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.  

Sammy Hagar

The other night I watched – for the “umpteenth time”, Heavy Metal, the animated motion picture.  Aside from a few misses, the soundtrack is fantastic. In particular, I love the two Don Felder songs, one of which he played last summer at Jones Beach Arena.  And it was from that soundtrack, the title track, that I learned about Sammy Hagar.

Montrose.   This was his start, the singer for guitarist Ronnie Montrose (RIP).  He’s on two albums, Montrose and Paper Money.  Top songs are “Rock Candy” and “I’ve Got The Fire”, the latter which Iron Maiden covered, and the former he still plays on solo tours.

Solo.  Lots of albums by himself: Nine on a Ten Scale, Sammy Hagar, Musical Chairs, Street Machine, Danger Zone, Standing Hampton, Three Lock Box, VOA, I Never Said Goodbye, Marching To Mars, Cosmic Universal Fashion, Sammy Hagar & Friends, and Life Roast, plus 4 with the Waboritas [his solo backing band] Red Voodoo, Ten 13, Not 4 Sale, and Livin’ It Up. 

            We liked VOA, particularly “Dick in the Dirt” and “I Can’t Drive 55”.  Street Machine features “Highway Wonderland”, a tribute to the late 70s Trans Am and its “6.6 liter”.  Three Lock Box and Standing Hampton were the only others we bothered to get. 

I never did get the only Hagar-Schon-Aaronson (the Dust bassist) -Shreve (HSAS) album, Through The Fire, which is half live.  Neal Schon went back to Journey, and Hagar continued his solo career. 

Van Hagar.   Apparently Eddie Van Halen and Sammy Hagar shared the same mechanic, which is how they claim Hagar joined Van Halen.  By that time, I already knew who he was.  He survived for four albums, 5150, OU812, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, and Balance, before leaving.  OU812 was one of the first albums I bought on CD, and we saw that tour in summer 1988, followed by the For Unlawful tour in October 1991, at which Alice in Chains (with Layne Staley) opened up.

            I can’t say I prefer this to Roth-era VH, but I do like it.  My favorite song is “Black & Blue”.  It’s funny that even Hagar now refers to this as “Van Hagar”, even though he knows most VH fans don’t mean it as a compliment.  You can call it commercial, but only if you ignore how commercial all those David Lee Roth albums were. 

Chickenfoot.  This was his “supergroup” with Joe Satriani (guitar), Michael Anthony (bass), and Chad Smith (Will Ferrell’s doppleganger, on drums).   The name is a slang term – which I’d never heard before – for the peace symbol.  They have two albums, self-titled and III, the latter being a joke on albums with numbered names.  The material is not bad; I think it sounds more heavy like AC/DC than the commercial crap you might otherwise expect.

The Circle.  I suppose Chad Smith went back to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, so Hagar got Drum Slut Supremo, Jason Bonham, to fill in.  Old friend Michael Anthony – out of his main job ever since Wolfgang Van Halen learned to play bass – is on bass, and some guy I’ve never heard of, who looks like Tom Morello, Vic Johnson, is doing a great EVH imitation.  They have a live album which is actually pretty good.  Because of Bonham, they do a few Zed Leppelin covers, but they also do some Van Hagar and some solo material, like “Heavy Metal” and “I Can’t Drive 55”. 

Red Rocker.  Hagar obviously likes the color red, but clearly has no leftist tendencies.  He also likes fast cars, which hardly distinguishes him from anyone else who likes Ferraris and Trans Ams.  As I mentioned earlier on my blog about Van Halen, Hagar strikes me as a regular guy who would join you for a beer and hang out, whereas David Lee Roth would probably screen you with a David Spade “and you are…” handler and bask in his phony persona.  Nowadays Hagar seems to prefer t-shirts than those goofy jumpsuits he wore in the early 80s.

Concert T-Shirts

I had addressed this issue briefly in my Tool & Concerts blog, but now it’s time to go into a little more detail.

