Just caught this movie on Netflix. I really liked it but felt that some of the references went over my head. Like the black album cover and Nigel not being able to get up during the concert.
Were they trying to make fun of any rock band(s)? Or was it just a general spoof of all rock bands?
I think they went for a 'melting-pot' of references to various bands.I'm sure Aerosmith,Black Sabbath,Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin are high on the list.
shareIt was making fun of all talent-less bands who barely survive on whats left of their record sales. Spinal Tap never had a good album, they were just a so-so band and never realized it.
shareWhile there are a lot of references and Tap is not modeled after one specific band, I believe the band "The Sweet" (Fox on the Run) is a HUGE influence on this movie.
"in this world there's two kinds of people ... those with loaded guns, and those who dig."
And I think Yes as well (the vocal harmonies and keyboard work on Stonehenge). The skewering of Zeppelin is quite hilarious for fans such as myself -- Nigel's tuning of the violin (while "playing" the guitar with it) is a hilarious send-up of Page in The Song Remains the Same.
shareI've always thought that 'Gimmie some Money' was a play on the early Stones. The flower people tune could be a gag on any # of 60's groups, maybe the sitar sound a goof on the Beatles.
As a Syd Barrett fan, I've wondered if the title of the song 'Cups and Cakes' was a slight reference to a late Syd era Floyd song called 'Apples and Oranges'. I kinda hope so.
I know a couple of Zeppelin fans who don't like the movie because of the violin scene, a direct hit on Page. I think its funny and it doesn't bother me, but I could see their point. That was an obvious jab at Jimmy.
With his haircut and temper, I would be shocked if Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) wasn't at least partially modeled after Jeff Beck.
TIST can also be thought of as an anti-Last Waltz, with Rob Reiner's straight-faced Martin Scorsese parody. So in a roundabout way I guess you could say it respectfully pokes fun at the Band.
TIST can also be thought of as an anti-Last Waltz, with Rob Reiner's straight-faced Martin Scorsese parody. So in a roundabout way I guess you could say it respectfully pokes fun at the Band. - snook_ocreed
Oh, I wasn't trying to suggest that I thought the creators had the Band in mind; just their film. Yes, they did taper off after their first two, but still; it's clearly shown in their clips that Spinal Tap was very derivative early on. The Band were definitely rootsy, but they were hardly hacks.
(However, looking at the release years of the fictional Tap discography (and I seem to remember lines in the film that fed into what I'm saying here), they did seem to latch onto hair-metal hedonistics a few years early.)
Also, with the indirect connection between the rise of punk rock and Scorsese's treatment of the Band, I don't think it was too bad, as the Clash show up in The King of Comedy.
shareWith his haircut and temper, I would be shocked if Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) wasn't at least partially modeled after Jeff Beck. - snook_ocreed
Yes, Nigel is a spitting image--albeit lighter hair--of Jeff Beck. Beck is supposedly persnickety about stage sets, sound arrangements, etc., as seen with Nigel's distress about the food backstage in Chapel Hill.
shareI'm fond of people referring to Jeff Beck as Nigel Tufnel look-alike, Jeff Beck.
shareThe Beatles are definitely one of them.
shareStonehenge came from Black Sabbath, the set pieces were made larger than the actual landmark somehow!
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Stonehenge is definitely my favorite scene of the movie.
shareThe British band Status Quo also must take a lot of `credit`. Firstly the name Spinal Tap has the same amount of letters (6-3) and starts with an S. Then the clip of Tap during a music show from the 1960s is very much like Quo on Top Of The Pops playing Pictures Of Matchstick Men in 1968. There also is a likeness with the Micheal Mckean character David St Hubbins and Rick Parfitt of Quo.To be honest there are a lot of bands that the film nods to.
shareUriah Heep, as well. But they take incidents from many different band experiences.
share<<Stonehenge came from Black Sabbath, the set pieces were made larger than the actual landmark somehow!>>
Not true. The movie was almost certainly made before the Black Sabbath tour you're talking about. In fact, I believe it's been said that the Stonehenge sequence is on the promo reel, which was done even earlier as a means of getting a studio interested in the film.
