Spinal Tap acoustic tour

[Kanada Kev]

http://www.glidemagazine.com/hiddentrack/review-spinal-tap-unwigged-unplugged/

Review: Spinal Tap Unwigged & Unplugged

In the spring of 1992, I entered a radio contest on KGON here in Portland. The deal was, Spinal Tap was coming to town. Now, Spinal tap tours are scarcer than The Who Farewell tours, but this contest had a twist.

Anyone who has seen the 1984 mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap would be familiar with the concept of the disappearing drummer. From tragic gardening accidents to excessive explosives, the throne behind the skins seemed cursed. So the concept put forth by the morning drive time team of Dave & Tom was to have an emergency percussion unit standing by in case the Tap’s touring drummer at the time (a back from the dead Mick Shrimpton in this case) didn’t survive the evening’s pyrotechnics.

Contestants who got through on the phone lines were pitted against each other in a drum-off each morning, the winner getting a pair of drum sticks as well as tickets to the show. The grand prize winner, chosen by another final drum-off the Friday before the show, would be feted to dinner, a limousine ride to the show, backstage, the whole enchilada. I had a trick up my sleeve for the final. Two thin screwdrivers for drum sticks and two ceramic coffee mugs for cymbals. A little razzle-dazzle into the phone on the desk and I held the title of Emergency Percussion Unit for Spinal Tap.

READ ON to find out how A.J. did and his thoughts on a recent show…

The night of the show, our limo was waiting at the radio station parking lot. It was a 1965 Cadillac Ambulance, all pearl blue metallic paint and shiny chrome accents. We had an excellent dinner with Dave and Tom and their significant others at the top of the Holiday Inn. The limo/ambulance ride to the theater took a bit longer than expected as Portland was in mid celebration of the Starlight Parade and a home Blazer’s playoff game. When we arrived at the auditorium, we were rushed backstage to meet with the band.

Unfortunately, Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) couldn’t make it to the meet and greet as he needed some assistance getting into the spandex. We got autographs and exchanged small talk until show time. Then it was on stage for band introductions. Announced to the crowd as an emergency measure, the Emergency Percussion Unit was led from the top of the drum riser down to my velvet roped front row seat, with a clear path to the stage lined out on the floor in duct tape, just in case. It was a wonderful evening and I still have the autographed drum head, albeit without Nigel’s

signature.

Well, Spinal Tap is back! But not really. The three band mates (Guest/Tufnel, Michael McKean/David St. Hubbins and Harry Shearer/Derek Smalls) came to town as themselves with the Unwigged and Unplugged Tour. The move to shed their false identities opened up additional musical resources for them as they were not limited to Tap tunes. They also had music from the films Waiting For Guffman and A Mighty Wind that they could draw from. It made for an interesting and fun night.

There was no opening act to warm up the crowd, but that was fine, as the crowd was thin but full of dedicated fans. Starting off with Celtic Blues, an a capella number, U&U served notice that, while basically a comedy group, they were serious musicians first and foremost. The harmonies were as spot on as any doo-wop group from the fifties. From there they launched into the first Spinal Tap song to get the acoustic treatment, Hell Hole. On this one they stayed pretty close to the original song, power chords replaced by delicate finger picking on lead acoustic guitar from Guest. The three seemed to switch characters easily all night.

After Hell Hole, they pulled out Never Did No Wanderin, as the Folksmen (Guest/Alan Barrows, McKean/Jerry Palter, and Shearer/Mark (Marta) Shubb). Whereas most of the Folksmen songs held true to their origins, acoustic folk tunes with offbeat subject matter ala Corn Wine and Bulging River, some of the Spinal Tap tunes required major re-working to make the transition from hair metal to acoustic. Clam Caravan and Majesty of Rock, both pompous, progressive rock anthems toned down really well. Stonehenge, maybe not so much, even with a video of the miniature monument being lowered at the rear of the stage.

What really held the evening together musically was the fine quality of musicianship put forth by the trio. Guest/Tufnel/Barrows guitar work was crisp and emotional. McKean/St. Hubbins/Palter held down the middle with great rhythm guitar work and solid, clear vocals. But it was Shearer/Smalls/Shubb on bass that truly shined. His was a double edged attack of bottom end. Besides inspired fret work on the bass, he handled the lower range on vocals as well. The harmonies were crisp and together, standing out on Rainy Day Sun and Old Joe’s Place.

The band threw in some rarities as well. An unreleased “B†side, Cups & Cakes revisited the Folksmen when they were known as the Themesmen. There was one from the new Harry Shearer album, called All Backed Up, that the band really had fun on. There was even a cover version of the Stones classic, Start Me Up, virtually unrecognizable from the original.

