Break on through

Anvil! The Story of Anvil and Neon Angel: A
Memoir of a Runaway make you want to bet
on the underdog

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Tradition has shown that if a book becomes popular, there’s a chance it’ll eventually becoming a movie. This isn’t exactly the case for two rock autobiographies, Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway by ex-Runaways singer Cherie Currie (with Tony O’Neill) and Anvil! The Story of Anvil by the two loveable lunkheads, Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner, whose book unabashedly shares the same title as the film.

Let’s ignore our mothers’ advice and judge these books by their covers before we crack their spines. Both assume you’ve already seen their associated films, the 2009 documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil, directed by Sacha Gervasi, and the Floria Sigismondi-directed docu-drama The Runaways, which hit screens two weeks ago. In case you’ve missed the correlation, Neon Angel actually stoops to dedicate a third of the cover to Runaways actresses Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning. Anvil’s cover shows a middle-aged Reiner, shirt split wide open, paunch proudly exposed and, to really send their hesher message home, he’s wearing a fanny pack just south of his navel. To his left is Kudlow, who would be considered nude if not for a flying V guitar hiding his junk and a pair of crocs on his feet.

Anvil have been a heavy metal band since the early ’80s and after the numerous red herrings served to them by a fickle industry, they struggled for years before starring in their own documentary. The writing in Anvil! may be decidedly lowbrow, rickety and ham-fisted, but Kudlow and Reiner let their unique characters shine through by telling their tales of rock ’n‘ roll debauchery and determination as an oral history. If you’ve seen the movie (and you should—it’s one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in years), you can pretty much tell what you’re getting yourself into here. Although Kudlow and Reiner predictably come across as dumber than a bag of hammers, their deep-rooted honesty, conviction, diligence and unwavering love for each other keeps this (just barely) above being a toilet read.

If you want to know what they were thinking when they wrote titillating classics like “Show Us Your Tits” and “Knee High in the Hair Pie,” that’s all there, but it’s their underdog tale of going from metal rejects to red-carpet glitterati that make this a riotous romp.

Neon Angel is superbly written by comparison. Originally published in 1989, the book quickly fell under the radar, but Currie’s story of overnight stardom, surviving a brutal rape and kicking a near-fatal drug addiction in the ’80s is riveting and as timeless as it is torrid and juicy. While the film concentrates on her two-year stint with the Runaways, it’s her post-partum period of cocaine addiction and destitution that makes this impossible to put down.

The pitch-black chapter dedicated to her forced abduction and brutal rape is repugnant and deeply disturbing, but it’s Currie’s eventual self-empowerment that takes this beyond cheap tabloid sensationalism and literary rubbernecking, and it thankfully goes far beyond the scope of the docu-drama it inspired.

Although these two books may be riding on the heat generated by their associated films, both offer a front row seat to two separate, no-holds-barred tales of people rising beyond their ruts and, through perseverance and keen survival instincts, finally making it to the other side.

ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL BY STEVE
“LIPS” KUDLOW AND ROBB REINER,
CORGI/RANDOM HOUSE, PB,
427 PP., $23.95
NEON ANGEL: A MEMOIR OF A RUNAWAY
BY CHERIE CURRIE WITH TONY
O’NEILL, MORROW AVON/HARPER
COLLINS PUBLISHING, HC,
348 PP., $26.99