It’s
30 years this year since the release of ‘This Is Spinal Tap’, and there seems
to be a few things in the papers celebrating this groundbreaking (in the words of Marty Di Bergi) “documentary
or, if you will, ‘rockumentary’”, or (in my words) mockumentary of the
documentary form. It’s one of my favourite films, despite not having watched it
for a while now, but I don’t really need to, as during my twenties I found
myself watching it endlessly. I must have almost bizarrely watched it over 40
times, more than any other film I’ve seen, captivated by it’s affectionately
hilarious look at big label British Rock Bands and Heavy Metal, and the
incredibly detailed and accurate observations in the completely improvised
script, by the extremely talented performers and writers, Christopher Guest, Michael
McKean, and Harry Shearer.
They
also wrote and performed all the songs themselves, most of them far more
tuneful and better made than the records they were a parody of, which include their
own take on sixties folk, psychedelia, prog rock, and the heavier rock of the
band’s declining Eighties years. Again, the authentic detail in the recreations
of the band’s early days (as first The Originals, which they had to change their
name from as there was already a band called The Originals, so they became The
New Originals. But then The Originals changed their name, so the band then became The Thamesmen) is really
cleverly done. The Tap’s songs include the mighty ‘Big Bottoms’, ‘Sex Farm’,
‘Stonehenge’, ‘Warmer Than Hell’ and many others, featured on classic albums
such as ‘Shark Sandwich’ (hilariously reviewed in two words as ‘Shit Sandwich’),
‘Bent For The Rent’, ‘Intravenos De Milo’, and of course the legendary ‘Smell
The Glove’, in it’s ‘none more black’ sleeve, all mixed in ‘dobly’ sound of
course.
I’ve spent many an afternoon quoting
scenes from it with my equally obsessed late brother, Stu, and I still can
easily bring scenes and words to mind from the brilliant set pieces which stitch the narrative together, as the band
embark on an ill-fated American tour to promote their new album. We follow them
playing to ever diminishing crowds, empty record store signings, and finally
ending up becoming second billing to a Puppet Show at a Theme Park. It’s both
hilarious and cringe inducing, and the pretentious conversations and scenes
would be recognizable to anyone who has been in a band at whatever level. It
certainly was to me as someone who just played in garage bands in my late teens
and early twenties. Rock bands would never be seen in the same way after it,
and many have struggled to carry on apparently, such is the accuracy of the
rather sad life and characters it depicts. Surfing the net about it I found
some interesting stories about the impact it has had on many bands and
musicians who have seen it over the years. I've cut and pasted a few stories below...and added a few bits to it myself.
For example, the movie cut close to home
for musicians such as Jimmy Page, Robert Plant,
Jerry
Cantrell, Dee Snider and Ozzy Osbourne,
who all reported that, like Spinal Tap,
they had become lost in confusing arena backstage hallways trying to make their
way to the stage! (Hello Cleveland!). Singer Tom Waits
claimed he cried upon viewing it, and Eddie Van
Halen has said that when he first saw the film, everyone else in the
room with him laughed as he failed to see the humour. "Everything in that
movie had happened to me," Van Halen said. When Dokken's George
Lynch saw the movie he is said to have exclaimed, "That's us! How'd they
make a movie about us?" Glenn Danzig had a similar reaction when
comparing Spinal Tap to his former band The Misfits
saying, "When I first saw Spinal Tap, I was like, 'Hey, this is my old
band.'
In 1982 a young music fan
went to a record store signing where Randy Rhoads,
Ozzy Osbourne
and Rudy Sarzo
were sat behind a desk. "I went to a record store in Manhattan where Ozzy,
Rudy & Randy were doing an album signing. It was right out of Spinal Tap.
Those three, a store clerk, myself and a couple of friends were the only people
in the store. They were waiting for someone to come into the store for the
signing and no one, not one with no other customer beside us. Needless to say,
I took full advantage, ended up getting to speak for over thirty minutes as no
one came in.’ (What would Artie Fufkin, ‘of Polymer Records’, say?)
Lars Ulrich
told a press conference crowd that the Metallica/Guns N' Roses
1992 tour seemed "so Spinal Tap." This tour was in support of
Metallica's own "black album". Shortly after the tour
started, Metallica's James Hetfield suffered third degree burns on
his arms after he stood too close to a pyrotechnic device. Earlier in that
tour, backstage at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Show, Metallica met
with Spinal Tap and discussed how their "black album" was a homage to
Spinal Tap's Smell the Glove. This was captured on the Metallica DVD A Year and a Half in the Life of
Metallica.
According to a 1997
interview in Spin magazine with Aerosmith
rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford, "The first time Steven
Tyler saw it he also didn't see any humour in it." When the movie was
released, Aerosmith's most recent album, Rock in a Hard Place, depicted
Stonehenge prominently on the cover. Hopefully, the Stonehenge monument was bigger
than the band, or at least not in danger of being crushed by dancing dwarves.
It became a common insult
for a pretentious band to be told they were funnier than Spinal Tap. As George Lynch put it, the more seriously a
band took themselves, the more they resembled Spinal Tap. After seeing a 1986
performance by British metal band Venom,
singer Henry Rollins compared them to Spinal Tap. In
their respective Behind the Music episodes, Quiet Riot's
Rudy Sarzo
and Ratt's
Robbin Crosby
compared their own bands to Spinal Tap to. For example, as a parallel to the
"Shit Sandwich" incident, Quiet Riot's fourth album Condition Critical was given the two-word
review of "Condition Terminal" in Musician magazine. His
review of the short-lived band GTR's
eponymous debut LP in the same magazine was
"SHT." R.E.M.'s
Mike Mills
described early tours as "very Spinal Tap", citing, among other
things, the fact that they had indeed played at a United States Air Force base. According to
Harry Shearer in the DVD commentary, keyboard player John Sinclair had just
returned from touring with Uriah Heep when principal photography was about
to begin, and told them how they had been booked to play an air force base.
They subsequently used the story in the film.
I can also link my
obsession with Spinal Tap to painting too, in case you are wondering, as in
1998 I made two very large paintings that featured members of the band, Nigel
Tufnal, David St Hubbins (St Hubbins being apparently the patron saint of
quality footwear), Derek Smalls (the ‘lukewarm water’ between the ‘fire and
ice’ of Tufnal and St Hubbins), keyboardist Viv and the cursed Mick, who would
be in a long line of unlucky deceased drummers who have suffered fates such as
spontaneously combusting on stage, choking on someone’s else’s vomit, and a
‘bizarre gardening accident’ (my favourite). I was trying to do something
nostalgic about the Midlands (the home of Heavy Metal) and about men, and also move,
unsuccessfully, away from the work I had been making at the time. I spent ages
on the one called ‘Flying’, especially the carpet of leaves, which was taken
from ‘Beatles For Sale’, and re-painting Derek’s face on the right about fifty
times too. I’ve never exhibited them, which seems something of a shame when I
look at them now. Those flashy pink spandex trousers were enjoyable to paint I seem to remember...but it would be the reflections in the toilet window where any new ideas would lie...
'Air Potato', oil on canvas, 210 x 150cms, 1998
'Flying', oil on canvas, 180 x 240cms, 1998
I’ve enjoyed writing this
post, and calling it the above, after one of the Tap’s most notorious songs,
might attract a few more readers to the blog (although I’m not sure they would
be the readers I’m looking for!)