Comedy was also at the fore front on this night. The trio took turns reading rules from a censor regarding the airing of This Is Spinal Tap on network T.V. The censor, one Bill Clotworthy (you can’t make this stuff up), detailed each transgression, demanding action. “At 43 minutes, deal with the cucumber/tinfoil incidentâ€. “Nothing about Sex Farm Woman may be used on the airâ€. Recommendations like that.

All in all, from All The Way Home (Tap’s very first song) to the encore of A Mighty Wind, this was an enjoyable show. Musically intriguing as well as inspiring, these three comedic performers gave the less than sold out crowd their money’s worth with a fun evening of looking back at the music from the film legacy that is Guest/McKean/Shearer.

Rock on through the fog (although, for tonight’s performance, the fog machine will NOT be used),

A.J. Crandall

[bouche]

I'd love to hear All The Way Home. I learned that back in high school along with Gimme Some Money and Tonight I'm Going to Rock you Tonight.

[StoneMtn]

Nice! This sounds like it's going to be amazing.

I'm sure they'll have me by the end of an acoustic "Hell Hole"!

I'm still crossing my fingers for "Big Bottom", too.

[StoneMtn]

The day has arrived!

This should be interesting. I can't imagine how an acoustic show is going to be turned up to eleven, and I question whether my ear-drums will actually bleed.

[Kanada Kev]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/movies/24itzk.html?_r=1&ref=movies&pagewanted=all

May 24, 2009

On the Road, Without Wigs and Spandex

By DAVE ITZKOFF

WASHINGTON

LATE into their set at the Warner Theater here on a recent Wednesday night, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, the members of the comedy music groups Spinal Tap and the Folksmen, put down their guitars and offered to take questions from the audience. “Especially questions that don’t involve the number 11,†Mr. Shearer announced.

Concertgoers began raising their hands and asking the three performers about characters they had portrayed in films and television shows. Was Mr. McKean, who long ago played the goofy greaser Lenny on “Laverne & Shirley,†still friendly with Squiggy? Was that Mr. Guest’s actual motor home that he drove when he played the outdoorsman Harlan Pepper in “Best in Show�

In a cadaverous deadpan, Mr. Guest replied: “You understand that I was playing a character in a movie. When you see a cowboy in a film, you know that’s not his gun. Or his horse.†Having been collectively zinged, the crowd laughed and cheered in approval.

The purpose of their costume- and character-free tour, which the trio has called “Unwigged & Unplugged†and which comes to the Beacon Theater in Manhattan on Tuesday and Wednesday, was in part to illustrate that Mr. McKean, Mr. Shearer and Mr. Guest are different from their comic alter egos. They are not the folk-music fogies of “A Mighty Wind†or the small-town theater geeks of “Waiting For Guffman.†And they most certainly are not the heavy-metal doofuses they played in the 1984 pseudo-documentary “This is Spinal Tap†and two decades of concerts.

As Mr. Guest said in an interview earlier that day, “You would do a show, and it’s loud, and it’s a thing, and then you’d go to a grown-up restaurant in real clothes. And that’s a necessity, because we aren’t those other people.†The fake bands they have created, which have now lasted far longer than anyone expected, have provided periodic opportunities to play music they wouldn’t normally perform and to pretend to be people they would never be. But the latest of their rare tours underscores that beneath the fright wigs and the stuffed leather trousers they are performers with increasingly divergent lives and careers.

“It’s astonishing to me that they even know one another,†said John Michael Higgins, who has acted with the three in several of Mr. Guest’s films. “But I see them communicate through music. They’ve done it for so long that they don’t need to speak too much. They just pick up their guitars and feel their way around tunes together.â€

As Mr. McKean and Mr. Guest, who are both 61, tall and a bit stouter than in their “Spinal Tap†heyday, ambled around Georgetown with Mr. Shearer, who is 65 with slightly stooped posture, it was clear what still united them.

They are inveterate jokers, verbally dexterous and constantly commenting on everything around them, whether they are looking at a sign for a local tuxedo shop (“Do they sell flesh tuxedos?†Mr. McKean asked, referencing the Spinal Tap song “Big Bottomâ€) or reflecting on their audience at the previous night’s show in Baltimore. (Mr. McKean: “They were insane.†Mr. Guest: “Actually, clinically insane.†Mr. Shearer: “There was this one guy dressed as Napoleon.â€)

Among their favorite inside jokes is imitating Larry King as he adds entries to the list of stray observations he maintains on Twitter. (In a throaty, mock-King accent, Mr. McKean declared: “If there’s a better invention than the pulley, I haven’t heard of it.â€)

It was music as much as comedy that first brought them together. As acting students at New York University in the late 1960s Mr. McKean, the son of a record company executive, and Mr. Guest, the son of a British baron and diplomat, bonded over the Gibson ES-335 TD guitars they both owned and their mutual adoration of the blues-rock band the Electric Flag. In 1970 Mr. McKean joined Mr. Shearer, a former child actor, in the Los Angeles radio comedy troupe the Credibility Gap while Mr. Guest worked for the National Lampoon.

