching reruns of House MD. Instead, I went to see this awesome movie and got some action afterwards. Looking at it from that perspective, I'm glad these dbags got their funding!

Anyway, after all the hype and bullshit,  we meet Robb Reiner (of course no relation to Rob Reiner, writer of "This is Spinal Tap"... it's just a weird, odd, weird, weird coincidence), and Lips, founders of Anvil. Their lives are obviously sad and pathetic. They remind me of the dude in The Wrestler. From that moment on I laughed for an hour straight. These clowns are SO FUCKING sad and pathetic that everything that comes out of their Canadian mouths is funny as shit. Add the accents and you have pure 100% 28K comedy gold. My stomach was hurting. I thought an usher would come and kick me out.

So they talk about how big they could have been and how their lives suck now, but  they catch a break and get to go on a pathetic European tour. This thing was booked by this ugly-ass broad who is totally incompetent and play in front of bartenders and tens of fans all over the old continent. At some fest in Sweden they get to meet all these "Metal celebrities" and not ONE of them know who the fuck they are. It's a non-stop laugh-a-thon! It's so well edited, they look like total chumps! 

Besides a drummer, Robb figures himself an 'artist'. Some of his work is actually not THAT bad, but he has a painting of a turd on a toilet that basically sums up Anvil's career. 

The movie ends with a show they play in Japan and like 10.000 people are there, so you'll leave the theater feeling all warm and cozy. The part they don't stress is that they were playing first on the bill. FIRST! 11:30am! The worst spot ever on a bill. The only reason people are there is because Japanese people are anally punctual and if the flyer says the show starts at 11am, they'll be there. But not to watch Anvil. They'll be there to watch the 10 other bands AFTER Anvil.

Japanese crowds are easily pleased. I know from experience. It's easy to convince these people that you are a legend. Do you know how much Japanese tail I've gotten by telling ladies I'm a BMX legend from Brazil who is touring Japan for Haro?

Some will tell you how "touching" Robb and Lip's friendship is. They'll say the movie is about their relationship that is almost like a brotherhood. They'll insist the movie triumphs because of their perseverance, love and dedication to the band or whatever... Take it from me, it's not!

There's nothing "touching" about these people. They are just sad, pathetic and HILARIOUS! I can't stress enough how pathetic and therefore funny this movie is. You HAVE to go see it and get some Anvil's music. If you like that raw almost thrashy metal from the 80's, these guys are pretty bad-ass.

Little did I know that after the credits rolled and the house lights came on, my night was just starting to get good. I was still wiping tears off my eyes when I saw a short, ugly girl get up two rows in front of us. "Eeew!" I thought, "she looks like a tiny troll!" Then it dawned on me: Ronnie James Motherfucking Dio was in the theater with me! Fuck yeah! I wonder what he thought of the movie. I wonder if he could even see the screen over the heads of the people sitting in front of them. I wonder if he realizes how short and ugly he is.

After that, my lady friend (best know by the acronym HSWG - "Hot Star Wars Girl") took me back to her place and did things to me. I wanna thank her for dragging me all the way down to The Angelika to watch this movie and for the sexual pleasures she blessed me with later on... What a night. What a fucking night!!

Metal + Hip Hop. A Marriage Made In Heaven.

When people talk about landmark moments in the blending of metal and hip hop (or "rap" if you so desire), they often bring up the classic Anthrax tune "I'm The Man". Those with more metal pedigree will talk about Downset, Biohazard or the drum machine breakdown in the Atheist song "Earth." Others will talk about when Chris Barnes started to wear JNCO jeans, or Chuck Billy getting cornrows.


Those in the know will dig deeper. Yes, these examples are from two bands that many would not qualify as "metal" per se...but watch the videos below and you will see that these are incredibly important moments in musical history.

First, Paul Stanley raps to a littler person wearing a cape and guy on stilts while wearing a red leather jacket. Listen closely to hear him say "what be this". This song alone set back race relations in America a good 30 years.




