Saturday, June 27, 2009

Metal Buffoonery

Welp, just watched the Anvil documentary last night. Devastating. I know everyone keeps talking about how Spinal Tap it is, but you can't even begin to grasp it until you start soaking it in. There's riffage, there's tour retardation, there's lots of wasted time, energy and talent. But there's also some redemption -- just enough -- and some real emotional spots: family coming through; reckoning with parents; trying to maintain dignity when there's little to allow it.

It made me think of this Manowar documentary that a friend had worked on years ago. He gave me a VHS copy back in the 90s, which I mistakenly loaned to a former co-worker who never returned it. This is metal buffoonery Phase VIII, where it's all headed. Trying to decode whether the band is being ridiculed by the film-makers they hired to celebrate them is half the fun. When they visit Wagner's estate you know it's for real.

1 comment:

Frankie Lee said...

Wow...that segue to visiting Wagner's crib was great.
"We're not about trends. We just kick fuckin' ass. Period." That should be our new motto. Anvil--the movie and the band--were both here recently, and we actually had free tickets to see them, but we were leaving for NYC so we couldn't.