I am watching Anvil! The Story of Anvil, and it is breaking my heart.

I don't know how anyone thought this film could be a hoax. There was plenty of evidence the band existed on the internet with lots of fan discussion and it would have been an incredible feat to fake all that old footage with the band looking much younger and get actors who were that convincing.

One of my favourite parts is when Lips goes around the metal bands looking to talk about old times. One guy has a good story and another guy doesn't remember him at all.

yeah, Vinnie Appice looked mortified but it was cool seeing Lips still be a fanboy at his age. Glad they didn't selectively edit that sequence for melodrama, they could have gone one or two ways with it, ie, purposefully only showing the "wtf" reactions of the other musicians, or the opposite, just showing the Twisted Sister/Motorhead meetups.

I also think it's a little weird that in all of the Motorhead/Lemmy soundbites it never got mentioned that Lemmy asked Lips to replace Fast Eddie Clarke in Motorhead, and Lips declined. kind of a big detail!

I do wonder how many bands are in Anvil's situation before the film. I mean there are hundreds of great bands who never were able to give up the day job but I don't know how unusual it is to have to go back to your day job after diminished success and keep releasing albums that long.

yeah, didn't Northside split up only recently?

I think many old metal musicians avoid this because they subsidize their livelihood by playing in/touring with multiple bands at a time. lots of long-standing metal bands would ostensibly lose members over time, so you'd see people like Sharlee d'Angelo, an otherwise unexceptional bass player, filling these roles and cashing in by being a part of an already established act (I think one year he played on like five albums I bought). I think even Dave Lombardo admitted to joining Testament for the paycheck in the late 90s. And then there was Savatage, who, ok, were on Atlantic for years, which helped, but managed to help create a spinoff band (Trans-Siberian Orchestra) that was lucrative.

not that this was a road to riches, mind you, but if you're getting touring/merchandise incomes, possibly even a songwriting credit or two from more than one act, you have a better chance of staying afloat and not having to work a day job.

but someone like Lips would never be into that - Anvil is really an extension of him (hell, the band was originally named after him).

got Juggernaut of Justice last night and really like it. As far as their post-movie albums, This is Thirteen and Juggernaut are the best, but the newish one, Hope in Hell, is a bit of a dropoff. There's tunes on it for sure but nothing like on the previous two.

so far the new one (terribly titled Anvil is...Anvil) is actually pretty fun! the opening track is a cornball "arrgh we're pirates" song, the second one seems musically like an homage to Motorhead.

way better than the cheesy blandness of Hope in Hell. Nothing surprising but hey I will take authentic classic heavy metal anytime.

third song is called "Gun Control". really cheesy 'message' song.