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Thor |
In 1997 during one of L7's many European tours, we dug up an archeological gem on our oh so shitty English tour bus. It was a funky old bus that looked and smelled of twenty years of rock bands. But in the cabinet under the TV we found two videos that kept us entertained for the whole 6 week tour.
One tape was of a sci-fi movie titled Xtro II: The Second Encounter starring a blurry-eyed Jan-Michael Vincent . A couple of user comments from IMDB.com read:
There's virtually no tension, suspense or atmosphere. It was dull, too, why were all the sets so foggy? Couldn't they afford proper lighting? Or were the sets even complete?
and
Trust all the comments and don't waste your time with this film.
Well, we wasted a lot of time with this film over and over and over again. Even our French tour manager started quoting it.
The second and best video that we watched obsessively was an unmarked cassette that turned out to be a home-made taping of a 1986 English rock concert television show. I'd never heard of the rock band performing on the show, but I was instantly hooked on Thor.
The band was dressed in the usual 1980's geometrically designed spandex outfits, but the singer with the long blonde locks was dressed like his Norse god namesake, bare-chested, black briefs and a black cape. The band's songs were ridiculous and catchy as hell.
The TV concert audience was filled with fifteen year old boys with long hair and jean jackets on. Some of the boys were headbanging to the music but most were watching Thor's feats of strength that he performed during his band's extremely long heavy metal guitar solos. Bending a metal rod, laying on his back with a piece of concrete on his stomach that the roadie would smash with a sledge hammer, and best of all "the hot-water bottle routine". There were even a couple rock chicks in the audience (obvious plants or extremely wasted) who fought over the shredded hot-water bottle once "the feat" was completed. (For those of you who may have turned off the above YouTube clip before Thor got to his grand finale you're missing the best part).
Until I recently saw the above YouTube clip, I had no idea of Thor's life before his heavy metal band, as a 1970's Vegas performer and Mr. Canada winner.
Thor's still out there rocking in a city near you, but sadly no more hot-water bottles except autographed ones available (but currently "sold out") at the Thor Store.
The Spin I'm In: God of Attraction
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Napster |
AMG |
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Thunder On The Tundra |
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Let The Blood Run Red |
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Anger III |
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Corridors of Life |
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Gwar Theme |
GWAR |
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Venus |
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Paper Plane |
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Space Sexy |
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Spotlight
THOR!
Thor’s hammer is teh LAME.
And what is with the Hee-haw crowd onstage?
What some folks are wont do for a paycheck…
He’s Thor? I’m so thor I can’t pith.
(Really sorry, it just pops in my mind whenever I hear that name)
You are some crazy chick, Donita. Thanks for the “alternative” music.
Thanks Donita, I just e-mailed this to my husband. I hope it takes the edge off of the really shitty day he’s having.
Obviously my piece this week has left a lot of you speechless.
Donita Sparks @ 7
Oh come now, “Everybody wants a piece of the ACTION!”
Sweet Jesus on a pogo-stick, WTF?!!?
Let’s all get Finifinito to tell us his Thor story.
I dated a girl in HS that had a huge crush on Thor and had a poster just like that photo in the playlist on her wall. This is the only way I even knew who Thor was. Then he started appearing with people like Paul Stanley and the guys from Iron Maiden in Kerrang! and other magazines. I totally had no clue about his Vegas past until today.
Must have been the success of ‘That’s Incredible’ that led to such acts. There were only three tv channels back then, so lowest common denominator usually worked (noted comment about ‘He-Haw band in background ???)
I thought the ‘music’ was horrible, and at best just stagecraft for the big blowup!! Gay hammer noted. WTF?
Thank you for distracting me from the Fitmas presents under the tree (Aspens?) for at least a little while.
Enjoy.
Rushton @ 9
Um, yeah. WTF? People paid money to see things like that?
Thanks for the surreal spin on the day, Donita. I’ve been “all Libby” all week, and that clip definitely pulled me out of the muck.
OT: OK kiddo, I left you one more EPU’ed response downstairs if you’re interested.
Where I come from we call that thing in the clip a douchebag.
And sometimes we call hot water bottles that, too.
Great Stuff! The guy has alot of talent, stage presence, & tremendous abs…his woody was a little disconcerting. He’s probably delivering firewood at this point or working at Home Depot. Too bad, tremondous songwriter as well!
multi grazi, what a friggin brainless beefcake!
Thanks and big shout out to my friend Rich Bott of the video/performance art group Animal Charm for sending me this week’s YouTube. Check them out:
http://myspace.com/animalcharm
http://www.animalcharm.com/
Gee, I can’t imagine how I could have forgotten Thor. I was certainly old enough to have remembered him but I simply have no memory of him whatsoever.
Go figure.
