Showing posts with label Anvil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anvil. Show all posts

10.21.2009

MY HERO!



Weeks ago, I was dozing on my balcony only to once again be rudely awaken by high-pitched revving of a neighbor's crotch rocket. It seems likely that dude has been having technical problems cuz no day would pass without his daily constitutional out to the parking lot to exercise the valves or something. I've yet to see him ride it, but my quality of life levels have dipped thanks to this regular screeching, but vengeance is mine cuz on that particular afternoon, I half-watched as a bird quietly deposited a globule of poo onto the exhaust-belching douchebike. The dude, who tucks cabana shirts into tight jean shorts, immediately raised a forearm and groaned; he'd been struck as well! Sweet, sweet justice!

As of today, that bird has been joined in the HooM! Hall of Horns! by Noisecreep scribe Carlos Ramirez, who inadvertently backed me up by roundly denouncing half-ass Anvil fever in a recent Reign In Blonde interview. It does feel shitty to indirectly precipitate all over Anvil's day in the sun, but once that day stretched to a year (and, it would seem, beyond), the act of kinking the hose of this media deluge became an inevitability if not obligation. And yet it wasn't without trepidation that we at HooM! yesterday examined the fallacy of Anvil, cuz Lips and Robb are likable rockers. But as Carlos points out, so are the dudes from (gulp) Tora Tora and (shudder) Royal Hunt. But those bands, nor House of Lords, Babylon A.D., Dangerous Toys, ad infinitum have no comparably cuddly backstory to highlight, and hence the reason for Anvil's um resurgence. And though Ramirez writes for the iffy AOL loud rock site, he's unafraid to crap on VH1's efforts to foist these sub-mediocre rockers on lonely, nostalgic fans looking for a sad-eyed puppy to love. Forget about that shit. Here comes Fastway!

10.20.2009

I'M PULLING FOR ANVIL AND ALL BUT COME ON



The semi-existent Anvil renaissance hasn't really registered with me, though I did go see the movie. Call it a cynical viewpoint, but it's possible to feel that the obscurity of certain bands is completely justified. No one wants to say it but Anvil stinks. And VH1 has entered a land of make-believe with intensifying claims that Anvil were once worshiped and poised to conquer the hard rock world, especially in the recent ramp-up to the DVD release. (AC/DC plans to repay VH1 for partnering on their Black Ice album by taking Anvil on for a handful of shows.) Shit, from where I'm standing, the band opened a short tour made up of hair rock's most embarrassing European groan-rock bands. And this is total haterspeak but dildo-guitar antics and charmless nonthems placed Anvil firmly in league with unsexy tourmates Whitesnake and The Scorpions. But VH1 would have us believe that this Led Zeppelin II was derailed by mismanagement and poor luck. Those of us who've been to 30 - 1200 live shows, however, have seen innumerable openers (and headliners!) soon and rightly destined for the scrap pile. That is not derision just fact.

In Anvil's case, that string of shows in what looks like Japan served as an exception and just because that was enough to convince Lips and Robb of a pending entry into Metal Valhalla, with its attendant riches and excess, doesn't mean it would've been deserved. And somewhere in all this pathos, VH1 senses a unique underdog story and flogs it like the rented mule it clearly is. Slash and cokehead Lars Ulrich appear in the documentary, swearing by Anvil's repressible talents, and yet in no photo or appearance have I spotted an Anvil shirt on their persons. (Lemmy, the coolest guy ever, resists dubious overstatement as usual.) I haven't even heard them mentioned by anyone since junior high, when we'd dine and ditch Perkins then openly mock the sub-Spinal Tap album covers/titles of moldering Anvil tapes at Half Price Books. I mean Anvil was a perfect name for this band: unmoving, boring, useless to most. Don't hate me.