Sam Dunn
VH1 Classic
All Access Review: A
Along with his similarly desensitized boyhood chums, a
teenaged Sam Dunn took great delight in poring over the violent,
gore-splattered imagery that bled all over the lyrics of death metal titans
like Cannibal Corpse. The heavy metal-obsessed filmmaker waxes nostalgic for
such warped innocence in his acclaimed documentary “A Headbanger’s Journey.” As
someone with a strong stomach for such horrific scenes of human depravity and
sick fantasies, it takes something truly frightening and unsettlingly dark to
scare Dunn out of his wits. Des Moines ,
Iowa
On his way to the Midwest
to interview Slipknot co-founder Shawn Crahan, otherwise known as Clown, during
“Shock Rock,” the latest installment of his “Metal Evolution” series on VH-1,
Dunn reveals how “terrified” of Slipknot he was the first time he saw them
live. Intensely chaotic onstage, with an angry, relentlessly bleak nihilistic
streak lyrically, Slipknot’s grotesque masks and matching uniforms, hellish
growls, aggressive, multi-dimensional percussion and borderline psychotic stage
shows make KISS seem cuddly by comparison. In fact, Monte Conner, A&R guy at
Roadrunner Records, a regular on “Metal Evolution,” recounts how Clown would
inhale deeply while holding a decomposing crow to his nose and breathe in all
the evil and blackness that bird represented before shows. The stench often
made him vomit, according to Conner, and sometimes, he would throw up in his
mask and continue wearing it while playing whole concerts with that awful
smelling spew in his face. Holy God, how do you top that?
The answer is … well, probably, you don’t. Although circus
performer Danny Vomit, also interviewed for “Shock Rock” to provide commentary
on how freak shows may have influenced shock-rock theatrics, cautions that
somewhere some kid is dreaming up something even more appalling, it’s hard to
imagine anything more assaulting to the senses than Slipknot or Marilyn Manson.
Even the godfather of the genre, Alice Cooper, admits in the most recent
episode of “Metal Evolution” that it’s probably impossible to shock anybody
these days, and Rob Zombie concurs. And now that people are so anaesthetized to
violence that we’ve gotten to the point where “Faces of Death” passes for
entertainment, what’s left? Forget trying to shock people, says Cooper. That’s
pretty impossible now. It all comes down to providing them an imaginative show,
according to Cooper, who equates his own elaborately bloody stage show these
days with Cirque du Soleil.
Dunn pretty much leaves it at that in what is quite possibly
the best episode of the “Metal Evolution” series. “Shock Rock” has it all –
controversy, a fascinating history, lively debate, and unflinching social
commentary. There’s the gutsy Little Richard, strutting his gender-bending
fashion sense and blatant homosexuality in the Deep South
of the late 1950s, which earns the undying respect of one Lemmy Kilmister of
Motorhead. Next up is the campy horror show of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, complete
with still shots of him arising from his coffin and vintage clips of him
performing “I Put a Spell on You.” Perhaps more surprising, however, is how
much crazy, manic footage there is of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown doing
“Fire,” and Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickenson admitting to copping much of his
onstage persona from Arthur, who emerged from the psychedelic safe house of
Paris in the ‘60s with wild ideas about confrontational performance art and
challenging music – all of which Brown, with a red stripe of makeup running
across his face, discusses in great detail with Dunn. That connection that Dunn
establishes between Brown and heavy metal is a fascinating one and Dunn
displays a deft touch in making it. There’s nothing heavy-handed about his
storytelling technique; he’s a natural when it comes to interviewing, and the
editing work that he and partner Scott McFadyen, who co-directs and co-produces
“Metal Evolution,” keeps everything flowing naturally.
Not forgotten in the story of “Shock Rock” are Alice Cooper
and KISS, of course. The infamous chicken incident is dissected with Alice, who
goes on to regale Dunn with rehashed tales of how the band was banned in
certain countries and how the “bad” publicity they received actually served to
increase the band’s popularity – all with the help of former band mates Dennis
Dunaway and Neal Smith. Whole books have been written about KISS’s makeup and
the genesis of the band’s outrageous stage craft. Somehow, Dunn manages to
squeeze all the essential information about KISS, as it relates to the subject
at hand, while segueing into KISS’s gradual morphing from every parent’s
nightmare into a somewhat more innocuous, family-oriented act that saw children
arriving at shows made up as their favorite KISS character. While Criss bemoans
the increasing commercialism that enveloped KISS, Frehley talks about having to
tone down the sexual congress he used to perform with his guitar every night
and reluctantly back off on his cursing. This is where things take a turn for
the really, really weird.
With KISS having become sort of a kid-friendly cartoon, a
shock-rock void developed. Nobody was testing the boundaries of good taste and
social convention. Then along came Marilyn Manson. Taking on conservative
Christian values with a fierce intelligence and a brutally tortured, gothic
aesthetic that seemed to bring to life the inner workings of a serial killer’s
scrambled mind, Manson and his deranged crew put on a stage show that was like
some fascist S&M rally in a dystopian nightmare. When things got too real,
though, as they did when responsibility for the Columbine massacre was placed
squarely on Manson’s shoulders, this sinister creature went on MTV and took
umbrage with the media for its ghoulish, uncaring coverage of the tragedy and
the grief and sadness of those it affected the most. Interestingly, Manson’s
one-time co-conspirator, Daisy Berkowitz, criticized Manson’s reaction,
basically calling him out for being soft. That, combined with the bizarre,
intensely personal stories of Clown and Slipknot, makes the second half of
“Shock Rock” the most compelling television produced so far by Dunn.
“Shock Rock” alternates from lighthearted kitsch to serious
debate on its effects on society and whether rock music could ever produce
anything that could be considering “shocking” ever again. Again, it must be
difficult to keep this train on the tracks, to maintain focus on the role
“shock rock” plays in the evolution of heavy metal. And yet, Dunn does it, even
while occasionally detouring into ancillary subject matter that would threaten
to derail less talented filmmakers. Over and over, Dunn and McFadyen stitch
together interviews, vintage live footage, still photography and any other
ephemera he can get his hands to effortlessly tell a story that deserves this
kind of exhaustive study. The world of heavy metal owes him a debt of
gratitude.
Peter Lindblad
Metal Evolution - Shock Rock
Watch the Full Episode - Here and Now!
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