Beaugus Kridderz @ 16
Acutally as I said in my piece, Thor still tours, thank Gods.
cs, art is bread @ 4
Pronounce it like a Scandinavian; leave the “h” out! *g*
TRex @
15
wouldn’t want to be accused of providing comfort to the enema.
donita –
If the Prince spin last week was sublime (and it was, thank you very much!) then Thor is truly, absolutely, belly-achingly ridiculous.
But funny. In that painful, awful, I-can’t-believe I’m-really-watching-this-train-wreck funny way that makes The Office so hard for me to watch.
And I can safely say I would never have known of Thor’s existence without your help!
TRex @
15
Hi TRex, In his metal band, Thor refers to it as a douchebag as well…the hot water bottle that is.
How does one inadvertently discover a talent for blowing up douchebags?
scory @ 22
Train wreck doesnt begin to describe that video. And if anyone else watching that is like me, you’re gonna spend the afternoon walking around humming “Everybody wants a piece of the ACTION!”
I love the autographed water bottle at the Thor Store
“Don’t try this at home”
TRex @ 24
You sure you want to go there man? Some talent is best left unexamined.
More evidence that it is not our military might, but the undeniable superiority of our culture that will win over the world!
Rich @ 28
This guy is worshipped in Japan I would imagine.
For those of you who may have turned off the above YouTube clip before Thor got to his grand finale….
Just wanted to also thank you for this alert or I definitely wouldn’t have made it to the finale.
For the record, I’ve no independent recollection of this guy and regrettably, I was in the median male age group you listed as fans. Without further research I’m forced to speculate that this was a ‘chick’ thing and the males you saw headbanging at the concerts were the plants. The chicks fighting over the bottle’s entrails were genuine.
Enjoy.
Rich @ 28
Let freedom ring baby. But technically he’s Canadian.
Oh hell no. I just made a huge discovery. Thor and Dwayne “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman, separated at birth?
Tim Fuller @ 30
Little boys loved KISS didn’t they?
Donita Sparks @ 7
Six weeks on a tour bus with L7, XTro II and Thor? What else is there to say.
(Except perhaps, “Where Can I Find XTro I?”)
-GFO
Donita
you made my day
All power to the mighty Thor
xo
Cathy Cooper
Donita Sparks @ 33
KISS was my first concert. I was 12.
GuyFromOhio @ 34
I know, it does stir the imagination doesn’t it? Things get weird on a long European winter tour. Kind of like The Shining on wheels.
Donita! You absolute doll.
Thor hammered my headache away!
(speaking of headaches: Should you need a Scooter We’re Going to Hell in a Handbasket break: The old Anacin commercial on YouTube are a hoot! And, very effective for clearing the air after snapping at SO. “Mother, I can do it myself!”…)
CC @ 35
The Silverlake Cathy Cooper?
I don’t why I know this, but I’m pretty sure that’s the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on stage behind his mighty Thorness.
I thought he’d have a bigger hammer, though.
And I’ve been waiting for ya all day!
I sat in with Thor back in the very early ’80’s on a club tour…At the time he had a backing trio from Joisey.
He did the whole schtick - rebar bending, the hot water bottle, one big pose-a-thon from end to end.
Nice guys, as I remember. Might have scored them some herb.
;>)
That was hilarious!
Embarrassing in the extreme. I kept thinking, get rid of the damn cape already, you don’t know how to deal with a cape.
Donita Sparks @ 37
Sounds like an acid trip or fever dream to me. In fact, if you replace L7 with The Bangles and Xtro II with 2020 Texas Gladiators I’m fairly certain I had that dream during a bout of food poisoning in around 92.
darkblack @ 42
Oh hell no. You were already my hero, now you’re simply a legend! DID YOU TOUCH THOR’S HAMMER?!?!?!?
The Backup Band
Dan Whitworth @ 40
Merv credits them as the Watermelon Mountain Jug Band.
Thor?
Ha!
Oderus Urungus would have him for lunch!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dLSPVeSNorQ
GWAR!
I think I just figured everything out. Some years ago, some VHS tapes of Thor somehow made their way from the US to the Mideast, where Osama bin Laden, Mohammed Atta, and other fundamentalist Muslims watched them.
They were extremely appalled by these tapes. They decided right then and there that the US was a decadent, liberal nation that needed to be wiped off the face of the earth. They decided to work towards that goal.
And that’s how our current religious world war began.
So Dinesh D’Souza has it exactly right. The current war has nothing to do with US support for Isreal or US troops in the Mideast. It’s all about American culture. Thor in particular.
Donita Sparks @ 47
Linky Above
Donita says:
There were a lot of Dirt Band wannabes back then…
Oh heck, that was the Watermelon Jug Band up on stage behind Thor. I thought I remembered that name! They’re all from Albuquerque or surrounding areas.
http://www.watermelonmountainj.....heband.htm
Holy crap! I not only remember Thor but I also remember seeing this show. I was in a crappy teenage punk rock band. The drummer and I had a fetish for those unintentionally campy late 70’s TV shows. We laughed our asses off at Thor. It had nothing to do with the copious amounts of Columbian Red we had smoked beforehand. Ha!
