Sooner or later, most of us will look at old photographs of ourselves dressed up in your favourite clothes of that time, recall our favourite music of days gone by and ask "What the hell was I thinking? Had I completely lost my mind?"

Most of us can fall back on this defence: "Hey, that was the fashion at the time." In most cases, such as that of the gentleman pictured below, the excuse would work:



However, the gentleman in the photo is an unusual case, for he often appeared in public dressed up like this:



This is one man who in all likelihood does not ask "What was I thinking?" when he looks back at those old photos. Instead, he posts them proudly on his web site. He probably spends a fair bit of time going through old photo albums, pointing at pictures of himself taken in the seventies and eighties and telling side-splitting ribald stories of the good old days. This man is Canada's gift to heavy metal of the  "Dungeons and Dragons" variety, and his name is Thor.

Thor is coming to rock Accordion City this Thursday at The 360, and I intend to bask in his rock awesomeness.

Here's a photo of Thor maintaining discipline in his first band, The Imps:


"Insolent backup musicians! Feel the wrath of THOR!"

I first became aware of Thor during the 1980's when the video channel MuchMusic had a daily heavy metal show called the Power Hour. Thor was occasionally featured, and at the time, he and his band looked like this:


My eyes! The goggles, they do nothing!

The present-day Thor may have shorn his locks, but he's still rocking out in full Viking regalia. Here's what he looks like now:


From Thor's opening gig for GWAR. He later joined GWAR for a battle scene in which they slew the monster Gor Gor.

I'm sure that his swords-and-sorcery schtick is finding him young, new audiences, fresh from The Lord of the Rings trilogy and hungry for more. Here he is, in front of a crowd who brought their own weapons!



Thor keeps himself in great shape. Here he is demonstrating his powerful lung capacity by blowing up a hot water bottle until it bursts.



For all his rock majesty, Thor is still humble enough to play wedding gigs. Here he is at one such gig, holding up two hammers in one hand to signify the unity of the newlyweds.



John "lemonodor" Wiseman and I believe that the drummer in this photo above has an interesting back story that's dying to be told. Here's a closeup of the fella:



Laugh at him all you want, but I feel that we owe Thor our gratitude. Without him and his ilk, we would not have a such a rich vein of material to mine for parody. Without Thor, we wouldn't have This is Spinal Tap, GWAR or even Trogdor the Burninator. That's why I intend to catch his show tomorrow night.

Who's with me?

ReTHORces

Thorcentral.com: The Internet place for all things THOR!

Thor photos: You will never be the same after seeing these pictures of the thunder god.

Nardwuar interviews Thor: Canada's greatest nerd rock interviewer speaks to Thor! (MP3 link)

Call of the Triumphant: The first track of Thor's newest album, Triumphant (MP3 link). You can't beat lyrics like this:

The University of Western Ontario's Gazette's writeup of Thor.

The Thor Discography.