In the shameless self-promotional department, one of my musical endeavors is a cover band called Flat Stanley. We try to walk the line between playing things that are kind of familiar but have not been done to death.
So for example, we'll do The White Room, Cortez the Killer and Bittersweet (Big Head Todd) instead of Mustang Sally, Brown Eyed Girl and Jumping Jack Flash. So far the idea has been well-received.
We also do stuff for our own pleasure entirely, like Trains by Porcupine Tree or Mississippi Moon by King's X.
Spinal Tap finished their "world tour" of one gig at Wembley Stadium last night. The band was joined by Keith Emerson on Hammond for Heavy Duty and a few other songs according to reports.
Emerson also appears on the song on Back From The Dead, Tap's new studio album, which is excellent by the way.
Anyway, someone posted a couple of short videos to their Flickr account. Check it out:
Anyone who has seen the This Is Spinal Tap movie a few times will remember that near the end David St Hubbins and Derek Smalls talk about what they will do with their time off the road. They discuss finishing their musical version of the story of Jack the Ripper, called Saucy Jack.
25 years later, at least one song is done. The title track. Go here to get it for free.
I have seen Spinal Tap live (in full costume, full band and character) twice. The second time was prior to the Mighty Wind movie, and Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest came out as The Folksmen to open for (themselves) Tap. It was hilarious and was the first time I heard such classics as Blood on the Coals and the folkified Start Me Up.
So it was another treat to see the three don acoustic instruments last night at the Keller Auditorium in Portland and bust through Tap and Folksmen tunes without the trappings of being in character.
They were dressed semi-formal and comfortable (no wigs or stage outfits) and told funny stories between songs, razzed each other a bit and laughed a lot.
They did fall into character a few times, such as in Stonehenge - I mean, you can't do that song without reciting the opening spoken lines as Nigel Tufnel. But other songs like Big Bottom, re-done as a jazzy hipster scat, benefited from a re-tooling for the acoustic format.
A couple of things stood out. One, these guys can really play. When I had seen Tap before, I felt like Guest could really play well, and McKean was good, but Harry Shearer was being helped a lot by the keyboard player and frankly the drummer held the whole thing together. Last night was a different story. Shearer played fretted and standup bass and was very fluid. McKean did some songs on keyboards and was also very adept. Guest was great too but I expected that.
Also, their three parts harmonies were astounding. I know from playing my own gigs that the stripped down acoustic format lends itself to good singing, because you can hear really well. But, the audience can also hear really well and any mistakes are glaring. These guys were very tight vocally!
The second thing I noticed is that the songwriting is fantastic. Yes we know that the Spinal Tap and Folksmen songs are genius - Stonehenge, Hell Hole, Bitch School, Blood On The Coals, Old Joe's Place etc. But songs like Gimmie Some Money, Mighty Wind and All The Way Home are so close to the forms they are meant to parody that people not in on the joke would think these were real songs!
As expected, the three laid out funny between-song stage banter, but they also used a video screen at the back of the stage to break up the live show. Footage included a 'never before seen' clip of Tap playing on some late 70s TV rock show. Needless to say that the pre-MTV lighting, costumes and pseudo video storyline were all hilarious. Think Tap in their "Hemispheres era kimono-wearing Rush phase" and you'll get the idea.
They also showed two YouTube videos that they claimed were videos that fans had made of their songs. The second was a Lego Spinal Tap doing Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You (Tonight), which I found:
Also, they told a story about how when This Is Spinal Tap movie was to be released, NBC considered running it on broadcast TV but the censors had some issues with the script. Last night, the three proceeded to run through all of the censor comments one by one, reading from the actual report. Such as "One hour and three minutes - The lyrical content of Sex Farm is totally unacceptable" etc.
All in all, it was very entertaining and any fan of the Tap or Mighty Wind movies should seek this out. You won't be disappointed.
And for a good laugh, follow the blog from the tour here.
I already wrote about the upcoming Unwigged tour here. But it's basically Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest - the comedians behind Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind's The Folksmen - on tour as themselves.
The tour kicks off this weekend and comes through Portland on Sunday. I have tickets so expect a review. In the meantime, CNN ran a pretty funny interview with Shearer today here.
But the guys are putting the wigs back on for a new Tap album due his year called Back From The Dead, and a one-off show billed as a ‘One Night Only’ World Tour, at Wembley Arena on June 30.
I got an email today advertising a ticket pre-sale for something called Unplugged and Unwigged. On further examination, this is a 30-city acoustic tour by Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest, the three actors/comedians who are the core of both Spinal Tap and The Folksmen from A Mighty Wind.
I guess they are going to get on acoustic guitars and play Tap and Folksmen tunes and talk about the movies, crack jokes etc. I imagine the Folksmen stuff will translate better to acoustic instruments than the Spinal Tap material!
Still, it sounds intriguing and is certainly a different idea. From the official Web site:
UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED is not about funny costumes and characters, but rather three long time friends and collaborators who make each laugh and love nothing better than to find some excuse to get together and play music. The trio commented, “With this being the 25th Anniversary of the film This is Spinal Tap, we thought this would be a fun and at the same time, a little challenging, as we have never performed as ourselves. Think of the evening as three old friends jamming in your living room. As opposed to OUR living rooms; we won’t be home.”
Here is an interview with the trio where they mug it up a bit and talk about the tour:
And a YouTube video that I can't get to play. I sure hope it's funny:
It was 25 years ago that the movie This Is Spinal Tap made me laugh so hard I crapped. Well, not really, but that's a great opening line, idn't it?
According to the Guardian, Tap is getting back together to record a new album - the first since 1992's Break Like The Wind - to mark the 25th anniversary of the movie. According to the article, Harry Shearer, who is bassist Derek Smalls in the band, said, "We've never recorded the song we did at Live Earth, Warmer Than Hell, and I think [Spinal Tap] are trying to revisit their old success...We'll do a song called Gimme Some More Money, probably with ... dubious results."
Just like with any new KISS recording, a new Tap album will never capture the 'magic' of the old classics like Stonehenge, Big Bottom or Hell Hole. But I thought Break Like the Wind had some really funny stuff on it (Bitch School!). And when I saw the band live in 1992 at the Warfield in San Francisco, I was very pleasantly surprised. The show was funny but very musical. The drummer and keyboard guys were holding the whole thing together, but Nigel can really play!
Anyway, let's see what we get. In the meantime, enjoy this gem:
I play guitar for various Portland bands (colorfield, Flat Stanley, The Floydian Slips). Find out more about me on my Facebook page at http://on.fb.me/mULCrf
SXSW Day Three: Every Band Is A Girl
-
I pretty much stayed at Hotel Vegas(Hotel Hot Burrito, Mustache Central)
the whole damn day and fuck you for telling me for two weeks now that I
missed any...
Free Download Friday: Steven Wilson
-
I wrote a review of Steven Wilson's new album, *4 1/2 *for the Moshville
Times. While I was researching it, I found a bucketload of free downloads
on Steve...