Concert t-shirts seem to be available for any major artist who tours, but they are the specialty of rock bands, particularly metal bands.  You’ll see Maiden shirts worn around, but when’s the last time you saw someone wearing a Janet Jackson shirt, a Mariah Carey shirt, or a Madonna shirt?  The black tour shirt is undeniably associated with the likes of Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Slayer, Anthrax, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Dio, Motley Crue, Skid Row, etc.

I’m not a manager and don’t pretend to grasp the economics of rock bands, but my understanding (especially after hearing of Marillion’s dispute with a venue over this issue) is that bands make a considerable amount of money on t-shirts and other merchandise sold at the venues, more so than the albums or concert tickets.

So it’s a little bizarre when it seems some bands, notably Wishbone Ash and Blue Oyster Cult, seem to offer a spectacularly poor and dull array of t-shirts – indeed, almost as an afterthought.  “Oh, by the way, here are some t-shirts you might want to buy.”  The WA shirt was a baseball-style (white with long black sleeves) that simply had “Wishbone Ash” in baseball-style script, whereas BOC usually give us the first album graphic yet again, or simply their Cronos/Saturn cross logo with the band name (ZZZ).  Occasionally Godzilla or the Reaper will reappear, but by now those are too traditional and boring to catch my imagination.  Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, however, appear to put far more imagination and creativity into this “art form”, you might call it.

Front.  The least imaginative image to grace the front of a metal t-shirt is simply the album cover of the most recent album, but this appears to be the default.  Some bands will screw around with this and offer some sort of clever variation (again, Maiden are the best for this).  Jethro Tull seem to default to Aqualung or Ian Anderson standing on one leg playing his flute, or Broadsword and the Beast; Floyd tend to pull out the ubiquitous pig or Dark Side prism.  Occasionally something really remarkable will fly out from the twisted brains of the t-shirt designers.  I still have my Metallica “Metal Up Your Ass” shirt I bought at Donington in 1985 (the ONLY shirt Metallica was selling – as if I had a choice!) with the hand coming up from a toilet with an army knife.  And long lost, and long missed, is my Scorpions “Crazy World” shirt with the “scorpion” made up of various provocatively built and dressed women.  The all time best for sleazy and inappropriate is, of course, Whitesnake’s Lovehunter, which I had in shirt form before I was even aware the album existed, which shows a very well built, and very naked, woman, riding a very large snake coiled up and arching its hood at her.

Back. Unchained from the “album cover” motif, the back of a shirt is the band’s opportunity to draw on a tabla rasa and give us something special.  A blank back is a real cop-out.  Actually, as unoriginal as they might be, I prefer tour dates on the back, unless it’s something knock-down, drag-out amazing.  Examples: Yngwie Malmsteen (“Yngwie FUCKING Malmsteen!”), Motorhead (“Born to Lose, Live to Win” with the Ace of Spades), and my favorite, Monster Magnet (“Space Lord MOTHER FUCKER”).  From a European tour of Pink Floyd (Delicate Sound of Thunder tour – a tour of a live album??) the map of Europe with each country filled in with its flag, and PINK FLOYD in Cyrillic lettering.

Variants.  For a long time, the baseball jersey – by which I mean, white shirt with long black sleeves – was popular.  In more recent years, colors other than black or white popped up.  My brother got a great shirt in deep, dark navy blue from Marillion, and I got grey shirts from Tool, Queens of the Stone Age, and Orange Goblin.  Back in 1986, when Accept were on their Russian Roulette Tour, they even offered shirts in olive drab.  Actual baseball variants – with buttons down the front – have popped up, and Metallica had a very pricey hockey jersey.  Iron Maiden – again, thinking outside the box! – has issued several soccer jerseys.

