Posts Tagged ‘The Tubes’

  
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Parlour to Parlour, Episode 18: Bill Spooner

by Michael Fortes

parlour_to_parlour

In 1994, I picked up a double CD compilation called The Best Punk Album In The World… Ever! with some credit I had from a return at Circuit City. Sandwiched in between the Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner” and Richard Hell and the Voidoids’ “Blank Generation” was the Tubes’ “White Punks on Dope.” This was my introduction to the Tubes, and it had me wondering what the compilers were thinking, as this song seemed to be lampooning the “punk” movement in much the same way that Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’s We’re Only in It for the Money skewered hippies in the late ’60s. Plus the Tubes were clearly better musicians than most punks. Imagine my delight when I learned that I had the opportunity to receive guitar lessons from the Tubes’ own Bill Spooner when I moved to San Francisco…

Of all the things that drew me to San Francisco – the weather, the cultural diversity, its rich musical history, its public transportation system (all things that are taken for granted, and worse – regularly maligned – by locals here on a daily basis) – something I didn’t count on was stumbling upon the Blue Bear School of Music during my search for new outlets and people for my amateur guitar/bass/vocal ambitions (if you can even call them that). (more…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Featured, Featured - Frontpage, Music, Parlour to Parlour | Comments

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

The Popdose Interview: Bill Champlin

by Michael Fortes

Bill ChamplinBill Champlin has a lot to be happy about these days. He’s got a steady gig singing and playing keyboards with Chicago, a spot he’s held since 1982. His solo album No Place Left to Fall, released digitally last year, is finally seeing release as a physical CD this week. He has his first proper solo tour lined up for November along the West Coast. And he’s surrounded by amazing musicians, people he is all too eager to talk up and rave about. Champlin’s enthusiasm is positively infectious, which is something we all could use in this day and age. Not only was Bill generous with his copious good vibes we we phoned him for this interview last Tuesday, he delved into his distant past, at our request, to give us some perspective on the San Francisco music scene where he paid his dues in the Sons of Champlin before going on to co-write the Grammy Award-winning Earth Wind & Fire hit, “After the Love Has Gone,” and racking up further hits with Chicago (”Hard Habit to Break,” “Look Away,” “You’re Not Alone”) and playing on countless other sessions. All the while, Bill has maintained a healthy “other life” with his solo work and occasional Sons reunion gigs, and the benefits clearly come across in this interview.

I’ve really been a big fan since, you know, I guess since I started looking at credits on Chicago records. And I just remember being really, really jealous that I couldn’t come out here on the west coast when you reunited the Sons of Champlin. I was like, ‘oh man, what’s goin’ on here? Why can’t I go see the Sons?’ But now I’m in San Francisco and all is well.

Well, you know, we actually kinda kept doin’ that for about, I mean up until 2005 we’d do, at least once a year we’d do like a three or four week run of just at least weekends with the Sons. And after a while it just got to the point where we pretty much played out our welcome, know what I mean? (more…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Featured, Featured - Frontpage, Music, Popdose Interviews | Comments

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Lost in the ’80s: The Tubes and Olivia Newton-John (?!)

by John C. Hughes

lit80s

All right, let me stop all you young ‘uns right there — 1980’s Xanadu is not a great movie, a lost treasure, or an overlooked masterpiece of fun. It’s a dreadful film, downright boring in parts, somewhat laughable in others, but not quite laughable enough to deserve the “campy cult classic” tag it’s earned through the years. But the soundtrack — well, it was stellar enough to keep the brand alive for nearly 30 years and even give the film new life as an intentionally campy Broadway musical in 2007. We all know the Olivia Newton-John hits and ELO classics from the album, but one number is my favorite, and it’s my pick for quite possibly the first mash-up ever.

“Dancin’” (download) was the unlikely fusion of Newton-John doing her best multitracked Andrew Sisters imitation and a newly new-wave Tubes, ditching their arena art-rock pretensions for a stab at stadium-pop glory. Starting off as a big-band swing number, “Dancin’” segues into a borderline date-rape ode to having “it all my way,” with a kick-ass vocal from Fee Waybill. Predating the Tubes’ Top 40 aspirations with David Foster (hi, Terje!), “Dancin’” provided listeners with a road map of where the band was headed — minus the swing, of course.

While never released as a single, the Tubes and Olivia lip-synched the number on a memorable, all-Xanadu edition of The Midnight Special that asked the question “If one Olivia is hot, how about three?”

(more…)

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Lost in the '80s, Music | Comments

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

Into the Ear of Madness: Week 15 — Hitman!

by Terje Fjelde

Logo

Over the next year Terje Fjelde has agreed to listen to nothing but David Foster on his iPod. He’s loaded the thing with over 1,200 songs produced, arranged, composed, and/or played by David Foster. A deal with the devil? He keeps wondering.

