Is there anyone who doesn't love This is Spinal Tap?

Huge classic, obviously.

I have the VHS version though.

Though that has a rough odor of urban legend.

Movie or not, can we still take Aerosmith out back?

Plot Outline: Three actors learn their respective performances in the film "Home for Purim," a drama set in the mid-1940s American South, are generating award-season buzz.

Not only that, there's another hour and a half "movie" made up of deleted scenes.

Spinal Tap is possibly my favorite movie (after Alien, of course). Its one of the few satirical treatments of metal that actually 'gets' the genre, and understands its place in the context of rock history. I love how the band is a perfect microcosm of all the most bloated aspects of rock trends from the British Invasion onwards. The film is really just a great satire of the rock and roll biz in general, and the human capacity for self-delusion in the face of failure. The songs are really convincingly well-done and hilarious, too.

There was supposed to be a 'hilarious' BJ scene that got cut or unfilmed, purely because it wouldn't have been included in a 'real' documentary.

OTM, the movie has a lot of little stuff like that. My favorite is after the manager Ian tells the band that their Boston show's been cancelled, then says it's nothing to worry about, "Boston's not a big college town."

Tony Hendra really does a great job playing the manager.

I think it was Kiss that didn't find it funny (or maybe both of them). Maiden's Bruce Dickinson's got a pretty good sense of humor, I'm surprised he didn't find it funny.

Seconded.

It wasn't Bruce, it was Blaze!

Tap is to Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind as the Beatles are to Wings, Lennon and Harrison solo. And the new film will be Back Off Boogaloo in comparison. (not that that's bad)

It's one of the best movies ever made, ever.

Hugely OTM.

SPINAL TAP
($75.00) (1984) here's the rare 4 hours 45 minute version you've heard about! ...with all the scenes "not fit" for even the the new extended 'uncut' legitimate release - there's nudity! drugs! bad attitudes! plus lots more! 3 tapes; But please take note -- this is a 'bootleg' tape and the quality is not up to our usual standard there are visual dropouts some missing audio spots... we would recommend it for rabid SPINAL TAP fans only -- where else will you see this stuff? ; {the visual quality of this print is rated as B-/C

almost every metal musician i've seen interviewed about spinal tap has been quite positive; inevitably the conversation leads to them describing how this or that bit from spinal tap actually happened to them.

as for kevin dubrow whining about it ... what HASN'T kevin dubrow whined about?

I don't understand what's so funny about this? I used to do the same thing, but only so that I could drink more beer onstage.

That's completely insane.

Tap is to Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind as the Beatles are to Wings, Lennon and Harrison solo. And the new film will be Back Off Boogaloo in comparison.

Good anology. Guest's other movies are great, as is a lot of Wings and Lennon's and Harrison's solo stuff. But the Beatles are the best band I've ever heard and Spinal Tap is the funniest movie I've ever seen.

my fave moment: dancing dwarfs around the tiny stonehenge

fave subtle line: the argument about going on AFTER the puppet show

speaking of...watch SNL in the 80s sunday night (no law and order!) and they showed a few moments of some classic clips from the season with Shearer and Guest, particularly the all-time classic synchronized swimming skit with Martin Short.

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/84/84aswimmers.phtml

Even the music itself makes me laugh - there's a great bit at the end of one of the songs where Nigel plays a souped-up Mozart guitar solo. Also when he's playing his piano "composition" and talking about how there are all these melodic lines interwoven when in fact he's just playing these really retarded-sounding blocky chords.

With ya there, that's a perfect moment of editing.

there's too much fucking perspective

Some interesting info was discussed here: Battle of the LA Session Musos: the Wrecking Crew vs. the LA Mafia

Barry Bostwick interviews Spinal Tap on SNL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-HOHzafV1E

“I can’t believe you’re treating the departure of Nigel like he was Stumpy Joe or Peter James Bond”

“Well I’m sure I might feel a little bit more if I wasn’t under such heavy sedation”

that's actually my favorite bit of dialogue in the movie

I do slightly not-love This is Spinal Tap now - but not because of flaws in the film itself, but because of what I will call extrafilmic concerns.

Like my 10 friends in high school whose "sense of humor" consisted entirely of quotes from Monty Python and/or Spinal Tap.

And like the 10,000 corny-ass muso dudes who cannot possibly resist an ST reference. In 30mumble years of music-making I have carefully avoided mentioning the property of sustain because I know there's going to be some goofball who is going to do the movie quote in a bad accent.

And lord help me if the discussion of the increments on amplifier knobs comes up because I swear to god imma kill the next mofo who says anything about eleven

Yes, I get it, you watched a VHS tape. Cool. Now can we please get back to rehearsing the fucking song

I don't mind excess Spinal Tap quoting as long as you veer beyond the two obvious ones.

whenever I've been in a really bad theatre production, and I realize I'm in a complete piece of shit that is going to tank, I often have turned to the person next to me in frustration and asked "Are we gonna do stonehenge tomorrow?"

Okay, Stonehenge references get a pass from me.

A Hawkwind biopic would not be far off from Spinal Tap.

an Anvil biopic already wasn't

otm

obviously very different musically but the documentary on the UK pop group Bros. was definitely the that got closest to that perfect dimwit grandiosity of Spinal Tap

Fucking limmy.