Tie Dyes.  Typically this is the realm of the Grateful Dead, though some other bands try to lock into this genre.  The Allman Brothers are probably the #2 band for this; I find Ratdog (Bobby Weir’s band) or Phil Lesh & Friends to be derivative of the Dead and part and parcel of the same act.  Usually you conceive of a tie dye as being appropriate for a jam band like GD or AB, so when AC/DC or KISS tries to do it, it seems a little stupid.  Having said that, I’ve bought an AC/DC tie dye – only because it looked so damn good – and a Jethro Tull tie dye (because it was the best one of any shirt they had for sale).  I have a Hawkwind tie dye from the Space Bandits tour, unfortunately a time when I was still buying shirts in L and not XL.

Sizes & shrinkage.  The other thing is washing the hell out of your black t-shirt to give it the “veteran dark grey” look.  One of my favorites is my Iron Maiden “Trooper” shirt which definitely fits that description.  We used to get shirts in M or L back when we were teenagers.  Now that I’m older and a little bigger (!) than I was in 1988, I buy in XL and find they usually fit OK, even after a few runs through the dryer at maximum heat (permanent press?  What’s that?).  A well-worn, dark grey shirt that clearly used to be black shows the rest of the metaleiros that you’ve been going to concerts for some time and didn’t buy your t-shirt at Macy’s or Sears (right, they were opening for Hannah Montana in a store concert).

What to wear, what to wear?  I mentioned earlier about the food court druids at metal shows, who can’t be content to simply wear the usual metal uniform of “black concert t-shirt and jeans” but have to do this trench coat, eyeliner crap, or for the ladies, the fishnet stockings & Doc Martens deal.  The comic “Cathy” would have us believe that it’s only men who have no self-consciousness, but I’ve seen too many girls at metal shows who dress provocatively, only to demonstrate how many meals they haven’t missed.   For every Tawny Kitaen (inevitably there with her Lorenzo Lamas-lookalike biker boyfriend) there are 4-5 Kirstie Alleys, there with their Comic Book Guy boyfriends. 

            These days I’m too jaded to bother even wearing a concert t-shirt and just wear whatever I happen to be wearing that day, usually a soccer jersey.  In the past I might have worn a shirt from the band I’m actually going to see.  Is that some sort of violation, a metal fashion faux pas? (Droz: "You're wearing the shirt of the band you're going to see?  Don't be that guy!").  Sometimes it seems the goal is to wear the oldest shirt you have, in some sort of pissing contest with the other veterans.  “You have a Born Again tour jersey?  I have Never Say Die!”  “Pssst, I have you both beat! I have a Polka Tulk tour shirt!”  Ultimately, though, since we usually buy a shirt at the show, and it’s more convenient to wear a shirt than to carry it around with you (and maybe lose it) you end up putting it on over whatever shirt you so carefully picked out at home and end up looking exactly the same as 50% of the audience who are doing exactly the same thing.

After the show.  Now we’re in our late 30s, with regular jobs.  We’re not in high school anymore.  Metal shirts aren’t even acceptable as casual wear, more like “here’s what you wear when mowing the lawn, painting the house, or changing the oil in your minivan.” It’s reached the point where the only place you can wear them is...at metal shows!  I joked that they need to make concert ties for us to wear with suits – or better yet, entire suits (jacket and pants).  If you can get a real tattoo at an Ozzfest, why not a tailored suit?  Well, at the AC/DC show we’ll make sure the suit pants are actually shorts, so you can go to work the day after an AC/DC show in the Angus outfit and instead of shocked stares, you get “whoa, cool, Angus, man!” in the hallway.

Come to think of it, the demographic at a KISS or Aerosmith show is fairly skewed towards the older edge of the age spectrum.  The Ozzfest does attract the teenagers, mainly due to all the Slipknot, Disturbed, and other crappy bands that pass for metal these days; we may disagree with Sharon Osbourne fairly often, but she does know which bands draw in the under-20 demographic.  I saw Tesla in 2004, and the person I went with – all of 20 years old – was still young enough to be the daughter of the average audience member.  (Rolling Stones: Steel Wheelchairs Tour!  Jethro Tull: Too Old To Rock’n’Roll, Too Young To Die).