C&L's Late Night Music Club With The Tubes
By Logan Murphy Wednesday Jul 22, 2009 7:00pmI have always thought that The Tubes were underrated. They may be best known for songs like She's a Beauty and Talk To You Later, but White Punks on Dope, and especially this live version absolutely stand the test of time. Singer Fee Waybill is fearless, pushing the limits of creativity and legality whenever possible.
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Fee Waybill was actually a roadies for the band and then moved forward to singer. My personal favorite is the Remote Control album, a conceptula piece about tee vee, produced by Todd Rundgren. Still stands up today.
here are two cuts from that album - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLxRU8-vwH8&fe...
Haven't heard The Tubes in a long time....nice to hear them tonight...brings back memories.
"Prime Time" is one of my favorite Tubes' songs, as is "Don't Touch Me There" and "What do You Want from Life." I remember in high school when I first heard "Don't Touch me There." A guy in my carpool would bring his 8-track tapes and play this and other Tubes songs often, and when I heard that song, I thought, wow!
These series of internet tubes really are amazing...you learn so much from them. You mention Todd Rundgren (one of my favorites). Turns out, his wife Michele used to be with the Tubes. Didn't know that. Also turns out Todd and his wife live on the island of Kauai, one of my favorite places. These internet Tubes are great!
Dang! You beat me to it.
"Prime Time" is my favorite Tubes song.
Pretty cool...
these guys wrote the greatest, cynical love songs of all time
one album that never hit, but is brilliant is genius of america
and while wpod was the slacker teen anthem of the 70s, here is their best song....
STAND UP AND SHOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtILDWomXjk&fe...
what do you want from life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgjfi1DU1mQ&fe...
What do you want from life" was my favorite. It so perfectly captured the mindless consumerism I railed against as a teen that slowly bent me to it's will into adulthood. Lesson learned: Commercials are poison - get TIVO ;-)
and Fee Waybill! I just love that name!
It is a good name indeed. A couple of my favorite names are: Lux Interior from The Cramps and Jello Biafra from The Dead Kennedys
I saw them back in 81 or 82 I think. Now they are playing Sept 4th at the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz for free. I remember when I thought only washed up bands from the 50's and 60's played the Boardwalk. It must be a sign of my age.... sigh.
"Paul McCartney was in another band before Wings?" :-)
"paul mccartney was in a band"?
thing is...the internets decrease pop music ignorance
"Paul WHO?"
My fave is "I'm Proud to be an American!"
can't find it anywhere on the toobz...
so it should be part of the concert footage they have recently posted
they were working on a doc...maybe the funding fell through, cuz it looks like they have just chosen to post everything on youtube
The Tubes were to punk what Zappa was to bebop.
If that's what you're getting at. They just used the word, which didn't mean quite the same thing in '75 (when the song was released) as it did a year or two later.
tubes were eclectic punk
with a fuckin great stage show
a lot more fun than being with a bunch of white dopes on punk!
Richard Speck was the prototypical punk, imo, before the word was used to describe a musical genre. Just to point out where the word came from: A punk was a hoodlum, a creep, a kinda geeky kid who got by in jail by sexually servicing the alpha males locked up with him.
You go back to the origins of the usage regarding music, Ed Sanders used it to describe his band, The Fugs, in early 1970, and Lester Bangs used it to describe Iggy ("that Stooge punk") a bit later that year in his great review of The Stooges Funhouse, titled Of Pop And Pies And Fun. In the next few years "punk" was used to describe the garage bands of the '60's. It wasn't until The Ramones, though, that the genre they represented was named "Punk Rock".
The way I've always thought of it, Punk isn't simply an attitude of flipping off the world displayed lyrically, at least not when applied to the musical genre, but there's also a certain regressive mentality- a complete lack of self-awareness- in the approach to the music itself. Music that says, "I can't play my guitar like Clapton? Fuck Clapton."
And it's there that The Tubes failed: they were good musicians and they knew it. They were so aware of themselves that they actually staged rehearsed set pieces. Were they issuing "Fuck yous" left and right? Sure they were. Orson Welles gave Hollywood the finger all the time, but it didn't make him a punk.
IMO, of course. We all got our own.
Funny that this set piece is a slam on glam rock set pieces, like Bowie's Ziggy and the Spiders act, especially when you realize that Ziggy was Bowie's loving take on Iggy.
Also funny that The Tubes were just starting to tour with this (and they did it the two times I saw them in the early '80's) as Glam was dying out.
I agree that the Tubes were not "punk rock". They were more a type of musical theater - that is why they staged rehearsed set pieces. They played the style of music that allowed them to spoof whatever it was that they were spoofing at that particular moment - glam rock, 50's rock 'n roll, rockabilly, punk rock, etc.
The Tubes Failed? I don't think so. I think they were so good at their brand of musical theatrics that many people didn't realize it WAS theatrics.
And you can really see them spoofing the corporate rock of the '80s in "Talk To Ya Later." The blue "Republican" suits.
"The Completion Backwards Principle." Very similar to Devo in their read of the music industry (and, to some degree, the music-buying public).
They failed the Punk Rock litmus test.
I actually like them, and quite a bit, too.
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I remember seeing them when I was in high school in the early 80's.
I believe the best time was on a Halloween night in San Jose at the old convention center. That is a fun, fun band to see live.
Fee nearly knocked a mike stand onto my head while I was in the front row in the Catalyst in Santa Cruz in 1985. I was honored. One of the greatest unsung, underrated acts of all time. If someone here can post a vid for "What Do You Want From Life" I'll love you forever :)
I've viewed this video many times and sent it to friends. Marilyn Manson, suck on this!
Los Tubos were the best.
Don't Touch Me There was their version of 'Under The Dashboard Lights'.
What Do You Want From Life was the other one, barring the pop hits.
Their version of Monkey Time is a classic . .
Martha . . . whats her name, was the sultry . . . such sultry.
"Yeah, I'm ready, and my monkey is too." *G*
Actually that was Fee's line, Martha replied "You need to put that thing on a chain." Or something like that. Martha. She was HOT! *G*
Their back up lady singers were always the schnizz . .
Any Bay Area Music Heads recall Leila And The Snakes? *G*
Of "The Motels."
My favorite Tubes album was their first one, but my favorite song on it was "Mondo Bondage". Don't forget Re Styles. She was the sexy in The Tubes ("Don't Touch Me There")
My friends and I were the white punks on dope he references.
White Punks On Dope was almost an anthem to me it was played on my local radio station so much. Not to mention What Do You Want From Life?, Don't Touch Me There, Mondo Bondage. Basically the first record got played to death. I know, Don't Touch Me There isn't on the first record. In fact, I have vinyl copy of the first record somewhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwivHPit22A
If you like the Tubes, you need to get your hands on "What do you want from LIVE" - a live album that does a great job of capturing the crazy over-the-top theater of a Tubes show.
I also love "Remote Control", and until reading the other posts, I thought I was the only person who did!
I was Tubes fan when they came out, but took a listen again recently and found that their stuff has become quite dated.
Join Todd as he performs A Wizard A True Star live for the first time this September. Akron, Ohio, Stamford, Ct, Bethesda, Md and Chicago. Tickets at:
AWATSlive.com
Prairie Prince, Jesse Gress, Kasim Sulton, Roger Powell, Greg Hawkes....so far
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