Heavy Metal

Here’s yet another remarkable topic:  previously untouched (Dana Carvey as Robin Leach: “I don’t know WHYYY!”) and practically writing itself.  I suppose the critical mass was seeing the sequel and digesting its soundtrack album. 

There are not one, but two films based on the sci-fi cartoon magazine.  That started in 1977 in the US and is still published today.  The main topic is science fiction, of course, but there’s a fair amount of nudity and sex as well, which makes it a modest substitute for porn when you’re too young to buy porn. (Not that I would know.)  It’s based on a French comics magazine, Metal Hurlant (Screaming Metal), which started in 1975.  So let’s give the French credit for something cooler than wine and 2CVs. 

Heavy Metal (1981 film).  We saw this in the movie theater in Paris in 1982.  I was 13 at the time, and Paris had two levels of rating:  “Interdit au moins 18 ans” (forbidden to those under 18 years old, essentially rated X or NC17, 90% applicable to porn movies, 10% to ultraviolent films, and in all my time in Paris, even returning after I turned 18, I never saw a single AUM18 film in the movie theater); and “interdit au moins 14 ans” (forbidden to those under 14 years old, essentially PG-13).  The box office sold me a ticket without a fuss, the usher let me in without a fuss.  Also, no problem for my brother, who was 12 at the time.  Paris!

Several unrelated segments.

1.         Intro.  Corvette descends from space, driver is the scientist, who deposits the Loc-Nar at home, only to be devoured by it.  The Loc-Nar then begins narrating its story to the scientist’s horrified daughter.

2.         Harry Canyon.  A cab driver from NYC in 2031 (not Bruce Willis) picks up an attractive woman escaping thugs with the Loc-Nar.  She stays with him and rewards him with cartoon sex.  Eventually she makes a deal to sell the Loc-Nar to some scumbags but screws up in trying to betray Harry.  Bitch.

3.         Den.  Nerdy teenager (brilliantly voiced by John Candy) is teleported to a fantasy word where he becomes a bald Conan-type guy, Den.  He befriends a hot chick – more cartoon sex.  They’re captured by a quasi gay guy who wants Den to steal the Loc-Nar from a sexy but evil Queen.  Den agrees, has more cartoon sex – this time with the Queen – and the Loc-Nar is stolen again.  Both QGG and EQ are defeated, and Den rides away with the Hot Chick, refusing to take possession or control of the Loc-Nar. 

Ok, that’s it for the cartoon sex, for those looking for that.  But much more fun is still in store…

4.         Captain Stern.  Stern (Eugene Levy) is on trial for various misdeeds, ignoring his lawyer (Joe Flaherty) advising him to plead guilty.  “I have an angle”, Stern assures him.  Indeed he does:  the prosecution’s star witness, Hanover Fist, has agreed to change his testimony.  But the Loc-Nar interferes, turning meek, humble Fist into an angry beast testifying AGAINST Stern and then chasing him throughout the space station to the tune of “Reach Out” (Cheap Trick).  Finally Stern manages to resolve the situation.  [Or did he?  Fist had already testified against him, and I seem to recall a court reporter at trial.  Hmmm.....]  Note: the prosecutor was voiced by John Vernon, best known as Dean Wormer in “Animal House”.

5.         B-17.  A WWII B-17 winds up taken over by zombies, thanks to – guess what – the Loc-Nar.  A short segment made memorable by “Heavy Metal (Taking A Ride)” by Don Felder.

6.         So Beautiful & So Dangerous.  A hot secretary is rescued (?) from the Pentagon by a huge, spherical, space ship piloted by two stoners (Harold Ramis’ classic line: "Look, man, if there's one thing I know, it's how to drive when I'm stoned").  She hooks up with a robot, voiced by...John Candy.  Not much on action, but the soundtrack entries include “All Of You” (Don Felder) and “Heavy Metal” (Sammy Hagar).

7.         Taarna.  The covergirl, an Amazon warrior, avenges a city destroyed by a Mob (“Rules”) warped and corrupted by the Loc-Nar.  Victory is gained, at a price.  One of the longest, and most serious pieces (no discernable humor) which caps off the movie.

8.         End.  The young girl at the beginning of the film gets a serious upgrade.  And that’s it. 

Soundtrack.  It’s rare that a movie soundtrack is this good – good enough to listen to independently of the film.  It was our first introduction to Sammy Hagar, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick, Don Felder (who I didn’t know had been in The Eagles), and most of the others.  Despite the name, not all these songs are heavy, and very few truly qualify as “heavy metal”.

