First Shot: Because the name “Overkill” was taken

Let’s get one thing straight: I adore the movie Anvil: The Story of Anvil. I’ve seen it twice in two different U.S. states. I’ve tried to recommend it to everyone I know who has ever played music professionally. (The scene in which Lips gets the shady promoter up against the wall of his club and demands to be paid is practically a Selma, Alabama moment to anybody who’s ever been stiffed for playing a gig – which, again, is just about anybody who’s ever pursued music as a career.) And I’ve talked up the film just as fervently to people who have no especial interest in rock – because really, this is more than a mere music doc, but a moving and resonant rumination on aging, ambition and the things that really matter in life.

So I hope it’s clear where I’m coming from when I say the following:

Enough with Anvil already. I mean, seriously.

I didn’t mind it when VH-1 started hyping the flick incessantly, months in advance of its broadcast on the channel and its release on DVD. It’s always nice to see a documentary getting a push, especially in nontraditional places. And I chuckled indulgently when That Metal Show’s walking vault of metal wisdom and trans fats, Eddie Trunk, confidently proclaimed the movie one of the best documentaries he had ever seen (edging out, one assumes, Titicut Follies and Girls Gone Wild 4, 5 and 6).

But then came VH-1’s wall-to-wall Beatles hype, for which the network interviewed a bunch of latter-day musos about the enduring influence of the Fab Four. And, jarringly, there was good old Lips, averring how lucky he had been to grow up on the merry moptops’ music. And averring it morning, noon and night.

Excuse me? One minute, the guy is a reality-flick never-was with an endearingly pathetic backstory, and the next minute he’s the font of aesthetic judgment?

It was about this time that I noticed Anvil had been adopted by everybody in the media as the go-to group for a quick and easy feel-good story (or even a sidebar). They were just everywhere, doling out their homespun optimism and gratitude for the miraculous year they’d been having. Again. And again. And again.

It got so monotonous that, by the 4,723rd time I caught Lips’ Beatles shout-out, I was fully expecting him to show up on every program every time I turned the dial. Lips explains the bank bailout to David Gregory! Lips makes muffins with Rachael Ray! Lips tells Tyra it’s totally OK to have a fat ass, and that yes, he will kiss it if she really so desires!

Now the band is playing the House of Blues in tandem with yet another screening of the movie. “The Anvil Experience,” they’re calling it. Kinda makes you wish they had deigned to do the same thing when the film played the Enzian four months ago. (“On this next one, we want you to scream so ****in’ loud they’ll hear you all the way in the Eden Bar!”)

Overexposure, anyone? This sort of relentless flogging can take a pure, uplifting and even sweet cultural moment and turn it into just another corporate force-feeding. I really do not want to feel about Anvil the way so many people feel about Christmas. But in allowing their public redemption lap to go on longer than a Cher farewell tour, the band is fixing to make me a Grinch.

They’re not only wearing out their welcome – they’re running the risk of ending up looking like charity cases, counting on perpetual goodwill to take them places to which their talent alone does not afford them entry.

And therein lies the true tragedy: The clearer Anvil make it that they’re here to stay (again), the more they reinforce a simple fact that none of the movie’s breathless testimonials managed to obscure: As a band, they’re just not very good. They’re good people, all right: The first time I heard Lips declare that the worst part of playing to an empty hall is letting down the folks who brought you there, I thanked the movie gods for presenting me with the humbling spectacle of a human being who’s just inherently nicer than me. But being a nice guy isn’t a ticket to career – if you’re very lucky, it’s a ticket to a highly sympathetic (and even important) film that serves its purpose and then goes back on the shelf.

Taking you with it. (Hint, hint.)

Posted by Steve Schneider on 10/7/2009 1:43:42 AM Permalink | Comments: 1

Comments on this story:

Anonymous said:
This overexposure should not be surprising, Steve, even though it cannot help but alter your perception of the band. They are capitalizing on their 15 minutes, because they have no talent and will never have an opportunity like this again. If you were "Lips", you would certainly do the same. Still, great lament.
posted on: 10/8/2009 7:50:55 AM