There were other such shows. This guy in 1978 named Ross Bagley had a Christian TV show. He was a chubby little bugger with a permagrin. He was always making really bad jokes and had a habit of falling off his desk chair. I have never seen more inept host who was not drunk. It was far funnier than it sounds. I think he NOW does a gospel video show for CBN.
AF
FiniFiniTOOBZ! @ 45
I was not so blessed, no…Kicked some of the cinderblock bits off the stage, though
;>)
They were popular on the eastern seaboard club circuit at the time, IIRC.
All those guys had some element of gimmickry in their shows, Twisted Sister and so on, to attempt to set themselves apart from the other leather louts.
In Thor’s case, his lack of dulcet tones begat that real mother, necessity.
3/4 of the show was vamping on some hard rock ditties while ‘feats of strength’ and jiggling gymtits were displayed to credulous drunkards…Real bon marche.
:)
Donna, I saw KISS in Denver, circa 1977 at McNichols Arena when I was 20. KISS ruled. Did Thor ever have a pinball machine made in his honor? I think not.
In hindsight, I agree that KISS was a little gay, but it does the rock world a great injustice to make any comparisons to Thor. Thor was an ACT. Kiss was a band with an act.
Enjoy.
Moron @ 49
Sadly the US cannot take credit for Thor… he’s Canadian. At least we have Merv.
Tim Fuller @
55
Old rock and roller says they were all dopes!
Tim Fuller @ 55
Oh, then you’ll hate this.
http://www.thorcentral.com/mp_.....tanley.jpg
hey donita!
i saw thor at the knitting factory a couple of years ago. it was a blast!
thanks for that video! now that’s entertainment!
nora
raven @ 57
By the way, I didn’t say anyone was “gay”.
portia.vz @
18
my memory is sieve-like, but I think I would have remembered the feats of THOR
Good Craptastical Gods!! That made my eyes bleed and my soul weep.
Bin Laden and his colleagues must have made the same mistake I made: thinking Thor was from the US.
So this whole big mess we’re in right now all goes back to a simple mistake regarding Thor’s native country.
If al Qaeda had had their facts straight, the 9-11 hijackers would have hit Toronto and Ottawa, not NYC and Wash DC. And Canada, not the US, would be bogged down in Iraq right now, and thinking about bombing Iran.
Moron @ 63
You may have something there.
Good God!
Now I truly wonder what I did during the 70’s.
The band looks like its made up of thoose Geico Caveman people.
ItsMe @
65
If I only I’d known there was money to be made doing the one talent I possess (writing forwards with left hand and backwards with right hand- simultaneously!), I too could have had a Merv Griffin clip on YouTube. I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody.
A friend of mine threw a party with GWAR performing in the living room (late eighties-ish). It was difficult for a while but the vibes turned as the band wore out and the funky DJ dance music played til way past dawn. Even the SF police appeared to be stunned at our jubilation for a while since they weren’t successful at shutting down the festivities until the third visit just before brunch the following morning.
I would place GWAR at about 6.8 on the richter scale.
I miss old school Merv Griffin style variety shows. I wish they would bring something like that back but not like that lame America’s Got Talent competition. It should just be a variety show for variety’s sake.
Fini - I think CNN is trying real hard to fulfill your wish. *S*
Eureka Springs, AR @ 69
Wha huh? Whatchootalkinbout ESAR?
The variety effect of watching CNN these days.
Eureka Springs, AR @
67
I first saw ‘em in a small club in San Jose in ‘88 — small rooms don’t do them justice.
Eureka Springs, AR @ 71
Oh, yeah…hehe, gotcha. I suppose it is a bit like watching an all damn day variety network, isn’t it?
BTW the fantastic movie Network was on AMC or maybe TCM last night. God I love that movie. “Why? Why have you chosen me?” “‘Cause you’re on TV stupid!”
Good Lord. No wonder people turned to drugs back in the day.
Munchies, anyone?
Oh, then you’ll hate this.
http://www.thorcentral.com/mp_.....tanley.jpg
That really hurts.
Argh!! Where are your archive retrieval skills when we really need them? You’re not holding out on a photo of Ted Haggard cuddling Cheney or Bush are you?
Not using gay in a pejorative fashion towards homosexuals. I see the archaic form as joyful/happy. I use gay as a synonym of lame, although I can see where confusion might arise.
Enjoy.
Tim Fuller @ 75
The term “gay” surfaced as a synonym for lame in early 2000 or so. I remember my niece using it all the time when she was a teenager. “Like, God, that is just sooo gay!”
Mandrake @ 76
From whence the Internet phrase “that’s teh ghey” derives from.
