Report: Thundering ANVIL Makes Some Noise

January 18, 2008

John Horn of the Los Angeles Times reports: The lead singer wears a dog collar and plays his guitar with a sex toy. One of their first songs, "Thumb Hang", is about the Spanish inquisition. And the amplifier knob actually goes to 11.

In so many ways, the heavy metal band ANVIL is indeed SPINAL TAP (did we mention the drummer's name is Robb Reiner?).

But "Anvil! The True Story of Anvil", tracing the Canadian band's resolute determination in the face of countless setbacks, isn't really a rock 'n' roll comedy. Instead, this documentary, which premieres today at the Sundance Film Festival, is an alternatively moving and hilarious love story — a tale of two people hopelessly devoted to playing heavy metal music.

Guitarist Steve "Lips" Kudlow met drummer Reiner in 1973, and four years later they formed ANVIL. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw a gold rush of hard-core rockers: SCORPIONS, IRON MAIDEN, WHITESNAKE, METALLICA, ANTHRAX and MOTÖRHEAD among them. With its outrageous stage antics and pulsing rhythms, ANVIL was right in the mix too, its album "Metal on Metal" envied by the band's head-banging brethren.

Read the entire article from the Los Angeles Times.

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