There is a certain tension in the air preceding the release of the sequel to This Is Spinal Tap. Not only has it been a very long time, but also for the love of David St Hubbins, please don’t f#$k with perfection. There is an argument to be made that Spinal Tap isn’t just the greatest music mockumentary ever made (a surprisingly great genre; Bad News Tour, All You Need Is Cash etc), but the greatest mockumentary full stop. Or even, perhaps, perchance, maybe THE GREATEST AND MOST INSIGHTFUL FILM ABOUT MUSIC EVER MADE.
Kurt Cobain once remarked that there have been no good documentaries about bands to which Dave Grohl corrected him “Except for Spinal Tap, [that] was the only rock movie worth watching.” You could easily dismiss that as an offhand comment, yet it rings true. Even more so if you watch the incredibly boring and out-of-touch Foo Fighters doc Back & Forth, a film so dull that the climax is Grohl buying a really expensive mixing desk to put in his garage.
Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Rob Reiner built their Tap characters and story through endless improvisation and there is something intuitively truthful in the chaos they conjured. Most music documentaries require some participation from the artists in order to include their music and subsequently suffer the fate of revision and self-censorship. Celebrity talking heads talking about how much they love Talking Heads. Endlessly. And why is it always Bono? Every band is Bono’s favourite band.
Spinal Tap captures something far closer to the reality of the rock n roll lifestyle. Inflated egos trying to seem down to earth, empty gigs, childish tensions, filthy jokes. The trudging on through critical disdain, deaths and the sin of being out of fashion. It tells the story of every band ever, but one that is rarely, if ever presented with an adequate level of embarrassment.
This Is Spinal Tap is littered with jokes that have entirely entered the lexicon—“it goes up to 11”, “shit sandwich”, “lick my love pump”. The “none more black” gag where the band are perplexed by their entirely black album cover even became reality with Metallica’s The Black Album. One of the world’s hugest rock bands inviting mockery by directly aligning their image with that of a comedy band.
That’s the strange space Spinal Tap occupies. They’re the in-joke that everyone is in on. That every band is scared of becoming, but like fugu sushi, a little taste is too hard to resist. This is true for my own experiences of 20-plus years in The Phoenix Foundation. Our track Asswipe featured four bass guitars, one more than Spinal Tap’s Big Bottom. Listening again now, they sound unsettlingly similar.
The Guardian once described our 15-minute-long track Friendly Society as “on the spectrum between Spinal Tap’s Jazz Odyssey and David Lynch.” It’s not inaccurate. The threat of looking stupid hangs over every artist at all times. You can either run from it or occasionally give in to an intoxicating drink from the tap of The Tap.
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
The forthcoming sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is, of course, not really the sequel at all. This Is Spinal Tap was the start of an impeccable improvised mockumentary run led by Christopher Guest. Several of his films are absolute bangers and feature performances and songs written by his ole Tap buds. Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind feature breakout performances from comic legends like Parker Posey, Catherine O’Hara and Jane Lynch. To me, these were always sequels, if not in story, in tone and form—and, of course, in quality.
Whether The End Continues is a glorious and well-judged send-off à la the recent Ozzy Osbourne Black Sabbath concert Back To The Beginning or has the stink of old rockers destroying their legacy just to make a few bucks (sorry AC/DC, sorry Mick and Keith, I am referring to you guys) remains to be seen.
But if it totally sucks, go watch Bad News Tour, The Comic Strip’s take on heavy metal buffoonery, released a year before This Is Spinal Tap and probably, possibly also the greatest film ever made. Or revisit Waiting for Guffman with its My Dinner with Andre action figures.
Or one of Reiner’s other films, like The Princess Bride or Stand By Me; possibly the greatest films ever made. Or Michael McKean’s fantastic work in Better Call Saul. Or one of the 17 million episodes of The Simpsons featuring Harry Shearer. You know, the greatest TV shows ever made.
Basically if it sucks it doesn’t really matter because “their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock of Stonehenge”.