In 1979 they were united on “The T.V. Show,†a failed sketch-comedy pilot for ABC that featured the first appearance of Spinal Tap. Five years later that satirical rock band was propelled to cult stardom by “This is Spinal Tap,†the comedy directed by Rob Reiner that is perhaps best remembered for its eminently quotable dialogue. (“You can’t really dust for vomitâ€; “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.â€)

Today the band members’ careers seldom intersect: Mr. Shearer is a longtime star of “The Simpsons†and the host of the topical radio satire “Le Show,†as well as an advocate for the restoration of New Orleans, where he lives half the year; Mr. McKean has recently appeared on Broadway in “The Homecoming†and may return in the fall in the Tracy Letts play “Superior Donutsâ€; and Mr. Guest is now the director of his own ersatz documentaries (plus the occasional commercial for Healthy Choice meals).

Though they consider themselves friends, the three men said that they infrequently spend time together outside their work. “We’ll have dinner occasionally,†Mr. Shearer said, “and Michael will come over, and we’ll just play or something. But we’re radically different people.â€

“We don’t go playing golf with Chris, for example,†Mr. McKean added. “And he doesn’t go playing golf with us. It’s win-win.â€

But on a handful of occasions they have reunited in the guise of Spinal Tap — on short tours in 1992 and 2001, and at a Live Earth concert in 2007 — sometimes opening for themselves as the Folksmen, the fictional folk band from “A Mighty Wind.†(Audiences didn’t always get the joke. At a 2001 Spinal Tap show at the Beacon Theater some fans vocally objected to an unannounced appearance by the Folksmen. In the crowd Mr. Guest’s son, Tom, then 5 years old, asked when the “old guys†were getting off the stage and the “loud guys†were coming on.)

In 2005, when the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of Mr. Guest’s work, Mr. Shearer and Mr. McKean joined him in performance as themselves, setting aside the costumes and the fake British accents of Spinal Tap, and discovered that they enjoyed the freedom.

While the move might be liberating for them, it has also made them vulnerable to fans who misconstrue their un-self-conscious clowning for personal openness. As Mr. Guest was walking to lunch at a Georgetown restaurant, he noticed a man who was preparing to take his photograph. In retaliation Mr. Guest unholstered an iPhone and began taking pictures of his startled admirer, directing him as if at a photo shoot. (“Just stand there like a regular guy. Look up. Up!â€) He then darted into the restaurant before he could be photographed in kind.

When people who do not usually spend this much time together are made to travel the country in a cramped tour bus, they are bound to butt heads. Without quite explaining the details of their dispute, Mr. Shearer acknowledged that he and Mr. McKean have had “a running debate on a subject that shall not be mentioned here.â€

Mr. McKean replied, “Harry’s life is about 85 percent debate. We just step into them.â€

Despite the occasional conflicts the friction among the three men makes them a tighter and more responsive performing group, said Jane Lynch, who frequently appears in Mr. Guest’s comedies.

“You can just tell this is 30 years of friendship, of probably being at each other’s throats just like Spinal Tap,†she said in a telephone interview. “And now they’ve mellowed into their late middle age and they just accept each other. They definitely have that wizened chemistry between them.â€

There is another Spinal Tap album on the way (called “Back from the Dead,†to be released on June 16), but the “Unwigged & Unplugged†tour allows its members to push beyond the boundaries of that group.

The live show features jazz and acoustic arrangements of Spinal Tap songs; dramatic readings of lines that NBC censors wanted to cut from a television broadcast of “This is Spinal Tapâ€; clips of Mr. Shearer, at the age of 9, acting in the biblical epic “The Robeâ€; and appearances from the comedians’ spouses: Annette O’Toole, Mr. McKean’s wife, sings onstage, and the hands of Jamie Lee Curtis, Mr. Guest’s wife, appear in a video that accompanies the song “Stonehenge.â€

Mr. Guest, who does not readily admit to being excited about things, confessed: “I’m having a ball doing this. It’s just us. It really represents everything we do.â€

Asked if there was any incongruity inherent in a group of balding men in their 60s still pretending to be wildly coiffed rock stars, Mr. McKean reflected on a fateful appearance he made at a 1979 RV show with David L. Lander, his partner in their Lenny-and-Squiggy days.

At one point “the guy who ran the show pulled us aside and told us: The motto of this world is, ‘Boogie till you puke,’ †Mr. McKean said. “I thought those were pretty good words to live by.â€

Mr. Guest nodded as if he recognized the credo. “Didn’t Bertrand Russell have that on his coat of arms?†he asked.

Edited May 24, 2009 by Guest

[bouche]

nice article!

[Kanada Kev]

Boogie 'til you puke, bouche