RIP Ric Parnell, aka Mick Shrimpton -- the drum solo bit in this remains a top five moment in this film for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0QdAbGym8A

And I still love his physical comedy in the back of the shot here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkE-S_WbUJE

Anyone who worked in a record store in the 80s will instantly recognize the absolutely spot on performance of Paul Shaffer as Artie Fufkin.

RIP Ric / Mick
Should I ask if he…spontaneously combusted into a little green globule on his drum seat?

Bizarre gardening accident

Things like that happen all the time. They’re just not widely reported

The authorities said best leave it unsolved.

Wait, are you guys quoting something?

Withnail & I

“We want the finest dwarves available to humanity. We want them here and we want them now.”

You can't really dust for vomit.

SEQUEL!

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/this-is-spinal-tap-sequel-rob-reiner-michael-mckean-1235265523/

The sequel will be in the style of Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Waltz,” the legendary concert documentary that followed the farewell tour of the Canadian American rock group The Band. “Spinal Tap 2” will also feature real-life musicians in the film. No names have been revealed yet, but it will likely depend on the artists’ touring schedules.

Bono? Boaby?

Honk like the wind?

I have very low expectations for this

It'll either be bone dry and hilarious, or suck so hard it'll drag the original down with it

"The Last Waltz" ripe for parody + Christopher Guest's wonderful tried-and-true lead-up to a big show at the end gives me hope for it.

I thought we already had a modern-day reboot with Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping?

I'm a style boy for liiiiife

The tour video they released after the 1992 shows already was a sequel, really, thanks to the various interstitial/where are they now bits.

Plus, the "directors commentary" on the original, massively recommended

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD94L7rzOm8

Just wanted to thank you for the display name nod there, C. Grisso.

“It’s a complete catastrophe …
Look no one’s In here. *examines olive*
And in here there’s a little guy”

Is the sequel still happening?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_Tap_II

On a budget of $22.6 million (before tax incentives),[1] filming began in New Orleans in March 2024,[4]

Because if you dialed down the number of volume measurements on the Marshall amp back down to ten and then added 0.11 of loudness to each remaining increment, then "9" would be more like "9.9" and "10" would be "11" — completely inaccurate and screwing everything up. I don't understand why Nigel gets laughed at for this.

Nigel "Rain Man" Tufnel

Yeah I’ve always been on Nigel’s side on that debate

I was disappointed with Spinal Tap. I remember seeing "Bad News Tour" on Channel 4 as a kid, and enjoying it, because it's basically slapstick that doesn't require much familiarity with rock music. But when I finally got to see Spinal Tap it left me cold because I didn't understand the context. There are a couple of moments of broad comedy but a lot of it requires familiarity with the conventions of rock music and music documentaries. In particular the tendency of 1970s rock media to present juvenile behaviour in a reverent way.

I have a distinct memory of taping it from the television, and there was a New Year countdown. So it was probably this very broadcast. It was shown on 31 December 1991, on BBC2, at 23:35. Just after the first Mad Max. What a peculiar double bill. That blog post has some spooky ghost footage at the end that I might have been able to corroborate, if only I'd kept all my old VHS tapes. But no, they're lost to innumerable car boot sales and rubbish dumps.

And then later on I finally "got it" after seeing it on DVD many years later. In contrast the Bad News franchise hasn't aged very well. One of the funniest bits wasn't in the actual film, it was part of the DVD extras:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zABnkDJ2yHw

It's funny because if you ever meet a guitarist in real life they will, at some point, go "ding... ding!" on the guitar in order to illustrate a point about scales, or something. Apparently Bobbi Fleckman ended up reappearing in The Nanny, which raises the question of whether the rest of the characters exist in that universe, and whether the producers of The Nanny ever thought about making their own Spinal Tap spin-off, along the lines of Sony's Spider-Man / Venom franchise. A part of me wonders if The Nanny existed just to put Fran Drescher in as many different outfits as possible, and yet what's so wrong with that? It kept a lot of people in work for several years. I don't know how clothes are made.

Two of my favorite Tap jokes are over the ending credits. One where Nigel is talking about working in a haberdashery, and when asked if he would enjoy that, he deadpans, "I dunno, how much does it pay?" The other is when Nigel and David are talking about racism, which I think about all the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IZ2Iv0OckM

Maybe Nigel is actually talking about a hypothetical shoe store, actually.

David St. Hubbins: We say, "Love your brother." We don't say it really, but...
Nigel Tufnel: We don't literally say it.
David St. Hubbins: No, we don't say it.
Nigel Tufnel: We don't really, literally mean it.

― Peas Be Upon Ham (Tom D.), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 10:26 (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Disappointed with spinal tap? Really? Hot take

At the end of the love your brother riff doesn’t David say something like “But,,,that message should be clear”

Didn't know there was a sequel coming. That'll take some readjusting for me after Better Call Saul--Michael McKean was so good in that. I guess the hair will take care of that.

I didn’t like Mckean in BCS but it was probably the writing. At least that’s what I’m telling myself

I hope guest and co do some lines of coke right before filming

Kerry Godliman (who is playing Ian Faith's daughter in Spinal Tap 2) just revealed some of the plot of the new film on the Adam Buxton podcast...