Oh, now I have been enlightened, dere. T’ank you much!
And mods, I apologize for the zigs but I cannot figger out how to stop the zigs without deleting the name of the author I am quoting so any advice you can give would be much appreciated. Every time I try, I just totally eff the whole thing up.
Donita Sparks @ 58
Nice to see Mr. Eisen doing his best Freddy Mercury Ooh la la face, there.
…Not that there’s anything wrong with an Oooh la la face
;>)
Re Jan-Michael Vincent blur video amusement: keep in mind that in Hollywood in this particular era, cocaine was epidemic and everyone, from International Head of Production to part-time secretaries of reader’s assistants were snorting like crazy in any corner they could find…you could get any amount, usually from stuntmen or transportation guys.
Several famously bad but expensive films were made during this period, and are still sometimes shown in private screenings for laughs, since cocaine narcosis is so clearly shown on screen.
We have got to get Thor together with the Douchebag of Liberty.
Bustednuckles @ 74
Munchies, hell that’s when blow hit big, nobody ate for three years!
Donita Sparks @
39
yup
that’s me
Fluoridation, Mandrake. That’s the real problem.
For me, Leonard Cohen, among others, ‘takes care of business’.
itwasntme @ 80
That’s what I’m talking about. . . munchies, shit no one at for about 3 years!
Sorry, my brillinat comment was posted twiced!
Going to the other end of the spectrum here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPCIyJC6UKs
I have exposed my inner nerd for all to see here - the object of my first raging, aching, kiss-my-pillow, celebrity crush!
Now I rememeber why I was high on coke for the majority of the 70’s….
Acts like that went by a lot quicker!!!!
This clip reminds me of Flash Gordon the movie.
Loved it as a kid. Still do actually.
Donita,
This has got to be the funniest “spin” thread in a while. The video is great, but the comments are hilarious. And, sure enough, many of your fans know a lot about this weird iconoclast. He’s almost too strange to be Canadian, even.
And darkblack toured with him! I miss so much culture living in Alaska…
Can you imagine him on a double bill with The Shaggs?
lynn @ 88
runnin round my brain
Ah, off to another sober Friday. . .13 years but I still look back on it with fondess! Rock on mofo’s!
Mandrake @ 86
Oh my. Golly. Gee, I had no idea there was an actual VIDEO for this song. I remember the song playing incessantly during the Iran Hostage Crisis. Mom had a yellow ribbon on our old oak tree out front of the house I grew up in. As did every other house on the block. I do believe we were first to do it though in our neighborhood.
And how could a young girl not love that mustache? I aint mad at ya. If I was missing the y gene in the 70s I’d have done him.
Mandrake @ 78
More enlightenment, as requested . . .
In the Reply box, the quoted material is nested inside a pair of tags - blockquote and /blockquote - with “greater than” and “less than” signs on either side. If there’s a quote inside that quote, there’s another set of tags bracketting that one off.
Start in the middle - find the innermost pair of tags, and back up from the “blockquote” tag to the one that starts “a href=” just in front of it. Cut everything out from that tag to /blockquote, including the tags themselves.
Preview it, and if you need to cut another quote out of the middle, repeat the process again. Then preview it after you’ve done that.
When all else fails and you’ve screwed it all up, highlight the whole mess in the reply box, hit delete - that clears out the comment - and start over again. (I am well acquainted with this situation myself.)
Ed*ard Teller @ 90
Just to be clear, ET…I only sat in on the one gig.
‘Ze pay, she no so good’
;>)
darkblack @ 95
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
Mandrake @ 87
I thought it was going to be the cute little Tony DeFranco and his family, Mandrake.
;>)
I saw Orlando in Vegas in the ’70’s, you could smell the bindle a mile away…Shouldn’t have fired Dawn, it was like Sonny firing Cher.
is this the same guy 30 years later?
CC @ 83
Hi Sweete Pie!
p.lukasiak @ 98
Indeed it is. After that Merv show that guy became a 80s metal dude which is when I learned of him because of the story early in this thread I relayed about the ex girlfriend with a crush on him. Feats of strength in this clip are not as iimpressive for some reason.
FiniFiniTOOBZ! @ 94
Oh, yeah, the yellow ribbon thing. Remember that too! Assume that’s where the yellow car magnets came from. Hell, at least in the 70’s we weren’t too effing lazy to tie a ribbon around a damn tree!
And the mustache, the hair, and the otherwise squeaky clean image that appealed to innocent little adolescent girls like me! Squeeaal!
I know mustaches are not supposed to be cool anymore, but I still goes for ‘em. Just goes back to the 70’s thang.
Geez, I thought Chuck Negron was hot with that huge Fu! However, I do draw the line at Fu’s these days. Too Jesse Ventura.
p.lukasiak @ 99
By Odin’s beard, his gums are mighty
;>)