[NEohioPAL]"The Guitar Shredder"

[Michael Kolar]

"The Guitar Shredder"
Michael Kolar loves old-fashioned rock shows, with
plenty of sex and mutilation. 
By Jason Bracelin 

Michael Kolar's living room looks like hell's Barnes &
Noble. On wooden bookshelves that span an entire wall,
there's more than 500 creepy tomes, with such titles
as The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, Blood
Curdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, and --
perhaps most unnerving -- Delta Style, the
autobiography of husky actress Delta Burke. 

As we browse through the stacks, Kolar's eyes gleam
behind rose-tinted glasses. Combined with his shaven
head, the giant scorpion tattoo on his neck, and his
small, sinewy frame, the 35-year-old guitarist looks
appropriately sinister, like a little hobgoblin. A
well-read little hobgoblin. 

"When I was in the fourth grade, that's when I got
exposed to Randy Rhoads and Ozzy with Blizzard of
Ozz," Kolar recalls of his initial gateway into the
dark arts and the works of notorious sorcerer Aleister
Crowley. "Because of the song 'Mr. Crowley,' I got my
first edition of Magic in Theory and Practice. I've
been building my collection ever since." 

Kolar then hands us the jewel of his library. It's a
short script, with the rather shocking image on the
cover of a woman getting her throat slashed. Its
title, The Grand Guignol, refers to the infamous
turn-of-the-century Parisian shock-theater company.
Kolar wrote it himself. 

"I want to be a horror icon," he tells us, and The
Grand Guignol is one means to that end. The other is
his dark, neoclassical guitar playing, which recalls
the fire-and-brimstone virtuosity of Swede Yngwie
Malmsteen. Combined, the two form the gory stage show
Horror Rock, which Kolar describes as the
"Trans-Siberian Orchestra meets Friday the 13th." On
his website, Kolar boasts that performances are rife
with "Tortures and Mutilations. Stabbings and
Gougings. Demonstrated Live! Before your very eyes!" 

This is not a show for the kiddies. The Grand Guignol
revolves around the slaying of women accused of
practicing witchcraft and the violent revenge they
seek (after death) on their religious persecutors.
There's lots of death, sex, and uh, talk of how
"torchlit snatches were licked." 

"We went through 38 actors," Kolar says, discussing
the difficulty of finding folks willing to perform
such graphic material. "There was even a stripper from
the Crazy Horse who was going to play the lead witch,
but because of the content, she dropped out." 

Nevertheless, the show managed to debut at the Bottom
Line Saloon over the summer. The audience response was
predictably heated. 

"There were people who had to just leave," Kolar says.
"[They] could not believe that they were seeing
something like this in full view. It's almost like
'How dare you do that!'" 

In truth, though, the show is more fun than
frightening. It serves much the same purpose as an
over-the-top splatterfest like Dawn of the Dead: a way
for its audience to revel vicariously in a violence
that, with a lesser degree of severity, may have been
directed at them. 

"Have you seen the movie Trick or Treat?" Kolar asks
about the cult-classic, heavy-metal horror film in
which Eddie, an abused outcast teen, takes revenge
against the jocks. "I identified heavily with that
film," he recalls. "Being small and not very athletic,
and getting picked on." 

Kolar escaped into horror films and larger-than-life
rock and roll. And now he's looking to lead a rebirth
of both. "I'm trying to make something tangible of
this idea that Kiss and Alice Cooper originally had,"
he explains, "which is that, look, when you go and see
a show, you don't want to be bored. It's getting
boring to see a band just stand there and play. I want
people to actually walk away feeling like 'This guy
did something to really entertain me.'" 

On that level, Kolar's Horror Rock is a
stomach-turning success. However, whether the show
finds an audience remains to be seen. 

"I think that my greatest fear is that once I'm dead,
people will forget who I am," he says. 

With the stab-happy Grand Guignol, we think it's safe
to say that Kolar will eventually rest in pieces. 

http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2002-10-30/soundbites.html/1/index.html




__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site
http://webhosting.yahoo.com