The second example is from the Rush song "Roll The Bones". In order to connect with a young audience, Geddy and the boys hired a rapping skeleton from Toronto's booming hip hop scene to come down to the studio and spit some lines. Watch the skeleton keep time with his foot. He's one cool dude. If this doesn't show you how disconnected and white Canadians are, nothing will. *





*Sorry to any Canadian readers, but you know it's true.

Great moments in art history: Voivod

There's a few things out there that sound good on paper, but in reality are pretty gay and people who like them should be treated as criminals. Things like snowboarding, video games in general, the Sopranos, Buddhism and Voivod.

There's not many bands out there I hate as much as I hate Voivod. I know there's a whole bunch of people out there who love them and will be quick to tell me what an ignorant fool I am for hating these Canucks, but I despise their music. Maybe I don't get it, but I hate their whole discography. From the early thrashier shit to the 90's stuff to the new shit. I hate it all. Just give me some serious fucking metal without all the techno-esoterical shit, you know? But there's more to my hatred... I think the reason I hate them so much is 'cuz they should have ruled. Voivod should be the raddest band ever! I mean all the elements of a shredding band were there! A cool name, good band member names, awesome image, and they were on a cool label. Even all that sci-fi robotic bullshit they were into, that now seems so fucking retarded, was cool back in the day. But the one thing that Voivod had going for them that, in my opinion, gave the obligation to rock hard was their artwork. Man, their logo was bad-ass and their records were chuck-full of awesome artwork. (I know that anything after 1989 sucks Canadian-hockey-loving-balls, but the early art was amazing and that's what this post is about)

These guys looked the part. What a waste of good bullet belts.

Sadly, however, Away, Piggy, Snake, Puppy, Teletubby and Sleepy formed a band that just sucked and found enough imbeciles with serious intelligence and taste deficiency to have a following that keeps them going to this day. I'd rather own one embroidered Voivod patch than their entire discography on limited edition 24k gold CDs.
Imagine if all Voivod fans would have saved the money they have spent on sub-par technical shit metal and put it in a jumbo-jar instead. Imagine how much money would be in that jumbo-jar? Millions of dollars, I'm sure. Millions of dollars we could have used to help the victims of today's world tragedies: the earthquake in China, the Cyclone in Burma, the food crisis in Africa or the Cavalera Conspiracy.

Anyway, let's take a closer look at some sweet, sweet art...

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Even in the early days Away's art was pretty metal. The type is rad and the tank has fucken spikes on the tracks. I'm a bit disappointed that the perspective is pretty good in the tank and the logo. I'd love to have seen a really crooked way off perspective, which would have been WAY more metal.

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Again, hand-written metal type is back and becomes a staple of Voivod's visual repertoire. IMO, this is the raddest piece of art Voivod produced. The logo is incredible and that techno-skull is as bad as the baddest riff Jeff Hanneman ever wrote.


Here's a further exploration of the techno-skull ("The Voivod"). This ranks #3 in the all-time best back-patch of all times list, after the Motörhead England skull and Venom's Black Metal.




Finally, the techno-skull comes into maturity. This is the best of all Voivod logos. It's got spikes and spaceship/building looking shit. It's just metal. This is the type of record I'd frame and when people asked me why I did that, I'd tell them "cuz the Gods of Metal have given us a gift. A gift of amazing Metal Art and I want to thank them, and honor them, by framing it" And then they'd ask me how I can listen to the record if it's framed, to which I'd reply "The Gods of Metal hate Canada, so the record is not worth listening to."

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I know what you are thinking: "I could have done this!" And you are right. My landlord's kid could have done a better logo and he's autistic. You gotta admit, tho, it's a pretty metal logo. Look at those spikes! Sure, the "D" is more like a sleeping "P", but I'm sure Away wasn't going for legibility. They are French-Canadian, dude, they don't even speak American. The perspective and foreshortening on The Voivod are prime. It looks and feels cubist, which we all know is just a label for talentless artists to hide under. Dude, look at that machine gun, the gas mask, the bullet arm-band, the Oderus Urungus-like shoulder pads... this is a Metal Masterpiece, if I ever saw one.

