Oral Pain Equals Aural Gain

Inspired by the wholesome power of rock, Thor bends steel bars with his teeth. Uri Geller used to do that to a spoon, the pussy, bending it with fingers until it nearly snapped just before stagetime, a flimflam the Canadian muscleman would never stoop to. See, if more hard-rock artists had to bend metal with their choppers, it might help the journeymen of the genre, tempering them by steel. Oral pain for your aural gain.

Although the junkyard iron bar doesn't come with Thor Against the World, the man delivers gnashing glammy yammer for "Glimmer," with a cooking rhythm section, and his voice is square from early Alice Cooper Band (or more precisely Michael Bruce on Billion Dollar Babies). Roadhouse leering comes with "Easy Woman," a natural sequel to the Godz's "Luv Kage." And a sing-along is included, "Gonna Have a Hard Time": After Thor repeats "Gonna have a real hard time getting rid of my love for you" four or five times, the backing band goes "gonna-gonna-gonna-gonna-gonna," giving you just the right cue to join in.

Seeing is believing or something, so vids of bar-bending and blowing up hot-water bottles until explosion abound on the An-Thor-Logy DVD, which just may be even better than the CD. Documentary evidence shows there was no room Thor couldn't light up, no comic skit too silly to perform with self-deprecating grace, and always women to appreciate him as a bona fide stripper-rocker who started the action in an Elvis Presley suit. Even more astonishing is a version of Sweet's "Action," backed by a Lawrence Welk–type orchestra on Merv Griffin. Must-haves for rockers: The best of the mid-'70s Keep the Dogs Away LP, the title being stomping pop boogie too early for MTV. Retro bands could do themselves a favor by resurrecting it right now. Thor relates that his parents would have beaten the crap out of him if they knew he was greasing up and winning bodybuilding contests, so he went on to be a "muscle-bound rocker." Now how in Sam Hill did we wind up with Gene Simmons on edumacational TV when there's John Mikl Thor, I ask you? For Pete's sake, get the man a super agent.