This is one of the great joys of life, discovering great art, and then sharing it with other people.
I love Fred Willard’s quote: “We are such fans of your music and all of your records. I’m not speaking of yours personally, but the whole genre of the rock and roll.”
Even Fred Willard, who IMHO has a comedic reverse-Midas touch, couldn’t bring down Spinal Tap.
I was in college when it came out, an had not heard of the movie. But I was perusing the records in the student bookstore when I found this all black album. It said nothing except “This is Spinal Tap” on the thin edge. The band name screamed heavy metal (what with that umlaut and all). I commented that it seemed someone was taking the “dark side” of heavy metal to the extreme. We figured it was some poseur band like Motley Crue (also fans of the rock and roll umlaut). We all had a good laugh at the absurdity of that.
The record was in the regular section, not soundtracks.
it’s like going to a national park or something where they preserve the moose. What’s what this thread is like. The moose.
Noooooo! If a movie like Best In Show can be seen on a level of a competition where top comedians and improvisers try to crack each other up, I’m fairly certain Willard is both feared and revered among them. That’s why he gets to wear the bowtie, methinks. The reverse Midas touch is often the joke, the travesty within the travesty if you will, but with a combination of utter fearlessness and a mind like an heavily irradiated endless garden he’s the guy who’ll surprise even the most jaded.
Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti…
I don’t think I have ever laughed at anything Fred Willard did or said. He is loathsome in my sight.
Ahh, extrapolated matter analysis. HHGTTG did it first I think.
Fit the Eighth broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 21 January 1980
This Is Spinal Tap, released 1984
Bumped.
Tiny dancing druids not included: Stonehenge Garden Set | 2 Reviews | 5 Stars | Signals | HY9376
Speaking of Spinal Tap and Stonehenge, Derek Smalls has come out against a proposal to build a tunnel/bypass near the site.
It might have more weight if he only knew an English baron to support him. 
I just saw Jamie Lee Curtis interviewed on Graham Norton. She told a great story about buying a Tesla and a friend calls while she’s driving to insist she turn the controls all the way up! It seems that the air con and volume controls (if I’m remembering correctly!) go up to eleven.
Just because Elon Musk is a big fan of Spinal Tap!
(And she’s married to that guy from the film!)
Happy to report that BBC volume sliders still all go up to 11, across all platforms. The “It’s one louder!” ethos seems firmly embedded in the design guidelines now.
For those who haven’t seen it, the British TV film Bad News, which stars most of the Young Ones at the height of their powers plus Lily Allen’s dad, is another excellent mockumentary in which a film crew follows the travails of a struggling heavy metal band on the road. It was actually released before Spinal Tap, in 1983, and although the later Spinal Tap enormously overshadowed Bad News, the almost simultaneous production of two such similar films was pure coincidence. It’s almost available in its entirety on Youtube.
I had to read through the thread to make sure I hadn’t commented on the original or after the bumps, but I think I’m good.
Anybody who’s been in a working rock band knows what it feels like to get a gig where you’ve got an hour or more to fill and eight songs to your name … and anybody who’s been in that situation since this movie came out knows that at some point the phrase “Jazz Odyssey” is going to come out of somebody’s mouth.
I also love the little bits of musical verisimilitude that turn up periodically. During the “Rock and Roll Creation” scene where Derek gets stuck in the pod … I’m not sure if Harry Shearer was actually playing live on the soundtrack, but whenever he’s using his hand to pound on the walls of the thing, the bass cuts out.
Thanks for the recommendation! Watching the first episode now; they’re on tour and the scene starts with a camera pan across the kitchen of some roadside greasy spoon. They really should’ve tried to get The Kink’s Motorway as background music for that.
Can I have half a sausage for a quid?
I one of the Guitar hero games, at the end of winning one of the levels the drummer in the band blows up.
It also looks like they are going on and ‘World’ tour this year.
Goodnight Springton! There will be no encores!
This Is Spinal Tap is prophecy:
[ul]
[li]The government of Fairfax county in Virginia once commissioned a mahogany conference table costing several thousand dollars. When delivered, it was discovered that the specifications had been drawn up using inches instead of feet (’ vs. ", as with the Stonehenge arch prop). A spokesperson tried to assuage concerns by noting that they were using the table as a projector stand. Makes about as much sense as having tiny Druids dance around it.[/li][li]Toto’s Jeff Porcaro was said to have died of an allergic reaction to a pesticide. A drummer dying in a bizarre gardening accident. This has since been refuted, which may be why the authorities said it was better left unsolved.[/li][/ul]
Any others?
I can still watch that movie and die laughing at the cold sore that hops from band member to band member in each new scene.
So many background jokes like that make repeat viewings enjoyable.
Saturday: Spinal Tap
Sunday: Puppet show