Anvil! The Story of Anvil: DVD Review
American Movie: DVD Review

Watching Anvil! The Story of Anvil, the feature documentary about a hapless Canadian heavy metal band, at the weekend I couldn’t help but be reminded of one of my all-time favourite documentaries – American Movie.

Anvil! catches up with the titular rockers some 25 years after they flirted with stardom. We see footage from 1984 of the band playing packed stadiums alongside the likes of Whitesnake and Bon Jovi. Talking heads like Lars Ulrich, Slash and Lemmy explain how influential Anvil were, and how they were expected to be huge stars. “These guys were gonna turn the music industry upside down,” says Ulrich. But that never quite happened.

Cut to the present, and frontman Steve “Lips” Kudlow”, now in his 50s, delivers school meal for a living. But by night he and best mate and drummer Robb Reiner are still rocking out as Anvil – albeit in front of modest crowds in local bars. The chance to embark on a European tour reignites their dream. Can Anvil make a comeback?

Cue scenes of the band travelling around the arse end of Europe in a Winnebago, playing in front of a handful of people in basement clubs, arguing with venues over payment, missing trains, falling out with each other, and generally having their dream thoroughly stamped on.

It’s obviously full of Spinal Tap-esque moments and lines, but it’s more than just a freak show. Both Lips and Robb are eccentric characters, but they also come across as very likeable. “I started out with Robb when we were 14 years old, and we said we’re gonna do it til we’re old men,” says Lips. “And we really meant that.”

What emerges is something of a “bromance”, to use a current Hollywood buzzword. Director Sacha Gervasi was an Anvil fan as a teenager, and here he offers an affectionate, and often very funny, account of two friends who just don’t know when to stop the rock.

Chris Smith’s American Movie, released in 1999, follows independent filmmaker Mark Borchardt as he attempt to make his great American movie Northwestern. Mark, lanky and lank-haired, lives about one step above a trailer park in a run-down part of Milwaukee, and is utterly obsessed with movies.

Before he can get started on Northwestern he needs to complete the horror movie Coven, which he insists rhymes with “woven”. Trouble is he has no money, a dysfunctional family, oddball friends, and a host of personal demons.

Marks’ best friend is Mike Schank, an affable drug casualty (he happily tells the story of a brain-damaging overdose) with a permanent grin and the loyalty of a puppy dog. “We used to do a lot of partying together, but I don’t party anymore,” explains Mike.

The friendship between Mark and Mike is central to the movie – like Anvil! it’s a “bromance”. Throw into the mix Mark’s decrepit but loveable Uncle Bill, with his bizarre improvised poems to his dead wife, and you have a trio of unforgettable characters.

American Movie is fascinating, hilarious, touching and genuinely uplifting, all soundtracked by Mike Schank’s gentle acoustic guitar rendition of Mr Bojangles. Probably as good a feature documentary as you’ll ever see.

Anvil! 9/10
American Movie 10/10

Get Anvil! on DVD
Get American Movie on DVD

Film

If the ad breaks between consistently rubbish summer TV shows are anything to go by, music compilation CDs are this season’s must-have items. And, boy, are they getting the hard sell.

There’s another Bruce Springsteen compilation. Cat Stevens’ best of is, apparently, ‘one of the best compilations ever!’ The Very Best of Don Henley features Boys of Summer and, erm, you know, all his other best stuff…

I hate commercial compilation CDs (got to love homemade ones, though). In the digital age they are a redundant concept. Pre-digital, they did fill a need. Like a couple of songs by one particular artist, and keen to dip into the back catalogue without buying all the albums? Before the internet, would need to pick up a compilation CD (or, indeed, an LP or cassette). You’d accept that fact that there’d be a few tracks you didn’t like, and a few of your favourites would be missing, and the track order might be a bit annoying – because there was nothing you could do about it.

Now you make your own compilations. You go to Spotify or iTunes and you compile a playlist or download all your favourite tracks and arrange them in a sensible order (always chronological, I’m saying!). You can burn a CD if you need one, tweaking it for individual friends or parties or car journeys. You are in control, and you get exactly what you want. Your personal version of the Very Best of Don Henley ends up with a much shorter running time.