Track Listing:  Heavy Metal (Hagar); Heartbeat (Riggs); Working In the Coal Mine (Devo); Veteran of the Psychic Wars (Blue Oyster Cult); Reach Out (Cheap Trick); Heavy Metal (Taking a Ride) (Don Felder); True Companion (Donald Fagen); Crazy (A Suitable Case For Treatment)(Nazareth); Radar Rider (Riggs); Open Arms (Journey); Queen Bee (Grand Funk Railroad); I Must Be Dreaming (Cheap Trick); The Mob Rules (Alternate Version) (Black Sabbath); All of You (Don Felder); Prefabricated (Trust); Blue Lamp (Stevie Nicks). 

Comments.  This led us to get into Sammy Hagar, years before he joined Van Halen.  I wasn’t impressed with the two Riggs songs, or the two Cheap Trick songs, for that matter.  While we never got into Devo, their contribution, itself a cover, was very amusing and entertaining (Lord, I am SO tired…).  The BOC song led us into BOC.  I tried in vain to find the Felder album those two tracks came from, only to discover they were written expressly for this soundtrack.  Too bad, because they’re MUCH better than his solo albums, or even his Eagles material.  Thank God he plays “Heavy Metal (Taking A Ride)” live these days.   “Queen Bee” is a lousy excuse for a GFR song and led me AWAY from that band until much later.  Their earlier material is much better, and they have better songs than the annoyingly persistent “We’re An American Band”.  “Open Arms” is the quintessential slow dance number for our school dances.  Oh, while I prefer Ozzy to Dio, I don’t have an issue with the albums they did with him, EXCEPT that I hate “The Mob Rules”.  “True Companion”, “Blue Lamp”, “Prefabricated”, and “Crazy (A Suitable Case for Treatment)” were all fairly mediocre and I only picked them up ages later.  None induced me to look into the respective bands responsible.

By the way:  the original plan was to have Blue Oyster Cult do the entire soundtrack.  Along the way obviously that changed, but consider their album Fire of Unknown Origin to be the template.  “Heavy Metal: Black & Silver”, “Veteran of the Psychic Wars”, and “Vengeance: The Pact” on that album are obvious giveaways.  If you’re moving on to BOC from Heavy Metal, start with this album.

Heavy Metal 2000.  Instead of a series of independent segments loosely tied together with the Loc-Nar as the common thread, this is one continuous story.   What’s more remarkable is that the main female character is not only voiced by Penthouse Amazon Julie Strain, but they also use her actual likeness.  The bad guy is voiced by Michael Ironside, who takes a perverse delight in playing nasty villains.  Billy Idol also plays a major role.  The story itself is not bad, with enough nudity to make it interesting.  Overall a poor sequel but decent enough to watch once.

HM2K Soundtrack.   Unlike the original soundtrack, which was all over the place and fairly eclectic, this one is firmly in the hardcore heavy metal theme.  However, I didn’t find it all that great.  The tracks by Monster Magnet, KMFDM, Pantera, and Queens of the Stone Age were the best, and Bauhaus’ contribution was surprising and good.  The rest was nu-metal nonsense, especially Insane Clown Posse (eye roll x100). 

Since 2008, a third movie has been in production, with some well established directors on board to direct specific sequences, which implies a return to the original format of loosely connected sections.  As of 2014 it’s still in the works, notwithstanding prior delays.  Stay tuned.  

Don Felder, Joe Walsh, and the Eagles

Recently we caught Don Felder in concert at the Nikon at Jones Beach Arena, at Jones Beach, Long Island.  Felder was opening for a double bill of Styx and Foreigner.  I had never seen Felder or the Eagles (or Styx) before this, but I had seen Foreigner back in 1985.  Mick Jones is the only remaining original member of that band.

The tickets were extremely reasonable, and a good way to see Eagles material performed by Felder, who was a major member of the band in the late 70s and originally part of their 1990s “Hell Freezes Over” reunion.  Now he’s off on his own but still playing Eagles songs, most notably “Hotel California” – for which he breaks out the Gibson doubleneck guitar (12 & 6 string), which we usually associate with Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, and “Stairway to Heaven”.  Fortunately we also enjoyed hearing one of his contributions to the Heavy Metal (animated film) soundtrack, “Heavy Metal (Taking A Ride)”, which he joked, “you may remember that film depending on how stoned you were at the time.” 