Cubist art was an obvious influence on Away's art

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I'm not sure why, but as a teen I thought RRROOOAAARRR was the best name for a record ever. Of course, I also wore a golden razor blade earring, so what did I know. Well, this cover is a natural progression from the previous one. Away sticks to the always reliable red/white/black color combo and may the Virgin Mary bless him for that (Do Canadians believe in the Virgin? Savages). It feels like the camera panned out from the War and Pain cover and revealed more of The Voivod. Plenty of spikes, once again. The Road Warriors pads make an encore and we appreciate them, once again. Also making a welcome re-appearance are the spike tracks on the tank. Nobody wants to fuck with a pissed off looking hunchback metal robotic tank thing with a knife. There's also a little Ed Roth thing going on here.

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I'm not sure why The Voivod turned into an old tape recorder/ghost grinder, but this cover is the beginning of the end. All the perspective and cubist experimentation is gone and we are left with a flat dead-on view of the subject. The spikes are all but gone and replaced with rivets. The colors are as poser as they can get and that gradient is pretty generic and does not help the static composition. I'm not sure about the bandages around his waist (right around where the cassette goes), maybe all the ghost-grinding takes up a lot of calcium and causes ribs to weaken. After this record Voivod's art went to the shit dumpster. Seriously, the covers from now on are so bad they almost match the terribleness of their music.

Ghosts maybe scary, but they are 0% metal.

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I was looking for a pic of someone sporting a rad Voivod tattoo to close the post, but I couldn't find one. What I did find was a photo of Lita Ford.

Paul Stanely: Stage Banter All-Star

The entire Metal Inquisition staff is committed to finding the very best in stage banter for the enjoyment of all our readers. As such, it was only a matter of time before we put together a multi-media presentation to share the magic that is Paul Stanley on stage. Listen and be amazed by his effeminate antics, his homoerotic commentary and his vaudeville-style black accent. Even if you are not a Kiss fan, this one is a must. Enjoy.

A SkullKrushing Vinyl Collection (part 2)

As I stated in part 1 of this post, the idea here is not to "show off". My collection, while adequate, is not what it used to be. Maybe at it's peak it was descent, but after moving several times, selling some, losing some, getting a few records stolen and shit, I'm left with only few crates. Here's a few pieces I picked for part 2. For a while there I was really into getting shit signed. Carrying CDs around was way easier, so I didn't get that much vinyl autographed. Anyway, I pulled a few pieces that had sorta interesting stories with them and here they are:

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I met Dino and Raymond from Fear Factory, the first time they came around the midwest in '92, I think. Dino was really fucking cool and got my brother and I passes telling the people at the place we were his guitar techs. I know he's a bit of a joke these days, but he was really cool to a couple of stupid metal kids with no tickets. Every time they came back to town we'd hook up and bullshit before their show. They always remembered me, which was awesome to me as a teenager, you know? One of those times, I showed up with a Brujeria 7" and asked to get it signed. Dino looked at Raymond and looked back at me and said he didn't know what band I was talking about. He said Raymond played in Phobia and maybe I was getting confused. At the time "no one" knew who was in Brujeria and they played it off well, 'cuz for a bit there I felt like an idiot. 'What a moron I am', I thought, 'These guys aren't in Brujeria and now they think I'm a retard'. After like an hour of me feeling like a monkey's ass, Dino broke down and asked me for the 7". As he signed it, he told me no one had ever called him out on Brujeria outside of California. When Raymond was signing it, he said it was "the first and only" Brujeria record they'd ever sign. I don't know if that is/was true, but for a while I got a lot of 'awesome metal-brownie points' out of the story.