Lee Ritenour – “If I’m Dreaming (Don’t Wake Me),” from Earth Run, 1986. Vocals: Phil Perry. Foster played keyboards and synth bass.

I bring excellent news, good friends! After nearly a lifetime in the music business, David Foster has decided to call it quits to write his autobiography. It’s long overdue — we’re finally getting Foster’s take on his own reputation as an all-powerful, evil mastermind of popular music, not to mention juicy details from his collaborations with thousands of artists and musicians over the years. I can’t wait to get behind the scenes of all those magnificent recording sessions that he participated in during the early ’80s — this is the real story of “yacht rock.” Unless, God forbid, he decides to focus on his marriages, his kids or the later parts of his career.

It’s due November 11 – just in time for the Christmas season. And he’s so modest: It’s called “Hitman: Forty Years Making Music, Topping the Charts, and Winning Grammys” and comes with an accompanying double CD with, let’s face it, very little punch — among the contributors are Babyface, Eric Benet, Andrea Bocelli, Michael Bublé, Peter Cetera, Charice, Celine Dion, Kenny G and… well, you get the idea. Boz Scaggs is on it, though.

The good news (for me) is that there will be no need to go on writing about David Foster here on Popdose come November 2008. Yes! Christopher Cross can finally reclaim my iPod. Cross has never collaborated with Foster, at least not to my knowledge. Bomb! And for God’s sake, don’t hit me with some Google search proving me wrong. I can’t take it anymore! (more…)

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Into the Ear of Madness, Music | Comments

Friday, July 18th, 2008

Chartburn: 7/18/08

by The Chartburn Panel

Chartburn Logo


Mainstream Rock: The Tubes, “She’s a Beauty” (1983)

Michael: I like this song a lot. I like “White Punks on Dope” even better. I still remain confused that the same band is responsible for both songs.

Zack: I can’t help but find the opening hook to be pretty interesting, but it doesn’t quite sustain itself beyond that. It’s certainly not bad, and Fee Waybill’s channeling of Roger Daltrey makes it interesting, but by the end I find myself just slightly on the positive side of indifference.

Jon: I always used to parse the lyrics of this song the way you parse a Clinton speech. I could never figure out the exact situation Fee was describing here, and the video didn’t help. If the pretty girl is “behind the glass,” how do you get to “talk to” her? If we’re objectifying the poor girl who’s being kept behind the glass, what’s the point in talking to her anyway? And why would you bother to “fall in love”? Of course, at age 17 I had no first-hand understanding of strip clubs, but Fee sure seemed to be setting up a complicated scenario for a place where I was pretty sure you just went to watch women take their clothes off. Call me naive. Really, go ahead.

David: Being of an impressionable age when MTV first hit, I was unsurprisingly a big fan of the Tubes, thanks to MTV’s near-nonstop playing of “Talk to Ya Later,” “Prime Time,” and “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore.” By the time “She’s a Beauty” dropped, it could have been any old piece of nonsense — and as it turns out, it was — and I would have rubber-stamped it. But shhhhhh … I was a much bigger fan of “Out of the Business.”

Will: Given that I didn’t know the first thing about music in 1983, let alone the Tubes, this was another case where MTV was directly responsible for my introduction to both a song and the band who sang it in one fell swoop. I still think this video’s pretty creepy, but damn, what a chorus.

Mike: Fantastic hook. Sad to say, before I saw the video, that was all I remembered of “She’s a Beauty.” Very strange (but entertaining) video. And who the hell thought Fee Waybill would be a good stage name?

(more…)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Chartburn, Music | Comments

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

Dw. Dunphy On… The Tubes

by Dw. Dunphy

geniusIn a recent smackdown bitch slap Chartburn discussion that will be published tomorrow, we had cause to discuss the merits of “She’s a Beauty” by the Tubes. I won’t disclose the consensus, because we’d rather all of you read the post and not rely on my Dose-opedia version. Suffice it to say that I suddenly had an urge to revisit the band’s work. I avoided the earlier and — some would rightly say — weirder stuff like “White Punks on Dope,” and aside from a solitary spin of my vinyl version of The Completion Backward Principle (1981), I didn’t swim too far into the dangerous waters where the deadly David Fosters lurk (even though that’s where all their best material is floating).

First up was the Todd Rundgren-produced Love Bomb, a recording that is wildly uneven, even for a band that prided itself on unevenness. (”Wild Women of Wongo”? “Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman”? Issues, anyone?) There wasn’t much to say about the album. I liked the tune “Piece by Piece,” but you could get that on the Tubes’ 1992 best-of compilation, so memory lane tends to be awfully unkind to ol’ Love Bomb.

(more…)

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Dw. Dunphy On..., Music, Popdose | Comments