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Dear Spinal Tap: Please Knock It Off With The Reunions Already

Following their low-end-heavy appearance at hilarious benefit concert Live Earth, metal parodists Spinal Tap have promised their billionth reunion… this time, for another album that’s guaranteed to clog used bins for as long as record stores remain in existence. I know this is important news for fans of fake metal who like their jokes dryer than Tenacious D and are too old to get Metalocalypse, but to the rest of us, Spinal Tap has a long history of not being funny.

OK, obviously, it should go without saying that This Is Spinal Tap is maybe one of the 10 greatest four a.m. movies in existence, somewhere up there with Airplane! and Pootie Tang. It’s a magical movie that makes Fran Drescher look hot and makes Billy Crystal look funny. But after that movie premiered in 1984 and the three hours of extras showed up on bootleg VHS tapes and Criterion DVDs, that was it. That was the last funny thing they did.

Remember the first reunion in 1992? There was the “Bitch School” video, which averaged a good bit every 30 seconds and was probably mostly a chance for these three old perverts to hang with hot chicks under the guise of “parody.”

Then the subsequent concert DVD, which was like the worst moments of McKean/Shearer/Guest comedies, where they circle around a vague sketch of a joke for an hour. Hey—”Potato Republic,” that’s a funny play on words, right?

Then the appearance on The Simpsons, which was mad funny, but we’re betting Jeff Martin wrote all the jokes.

And what about this Volkswagen commercial from 2006? Is the joke that Nigel fell down?

OK, we get it. Rock stars used to be excessive. I mean, we partially have you guys to thank for today’s rock bands being so aware of the goofy shit that they do. But excessive, over-the-top rock stars dinosaur goofballs also stay around waaaay too long. And you guys are looking like Kiss at this point. Quit pretending you’re a band and give us that four and a half-hour bootleg version of the movie on DVD already!

Spinal Tap Plot New Material In 2009 [RS]

 
By Christopher R. Weingarten at 4:00 AM on Tue Feb 3 2009
  • Ned Raggett

    Quit pretending you're a band and give us that four and a half-hour bootleg version of the movie on DVD already!


    I fully sign on for this.


    My favorite moment of the 1992 tour -- which I saw in LA -- came courtesy of my friend and fellow concert attendee Steve, to wit: they were playing one of the new songs, whichever one had all the guest guitar soloing during the break from seven various guitar heroes etc. etc., and for this version they introduced their 'special guests' who were performing said solos. The guests turned out to be one of the Porcaro brothers from Toto, that blonde woman who played guitar for Michael Jackson for a while and Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains, who Steve had seen opening for Iggy Pop a couple of years before and had thoroughly hated.


    Steve took in this sight and these names, paused, turned to me and said, "No, these are not special guests. These are guests."

  • natepatrin

    Don't they have to do this every few years or else they'll lose their, uh, "intellectual property" rights?

  • Cam/ron

    I'm still waiting for the Folksmen reunion. Harry Shearer never finished his lecture about the Spanish Civil War.

  • Ned Raggett

    @Cam/ron: Yes, but only if he wears the dress.

  • revmatty

    I dunno, Spinal Tap can do no wrong in my opinion. One of the promo items that went out to music press and assorted other industry people for Break Like the Wind was a 1992 Colander. Granted the music on Break wasn't as good as the original movie soundtrack, but it was still damn good.

  • Royfromage

    When they were promoting Break Like the Wind, they went on TV to promote their environmental bonafides by announcing their cds would come packaged in an "extra-long" box, with 30% more recyclable material. That was a pretty good joke.


    Other than that, agreed. They sorely miss Rob Reiner's editorial hand.

  • Anonymous

    @natepatrin:


    Exactly.


    @revmatty:


    Still have the Colander! Was working at a record store in '92, but of course. Who wasn't?

  • Audif Jackson Winters III

    This would never have happened if Sir Denis Eton-Hogg was still alive.

  • Chris Molanphy

    @Audif Jackson Winters III: And where is Ian Faith in all this? Did he take Nigel's scrawl on a napkin seriously again?!

  • KinetiQ

    On a more serious note, Christopher Guest is releasing a CD of instrumental music with a couple of friends. They record as "Beyman Bros" and it was on NPR the other day.


    [www.npr.org]

  • sparkletone

    @natepatrin: That was my understanding. When they made the movie, some clause was put in the contract that if they don't perform the songs live every so often, the rights revert to the studio or some such thing.


    So we get 1200000 awesome reunions.

  • natepatrin

    @sparkletone: and you KNOW that if the rights DID revert to the studio, they'd probably put their weight behind a "Let's Find the New Spinal Tap" reality show or something.

  • Anonymous

    The sad thing is Spinal Tarp is better than most bands these days.

  • Clare

    Off topic, but +1 for the inclusion of the criminally underrated Pootie Tang.

  • Anonymous

    Before Live Earth they got back together to do a short tour. They were on that VH1 show The List with Mick Fleetwood(who was supposed to drum for them on the tour and later dropped out). I have to say they were very funny. Not everything they do is going to be as brilliant as the movie, but their worst comedy is still better than "Two & A Half Men".

  • raihala

    @Clare: Ditto.

  • Jay-C

    @Cam/ron: I saw Spinal Tap in 2002, and the Folksmen (billed as an early influence of Spinal Tap) was the opening act...

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