The record companies seem to have realised that time is running out to peddle their officially-compiled compilations. I quite like Cat Stevens, but can the Best of Cat Stevens really be considered one of the best compilations ever? There are five or six great songs on there, but there are at least as many that only the most devout Yusuf Islam fan could describe as anything other than bloody awful.

And pity all the Dads who get Don Henley’s CD for Father’s Day on account of whistling Boys of Summer once within earshot of an offspring, and then have to appear grateful while subjecting their ears to the album’s other 12 tracks of turgidly forgettable soft rock.

Polydor have bought text ads on Amazon: ‘Celebrate the career of a legend with The Very Best Of Don Henley.’ Who is this legend, and how can we be confident that he or she would like to celebrate their career with a 92-percent rubbish Don Henley CD?

Back catalogue sales make up a huge portion of record company turnover, but they need to accept that the way we consume music has changed forever. No longer can they trawl the archives every year for another batch of artists to revive courtesy of a best of CD. Pre-selected compilations are going to die out in the very near future.

The ad for Bruce Springsteen’s new best of CD helpfully advises that it is also available as a download. But why would anyone bother to download a pre-selected compilation, when they can download their favourite tracks individually and compile their own compilation? Bruce’s new Greatest Hits is essentially a re-ordered version of his last Greatest Hits, and it’s obviously very good, but it can still be improved by the addition of your personal faves that didn’t make the fairly obvious selection. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out or Atlantic City, anyone?

With compilations, homemade has always been the way to go, since the days of the C90, and while hand-compiled tapes and CDs still make great gifts, it’s a whole lot easier to email over a Spotify playlist.

It would seem natural to end this with some links to Spotify compilations I’ve compiled. But they’ve got my favourite songs on. Go and compile your own.

Music, Technology

This week’s Guardian Guide has a cover feature on how 1989 was a momentous year for music. Granted, the vast majority of the population was buying records by Jive Bunny and Jason Donovan, but, for those of us who were less easily pleased, 1989 offered a host of fantastic albums that can be looked back upon 20 years later as true classics.

The Stone Roses, Technique by New Order, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic by The Sundays, Doolittle by The Pixies, Bizarro by The Wedding Present, Paul’s Boutique by Beastie Boys, Three Feet High and Rising by De La Soul… The list goes on.

Here’s a 1989 Spotify playlist featuring tracks by most of the above. As is the nature of Spotify, you can easily click through to many of the full albums.

One of the tracks on the playlist is Sensitive by The Field Mice, who were on much-loved indie label Sarah Records. A whole bunch of Sarah compilations have recently arrived on Spotify, and it’s fascinating to consider how the delivery of these songs has changed in 20 years.

Back in 1989, if you were like me, you’d peruse Sarah’s lovely hand-typeset catalogue lists, complete with evocative dispatches from exotic Bristol written by label co-founder Matt Haynes. If you were lucky you might have heard the odd song on Peel, or read a review in the NME, but largely you made your selection based on the reputation of the label and its bands without having heard a note.

Then you’d send off a postal order – a postal order! – along with your wishlist, and wait 28 days. Eventually, the records would arrive – 7-inch vinyl with folded sleeve slotted into a polybag, usually accompanied by a handwritten note from Matt. And you would place the record on the turntable, blow dust from the needle, and for the first time you would hear the delights of Another Sunny Day, or Heavenly, or Brighter, or The Orchids.

Fast forward 20 years, and if you want to hear The Joy of Living by Blueboy (and you should) you can get it instantly, free, no postal order required, and without even bothering to download it, via Spotify. Part of me thinks that’s progress, but another part realises that we’ve lost something, and that actually hearing the music was just the end part of a bigger, more enjoyable, experience.

Sarah Records closed down in 1995. The label released 100 singles, plus a few albums, and then took out half page ads in the NME and Melody Maker announcing that Sarah was finished: ‘Didn’t YOU ever want to create something beautiful and pure, just so that one day you could set it on fire, and then watch the city light up as it burned?’

So here’s a Sarah Records Spotify playlist. And here’s a complete label search of every Sarah track on Spotify, including five compilation LPs. [Unfortunately the tracks on the Engine Common compilation are all mis-titled.] If you want to get some background info and sample some of the sleevenotes, visit Matt’s blog.

Music, Technology