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I went to some metal fest in Jersey a while back. DRI was playing later in the night and I was looking through crates of records for sale. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about here, those fests are THE worst places to shop for records. Sure, they have good shit, but everything is marked up 400%. Still, I was bored and the last thing I wanted to do was sit through another shitty Gorguts-like death metal band on stage 3. So, I started going through the tables. You know when you are going through records, sometimes you run into the dude coming the other way, checking out the crates from A toward Z, while you are going Z to A? Well, we met right by the "D" crates. I picked Crossover out of a crate. I have 2 other copies of this record, so it's not like I was seriously considering buying it, but I took it out just too look-at-it type thing. Well, the dude going the other way said "that's a great record, you should buy it." I turned around to tell him I knew it was an awesome record, but that I already had it when I realized it was Kurt Brecht. Well, I bought the record (for like $10!!) and got him to sign it. Now I have 3 copies of Crossover.

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If anyone knew me in the early 90's they can tell you I was obsessed with Swedish bands. Johnny Helund from Unleashed was like my hero. I have their first 3 CDs autographed and I have tons of photos with the band. These photos are fucking hilarious and and all-around pathetic. Anyway, I can't remember who Dismember were playing with (maybe Deicide and Vader?), but I know that I missed every band that night except them. I just sat backstage with them and they told me 1000 stories about Carbonized, Unleashed, Entombed, Nihilist and all those bands that, at the time, I worshiped. Their manager Oli and I wrote a few times back and forth after that. David Blomquist was the first death metal guy I met who didn't smoke or drink. I'm not sure he was nailed to the X, but I remember him talking about being a vegetarian and shit. Nice guys, nice guys.

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Here's a weird one... My friend Jaime (I have talked about him here before, we went on road with Kreator and Paradise Lost), somehow knew the guys in Sacrifice. I didn't really like them, but for some reason I had the record. They came to town and Jaime told me they'd get us in free. So, I went down and met up with them. They needed to exchange some Canadian dollars, so we ate something and headed to the bank. The people in the bank were pretty fucking rude and made them wait like 15 minutes before even talking to them. So, when the lady at the counter was finally talking to them I pretended not to know them, walked up and asked them to sign the record. I thought I was "teaching the lady a lesson" by showing her that she had been rude to "rock stars", but I'm sure she could not have given 3 shits.

Canada's Anvil Makes A Documentary

I know what you're saying "There's a documentary about Anvil? Oh hell to the no...I was with you when you posted about the Overkill documentary, but this is too much!" Look, I too thought this movie would be a huge waste of time (and it probably still is) but this clip proves that when metal is involved, comedy is ALWAYS around the corner. Wait for the fat dude towards the end rocking out while sitting on a La-Z-Boy.

"Yes Indeed, You Are Possessed By Satan Indeed"

The singer of the black metal band Inquisition seems to be doing his very best to show the world that black metal is not scary, but rather populated by well behaved, kind young men that you can bring home to meet your parents. I've never heard anyone talk about Satan in such a nice tone. Listen to this guy, he sounds like a waiter at a frou-frou French restaurant. Maybe this is just further proof that black metal has lost any edge it ever had (for further proof, see image below). Oh well.


ps: So the band has been around since 1988 which is a long time, but to call their show an "ancient ritual" is overselling it a bit...don't you think?

The next one is entitled "Writhing In Menstrual Clots"

I am a huge fan of the Canadian band Orchidectomy, because not only are they brutal as fuck, they are a good example of how broad the wigger slam genre really is. For example a lot of people would think of them as maybe grindcore or brutal death metal, but that really couldn't be further from the truth. The proof is in this live video of them playing "Writhing In Menstrual Clots." Look closely and you will see he's wearing a pot leaf hat- a sure sign of wigger slam!



Next time you're listening to death metal, keep an open mind. See if you can find any subtle clues that would indicate you're listening to wigger slam.