It's just a really bizarre coincidence that Black Sabbath managed to go on tour with oversized Stonehenge stage set. The story goes that the band wanted a "life sized" Stonehenge stage set, but the measurements got converted from feet/inches to metric somehow, which resulted in Sabbath only being able to use part of the set on any given night of the tour.
Well I think it is making fun of a lot of the hair and spandex bands, but its influences have a lot of Zeppelin in them. (though Zeppelin were definitely not a cheesy hair band)
AS a heavy Zep fan myself, the Zep allusions are pretty clear...
The Nigel solo with the violin and the playing the other guitar with his foot, is clearly a joke of Nigel trying to "one up Page"...and considering how much Nigel looks like Jeff Beck, and Page and BEck were old Yardbirds bandmates and rivals, one could infer there is a bit of something there....like Beck being jealous so he tries to come up with a better solo than the bow solo.
Stone Henge scene is clearly influenced by the fantasy and live scenes in "The Song Remains The Same" Nigel is wearing a hood and they are talking about the druids etc...and Robert Plant was always going for that "mystical" Tolkein thing.
the drummer choking on vomit is clearly a send up of the deaths of Bonham and Hendrix, but they tried to lighten it by it being someone else's vomit.
Interesting that you mention the Yardbirds thing, because years later, when they did the reunion album/tour in the early 90's, there was an interview in Guitar World where it was mentioned that there were rumors back in the early 70's that Nigel had been tapped to be one of the replacement guitarists in The Yardbirds. When Nigel sort of vaguely denies it, it's then suggested that he was going to be in either Renaissance or Armageddon (the bands that Keith Relf formed after The Yardbirds broke up).
Hendrix and Bonham weren't the only people who died from "inhalation of vomit" (I believe that's the clinical term), but they're probably the most famous (other than maybe Bon Scott).
The music sounds like some of the garbage Sabbath does.
share<<The music sounds like some of the garbage Sabbath does.>>
Actually, Spinal Tap nothing at all like Black Sabbath. I think the band's sound breaks down to three categories:
1. Gimme Some Lovin': British Invasion. A lot of people I know suggest it's a Merseybeat thing, but to me they sound and look like The Yardbirds on that one.
2. Cups & Cake and (Listen To) The Flower People: Cups & Cakes is theoretically the B-side to Gimme Some Lovin' but it sounds more psychedelic to my ears. And of course, Flower People is the band's big psychedelic single.
3. Everything else: heavy rock/hard rock/metal, closer to bands like Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, and Blue Öyster Cult than Black Sabbath. Sabbath never had that heavy Hammond organ sound, which is all over the alleged 70's era Tap songs.
I know Hendrix and Bonham weren't the only ones, but like you said, they are definitely the most famous. Clinical term is actually Pulmonary aspiration...
Though i rarely drink and never that much, I have had frightening experiences with Pulmonary aspiration as a result of acid reflux...and i can say having awakened immediately in utter terror cause you cannot breathe because stomach acid has almost caused you to choke is horrifying and frightening.
The problem with alcohol related pulmonary aspiration is that usually the subject is so drunk that they cannot react appropriately the way a sober person is.
It is a very frightening experience.
I've always thought of the violin thing as both a send up of Zeppelin and Blue Oyster Cult at the same time. "Playing" the guitar with the violin instead of the bow is a spoof of Page; rubbing the two instruments back and forth over each other pokes fun at Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma sliding their guitar necks together during BOC's cover of "Born to be Wild."
I think strumming the second guitar with the foot had to be Guest's brainchild; just to add to the absurdity.
Jazz Odyssey could be a reference to Air Dance, which was on Black Sabbath's album Never Say Die! Air Dance is a very jazzy song, compared to most of Black Sabbath's other Works... Also one of the last scenes in the film, Nigel is leaving the band and gets back, when he's telling the others about the good news. Ozzy did the same when he was in Black Sabbath, but without any good news. The rest of the band was pissed of at Ozzy because, because he had cost a lot of Money for them... It's just my theories and they could be wrong as well.
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