Five Reasons We Still Love Spinal Tap

When talking about the 1984 "rockumentary" This is Spinal Tap, there are two camps of people: the ones who get it and ones who think it is some ridiculous ****. I happen to be of the former group. God bless Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, Chistopher Guest and Co. for so deftly channeling the very worst tropes and pretentions of rock 'n' roll into an air-tight satire about a band on the downswing. In that spirit, check out the latest piece I wrote for Consequence of Sound in honor of this June's reissue of the This Is Spinal Tap soundtrack on vinyl, encased in soulless black packaging. 

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Spinal Tap and a Week Without Music

It occurred to me that it's been an entire week since my last post. Apologies. Sometimes TMI hits the perfect balance of nothing to write about and no time to do it. It's been a chaotic week, involving a move and such and there hasn't been a good opportunity to sit down, chill out, and listen to an album. I don't even think that Labor Day will afford me much down time. So, what happens in a week without music? A lot of little things which are normally punctuated by whatever is on Shuffle get lost in memory. Without music, the day-to-day seems colorless and bland. Also, I've found I'm hypersensitive to random songs getting stuck in my head at a moment's notice. It's a little like a blown circuit, fragments of speech triggering song association and that's pretty much all she wrote until the next intense little bout. Hopefully things will even out, at least they'd better because I've got two more reviews in the pipeline and I'm not about to turn in a) crap, b) late crap. Also, I vow never to to be further than a mile from my beloved iPod.

On a different note, last night I saw This is Spinal Tap, the frequently-referenced mockumentary on a fake 80s rock band from the U.K. It was completely absurd and therefore, right on the money. It doesn't really matter if the fashion sense of bands has changed, they still take themselves way too seriously and are forever at the mercy of knee-deep b.s., egotism, and the Yoko Onos of the world. It was a real riot and TMI highly recommends it if you have still managed not to see it. Something else worthy of note is that the actors (Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, etc.) all actually learned their instruments for the movie. That's pretty cool. As for the writing, you really have to pay attention or you'll miss so much.

Anyway, that's my deal. Hopefully September holds musical excitement (overly optimistic?). Ciao.

BEST QUOTE:

Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner): Do you feel that playing rock 'n' roll music keeps you a child? That is, keeps you in a state of arrested development?

Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer): No. No. No. I feel it's like, it's more like going, going to a, a national park or something. And there's, you know, they preserve the moose. And that's, that's my childhood up there on stage. That moose, you know.

Marty DiBergi: So when you're playing you feel like a preserved moose on stage?

Derek Smalls: Yeah.