I have disliked Annihilator for 18 years

I remember it like it was yesterday. The year was 1990, the place was the "heavy metal" section of the cassettes at Camelot Music in the Everett Mall. I was trying to decide which tape to spend my hard-earned money on. In one had I had Sodom's "Agent Orange," and in the other I had Annihilator's "Alice In Hell." I had never heard either one, but both bands had cool logos that I felt like they could be good. It was a toss up until I looked at the picture of Annihilator and Jeff Waters was wearing Oakley wraparound sunglasses and I was like "Wow, that guy is a huge faggot just like Kerry King and his stupid sunglasses, fuck these guys," and bought the Sodom tape. And thank Christ, imagine how pissed I would have been if I had bought "Alice In Hell" instead.

Much like Overkill and Meliah Rage, Annihilator are a great example of when quality control becomes an issue in the heavy metal factory. Someone should have hired a Six Sigma consultant or something, because these bands should never have happened in the first place.

It's not just their music that makes them so terrible. Their cover art is also so dumb that I want to fall on a sword just to make it go away. After 20 years, they're still using that terrible airbrush and oil style that bands like Uncle Slam ran into the ground. There's always some kind of "mindblowing" concept and I can just imagine Jeff Waters going over to the artist's house and passionately sketching his idea out on the back of an issue of Kerrang from 1992: "OK, so it's like this girl... and she's in this spooky mansion... and surrounded by dolls. But they're evil dolls! I know this girl that works at the Applebee's down the street that would probably model for it."

If all this wasn't enough to prove that Annihilator are an awful band, you should know that Dave Mustaine loves them. Here is a testimonial from him on the latest Annihilator album. Please note that his poor son is named "Justis."

"I listen to Jeff's new Annihilator cd 'Metal' in my car while zipping my son, Justis, off to high-school each morning. He puts it in the cd player and shows me all his favorite spots; it makes me proud that he digs good metal!"
Dave Mustaine

However, I do have to give credit where it's due. Jeff Waters recently cut his hair, and it turns out that he looks a lot like Matthew Fox from Lost and Party of Five.

Great moments in art history: Exciter

Avid readers of Metal Inquisition already know that I wrote in some length about the cover of Predator's "Easy Prey" in the past. Much like this gem from Exciter, Predator's record cover depicted a.....well, a predator about to attack a woman. Violence towards women, and sexual attacks are sadly not unusual subjects for metal songs and artwork. But you see, this cover (like Predator's) is executed in such a crude manner that it's just amazingly scary. The band surely thought they were doing a fun, kind of shocking cover...but god almighty, do they reveal a whole lot about themselves.

Perhaps prompted by the Predator record cover, the Canadian power-outfit Exciter stepped up to the plate and delivered a troubling record cover with amazing gusto. Canadians are apparently not only happy putting American's to shame when it comes to lower murder rates and (some would say) much better health care. Oh no. With this cover, Exciter really managed to show the world just how awful Canadians can be.

So what exactly manages to make this cover so insanely bad? Is it that it depicts a possible rape? Is it that along with the title of the album, the fact that the band is called Exciter is just ridiculous? Well yes those are all true, but that's not all. You see, the hands of the intruder reaching in are of a black man. Look, I don't care what you say, that's what's going on. I know that in some printings of the record the hands look greenish as though they are the hands of the swamp thing...but I know the truth. In the pressing I have of this record, the hands trying to invade the residence of the white-as-snow woman are those of a black man. A band going for the double-trouble sexist/racist combo meal is rare, but Exciter managed it just fine. Damn Canadians are also trying to outdo the Americans when it comes to blatant racism as well!

It's worth mentioning that apparently the guy is also some kind of goddamned magician because he's making that knife magically float in the air. I don't know how he's holding the damn thing up.

Lastly, the record cover is objectionable due to the manner in which the type that makes up the title is stacked. Who stacks type? Damn. This is the most horrendous typographic disaster in the world of metal, well, aside from Metal Maniacs using Futura Condensed.

I should mention that in the world of creepy and awful metal covers and names, a special award goes to the Seattle band Forced Entry for having one of the creepiest names ever.