{"id":1296,"date":"2009-11-18T22:05:53","date_gmt":"2009-11-18T22:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.georgethomasclark.com\/?p=1296"},"modified":"2010-07-30T23:34:04","modified_gmt":"2010-07-30T23:34:04","slug":"the-story-of-anvil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/the-story-of-anvil\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Anvil"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hate this fucking drill so much I want to start smashing windows with it.\u00a0 I should be on stage, hammering drums and exciting fans and musicians who think I, Robb Reiner, was about the best heavy metal drummer on the planet.\u00a0 In 1984 Steve \u201cLips\u201d Kudlow, our lead singer and my lifelong friend, and the rest of our band played at the Super Rock Festival in Japan with Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, and the Scorpions, and all those guys proceeded to sell millions of records while we fell into a stinking hole.<\/p>\n

Anvil\u2019s been so influential, why didn\u2019t they make it big, too, other musicians wanted to know?\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell you: we got ripped off by record companies and concert promoters and had to return to our native Toronto to survive.\u00a0 Lips has humbled himself, too, driving a catering delivery truck.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t have fathomed that when he was singing our hit \u201cMetal on Metal\u201d and prancing in his bondage harness and waving a dildo onstage before thousands in Japan.<\/p>\n

Watching the Super Rock Festival is still exciting but it\u2019s discouraging to see the documentary \u2013 Anvil: The Story of Anvil.<\/em> There\u2019s Lips explaining we\u2019ve worked hard for decades, continuing to play and write music, improving all the time but not making any money.\u00a0 That\u2019s all right, he says, since our music provides the joy you need in life.\u00a0 Lips is a helluva talker and I let him do it.\u00a0 In public I don\u2019t have much to say.\u00a0 I express myself playing drums and feeling passion for our fans.\u00a0 We get emails from around the world.\u00a0 I know they love us.<\/p>\n

In 2006, after playing hundreds of crummy little clubs and nonevents around Toronto, we finally get lucky.\u00a0 A lady offers to promote Anvil on a one-month tour of Europe.\u00a0 We practice extra hard, certain this will finally be our breakthrough.\u00a0 But in Prague we can\u2019t find the nightclub.\u00a0 Try getting to one of those places in the dark.\u00a0 We finally rush in two hours late and play all out for a few people before the owner tells us he won\u2019t pay since most of his customers have left.\u00a0 Lips grabs the guy\u2019s lapels and demands our money but we don\u2019t get any.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t mention our promoter\u2019s name but she\u2019s lame.\u00a0 We can\u2019t get on one of our scheduled trains because it\u2019s full.\u00a0 Another time we arrive at the station to watch our train chugging away.\u00a0 Good thing we found our sleeping bags, Lips says.\u00a0 We\u2019re primed when we do get to clubs on time but usually the places look like underground bus stations at three a.m.\u00a0 We still crank it on and Lips howls as I thrash my drums.\u00a0 We\u2019re having fun.\u00a0 So are the people there.\u00a0 They\u2019ll never forget us.\u00a0 Elsewhere, I can\u2019t believe a prominent musician from the 1984 Super Rock Festival doesn\u2019t remember us, not even Lips, who\u2019s telling him about some great experience the guy had.<\/p>\n

Screw the tour.\u00a0 There aren\u2019t any record companies for us in Europe, anyway.\u00a0 We\u2019re back in Ontario playing at a wedding reception for people who don\u2019t understand our music.\u00a0 Some grimace and cover their ears.\u00a0 We don\u2019t care.\u00a0 Okay, we care but we\u00a0 know we\u2019ll make it some day.\u00a0 Our wives are still with us, and should be since they see our passion and appreciate we work full-time during the day to help support the kids.\u00a0 Though Lips\u2019 brothers, a doctor and an accountant, and his affluent sister may worry about his financial future, as well as his emotional state, I think they understand.\u00a0 My late father would\u2019ve, too.\u00a0 He survived Auschwitz before coming to Canada.\u00a0 I try to be philosophical, and stay calm painting scenes of isolation, like Edward Hopper.\u00a0 My favorites are buildings with no people.\u00a0 I also have one, on the wall in the bathroom, that\u2019s the business end of a toilet.<\/p>\n

Everything\u2019s going to change soon.\u00a0 We\u2019ve mailed a tape to a successful British producer, and he calls to say he loves what we\u2019ve done, is confident our album will sell, and wants to help us.\u00a0 He just needs twenty-five thousand dollars to proceed.\u00a0 Jesus, we don\u2019t have that.\u00a0 Lips tries telemarketing and works three shifts and humiliates himself while earning nothing.\u00a0 And now my wife\u2019s complaining about being tired of working and caring for the kids.\u00a0 She thinks I\u2019m deluding myself.\u00a0 I am not.\u00a0 I\u2019ll always be committed to Lips because he\u2019s a dynamic and confident guy who often refers to himself as Lips.\u00a0 That energy pays off: his sister\u2019s going to loan us the money to pay for the album.<\/p>\n

Now we\u2019re in England, working with a talented producer to make an incredible album.\u00a0 Lips should be patient.\u00a0 We\u2019re in our early fifties, and he needs to mature.\u00a0 He instead screams I\u2019m a loser and grabs my lapels.\u00a0 Screw that.\u00a0 I leave, lamenting Lips lives to hurt me, and I\u2019m tired of it.\u00a0 He realizes he can\u2019t proceed without a drummer so apologizes and cries and hugs me and says I\u2019m the closest person he has in the world.<\/p>\n

Back in Toronto we visit an important record producer who tells us he\u2019ll consider our work carefully.\u00a0 We\u2019re delighted but should see what documentary viewers will: the man, though polite, just wants us out so he can promptly email us a rejection.\u00a0 We head to Los Angeles where Lips and our British producer are interviewed on radio, and Lips later hurries to various record companies, dropping off tapes.\u00a0 No one\u2019s interested.<\/p>\n

Fine.\u00a0 We make a thousand CDs for a buck fifty each and sell them to our fans.\u00a0 Then, a quarter century after the Super Rock Festival, we get a call from people promoting an important concert in Japan. \u00a0\u00a0This is incredible, and we\u2019re thrilled to be back.\u00a0 When do we go on?\u00a0 Eleven thirty-five?\u00a0 In the morning?\u00a0 God, maybe no one\u2019ll be there so early.\u00a0 We need a place full of people freaking out.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what we get.\u00a0 People still remember us, even ones who weren\u2019t born in 1984.<\/p>\n

Anvil: The Story of Anvil<\/em> ends with hope but incompleteness.\u00a0 They could update the documentary, but I guess they better leave it alone.\u00a0 Critics call it the best music documentary this year, maybe the best, period.\u00a0 All of a sudden we\u2019re stars and appear on The Tonight Show with Conan O\u2019Brien and play \u201cMetal on Metal.\u201d\u00a0 Lips looks cross-eyed into a camera that jerks away but the audience loves us.\u00a0 This is our dream.\u00a0 We\u2019re on a big tour from early this November till March first next year and have already quit those day jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hate this fucking drill so much I want to start smashing windows with it.\u00a0 I should be on stage, hammering drums and exciting fans and musicians who think I, Robb Reiner, was about the best heavy metal drummer on the planet.\u00a0 In 1984 Steve \u201cLips\u201d Kudlow, our lead singer and my lifelong friend, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[305,296,7,92],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Story of Anvil - George Thomas Clark<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/the-story-of-anvil\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Story of Anvil - 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