I read his book, Heaven & Hell, written back in 2009 after he finally settled his differences with the Eagles.  Naturally he comes off as the good guy and Henley and Frey are the assholes.  Of course, you have to take the source into account when assessing this, but my gut reaction is that he is in fact the hero in this scenario (see below). 

Don Felder was born in 1947 in Gainesville, Florida.  As an amateur musician in Florida he worked with Stephen Stills (of CSNY) and Bernie Leadon, the original lead guitarist for the Eagles.  He also helped teach Tom Petty how to play guitar.   Up until joining the Eagles in the mid-70s, he worked with various semi-pro bands but really had no appreciable commercial success prior to the Eagles.

Because of his friendship with Leadon, he also got to know the rest of the Eagles.  In particular, Don Henley (drummer, vocalist, lyricist) and Glenn Frey (guitarist) are the major two forces in the band; Randy Meisner was the bassist.  They were impressed with Felder’s talent and pulled him into the band as it moved in a “heavier” direction than the original bluegrass/country sound they started out with.  Ironically, it was Felder’s friend Leadon who got pushed out when this happened.

The Eagles had two albums before Felder’s arrival, Eagles and Desperado.  Felder contributed to On The Border, then joined full time for One Of These Nights.   In the process of working on material for their next album, Felder came up with a chord progression and the basic structure for an epic song.  He brought it to Henley, who rapidly came up with lyrics, and “Hotel California” was born.  The album itself finally broke the Eagles into the big time.  The stress of trying to follow it up, with The Long Run, broke up the band in 1980.  When asked about a possible Eagles reunion after that, Don Henley – often quite a bitter and cynical bastard – would joke, “sure, when hell freezes over.”

Joe Walsh.  Before the Eagles, Walsh was in a band called The James Gang, with Dale Peters and Jim Fox.  They had three albums, Yer Album, James Gang Rides Again, and Thirds, of which the most popular songs are “Walk Away” and “Funk #49”.   This material is fairly standard 70s blues-rock, similar to Bad Company and Grand Funk Railroad, with some jamming that doesn’t show up on “best of’s” or the radio. 

It’s certainly heavier than the Eagles were, which Walsh joined for Hotel California and The Long Run.  Felder talks about the Eagles getting “heavier” with his own, then Walsh’s, addition, but having grown up on Black Sabbath, KISS, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Deep Purple, Rush, and other 70s bands, I’d say “heavy” is a very relative word here.  “Hotel California” approaches “Freebird” and “Stairway to Heaven” in heaviness but represents a peak, whereas all those bands have heavier songs than those.  From Felder’s account, much of Walsh’s “heavy” contribution was to the on-the-road excesses, e.g. attacking hotel rooms with a chain saw and throwing stuff out the window.  You know, the kind of stuff we think of with Led Zeppelin and The Who. 

Trouble.  The original breakup in 1980 was a mutual affair.  Everyone was worn out, burnt out, tired of trying to top Hotel California.   The band members went their separate ways and attempted solo careers, of which Walsh and Henley were the most successful.  Felder put out an album, Airborne, in 1983, and contributed two songs to the Heavy Metal soundtrack, which are much heavier than his other material.  

            In 1994 the Eagles reunited, including Felder.  By 2000, Felder saw problems going on.  “Where’s the money?”   According to Felder, Henley and Frey essentially looted most of the band’s profits to themselves and evaded embarrassing questions, whereas Walsh’s attitude was to keep his mouth shut, not ask questions, and cash his paychecks.  Finally, Henley and Frey fired Felder, which is something you can’t do with a partner.  Lawsuits flared back and forth, only resolved by a settlement in 2006.  My impression is that the settlement didn’t do much to resolve the mutual antipathy between Felder and his comrades.          

            As of 2014, Felder tours on his own and still plays 80% Eagles material, which as noted above includes “Hotel California”.  The Eagles still have Henley, Frey and Walsh, and tour as The Eagles.  They play Madison Square Garden and charge $200-$400 for seats.  Mind you, these are the box office prices, not scalper prices.  When Felder asked the Eagles’ manager about the high cost of reunion tour tickets in the late 90’s, the response was, “we’ll charge whatever the market will bear.” 

            We enjoyed the Don Felder concert and got to hear the best of the Eagles material.   My advice to Eagles fans out there is to boycott the Seagulls (as Felder calls them) and help Felder headline in his own right.  Money well spent, for a worthy cause.