WAKE UP AND SMELL THE LEATHER
By now, of course, you have all seen This Is Spinal Tap, Marty DiBergi's masterful cinema verite evocation of the ups and downs of the eventful recent American tour by that 'li'l ol' band from London.' Following a typically aggressive marketing strategy, Polymer Records, having picked up the entire Tap catalog when they signed the veteran band last year, has released a soundtrack LP that is truly an extraordinary greatest hits/historical survey of all the stages of their fine, superfine career.
The CREEM Archive presents the magazine as originally created. Digital text has been scanned from its original print format and may contain formatting quirks and inconsistencies.
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE LEATHER
SPINAL TAP From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack "This Is Spinal Tap" (Polymer/Polygram)
Jeff Nesin
By now, of course, you have all seen This Is Spinal Tap, Marty DiBergi's masterful cinema verite evocation of the ups and downs of the eventful recent American tour by that 'li'l ol' band from London.' Following a typically aggressive marketing strategy, Polymer Records, having picked up the entire Tap catalog when they signed the veteran band last year, has released a soundtrack LP that is truly an extraordinary greatest hits/historical survey of all the stages of their fine, superfine career. As as a whole new generation of American rock fans feel the noise and smell the glove via the film and the hits, I'm certain an ineluctable demand for the Tap's 15 earlier LP's—now tragically unavailable—is sure to grow.
What makes this audio/visual assault so important is the rate of rock audience turnover. Why there are youngsters today who think that Judas Priest and AC/DC are old and tired, never guessing, in their innocent ignorance, just how OLD and TIRED a band can be. Moreover, with the present rapid rate of moral decay evidenced by newer bands from the U.K. and their male stars' avowed weakness for young boys, it is indeed refreshing to once again have an album from Spinal Tap, a band whose traditional, wholesome weaknesses—mostly musical and intellectual—are the kinds of weaknesses kids can aspire to.
But you don't have to take my word for all this. At last the uninitiated can hear the highlights of Spinal Tap's 19-year recording career for themselves. Listen, for example, to their single 'Cups And Cakes' b/w 'Gimme Some Money,' released in 1965 when they were still calling themselves the Thamesmen. The A side, a sweet pop tune about tea time, contains the trumpet line that Paul McCartney stole for 'Penny Lane,' while the B side taught the Pretty Things what little they ever knew. And '(Listen To The) Flower People,' the 1967 hit that introduced Spinal Tap to the world as we knew it, taught Scott (they certainly aren't making a movie about him in the '80s) McKenzie the less than he ever knew, too.
But I grow polemical and there's no longer any need. Now anyone can listen to the cream of the Tap in the comfort and privacy of .their own home. For the modest price of this LP, you can once again experience the mythic majesty of 'Stonehenge' and hear Nigel Tufnel rival Jimmy Page himself for medieval flourishes, or rock the country house to 'Sex Farm,' David St. Hubbins'spaean to pastoral desire. As ever, Spinal Tap says it best themselves on the brilliant 'Heavy Duty,' a thundering Doorsy dirge without the artistic pretension (or even content) that Jimbo always dragged in: 'Just crank that volume to the point of pain/Why waste good music on a brain...No page in history baby—that, I don't need/I just want to make some eardrums bleed.' What a band! Be the first in your neighborhood to be all TAPPED OUT.
