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This article is about the quasi-fictional heavy metal band. For the medical diagnostic procedure known informally as spinal tap, see lumbar puncture.

<tr><th>Country</th><td>England</td></tr><tr><th>Years active</th><td>1964-1982
1992-Present</td></tr><tr><th>Genres</th><td>Heavy Metal</td></tr><tr><th>Labels</th><td>Megaphone, Polymer (MCA Records)</td></tr><tr><th>Members</th><td> Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest)
David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean)
Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer)</td></tr>

Spın̈al Tap

Spinal Tap, more accurately spelled with a dotless "i" and an umlaut over the "n" (Spın̈al Tap), is a mostly fictional heavy metal band best known from the 1984 rockumentary/mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. The band members are portrayed by Michael McKean (as "David St. Hubbins"), Christopher Guest (as "Nigel Tufnel") and Harry Shearer (as "Derek Smalls"); they first appeared in a 1978 ABC comedy special, The TV Show.

The band is "mostly fictional" in the sense that its primary members have always been actors parodying heavy metal stereotypes, yet by playing concerts and releasing albums, they've blurred the line between fact and fiction. The film was accompanied by an album of the same name. The songs on the album include "Big Bottom", "Hell Hole" and "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight".

Contents 1 Back story 1.1 Former band members 1.2 Studio albums 1.3 Live albums 1.4 Compilation albums 1.5 Singles 1.6 Bootlegs and unreleased material 1.7 Solo releases 2 Actual discography 3 Reunited 4 Other appearances 5 Trivia 6 See also 7 External links

[edit] Back story

Fans of Spinal Tap have assembled the "mostly fictional" details about the band based on the film, albums, concerts and related promotional material. This includes a list of the band's former members and a discography (below) compiled by Chip Rowe, webmaster of the Spinal Tap Fan Site at spinaltapfan.com.

Spinal Tap has had a succession of drummers, all of whom have died under odd circumstances: one in a "bizarre gardening accident"; another "choked on vomit," (although it was never determined whose vomit it was), and a third from apparent spontaneous human combustion onstage, leaving a small green stain on his drum stool.

[edit] Bootlegs and unreleased material

[edit] Actual discography

• This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
• Break Like the Wind (1992)
• "Bitch School"/"Springtime" (single, 1992)

[edit] Reunited

Spinal Tap "reunited" in 1992 for Break Like the Wind, an album produced in part by T-Bone Burnett, an accomplished musician and record producer. The album was accompanied by a promotional audition for a new drummer attended by Stephen Perkins of Jane's Addiction, Gina Schock of The Go-Go's, and Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac. A promotional concert tour followed, which included an appearance at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, where they performed "The Majesty Of Rock", a song they dedicated to Mercury and released as a single. The band also released the single "Bitch School."

On July 1st, 1992, Tap crossed 5 time zones for three performances in St. John's, Newfoundland, Barrie, Ontario and Vancouver, Bristish Columbia for Much Music and Molson's Great Canadian Party. For each performance of "Stonehenge", the miniature monument prop was delivered on stage in a courier envelope.

In 2000 the band launched a web site named "Tapster" where their song "Back from the Dead" was made available for download. Tapster was a parody of Napster, a peer-to-peer file sharing network. [1] [2]

In 2001, the band "reunited" for the nine-city "Back from the Dead Tour" that began on June 1st at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, California. The tour included a show at Carnegie Hall in New York City and ended in Montreal in mid-July at the Just for Laughs festival.

[edit] Other appearances

As part of the promotion surrounding Break Like the Wind, Spinal Tap was portrayed in The Otto Show from the animated world of The Simpsons, a television show in which Shearer is one of the principal voice actors. In this episode, although they are comically inept as in the film, the other characters treat them as a non-satirical band.

In 1993 "Nigel Tufnel" appeared in the rockumentary Joe Satriani: The Satch Tapes.

In 1994, The Return of Spinal Tap was released on video; most of this was live material from a 1992 performance at the Royal Albert Hall, but it also included some interviews and follow-up on the band members.

Their song "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" is featured in the video game Guitar Hero II as a playable song; if the player successfully completes the song, the band's drummer will explode.

In 2000, while promoting Tapster.com, Spinal Tap appeared and performed on the short-lived series VH1 The List and appeared on the Tonight Show.

In 2006, "Nigel Tufnel" appeared in a Volkswagen TV commercial highlighting their offer of a free, exclusive First Act guitar with the purchase of qualifying automobiles. The guitar features knobs and inlays with the Volkswagen logo and pre-amps that allow it to be played through the car's stereo system.

Spinal Tap logo

Spinal Tap in the Simpsons episode "The Otto Show"

[edit] Trivia

• The Homestar Runner website includes a reference to "Quite Exciting This Computer Magic!," a phrase used in a tour bus scene from This is Spinal Tap where keyboard player Viv Savage is playing a video game; Also, in the new toon Weclome Back, Homestar is seen wearing a green skeleton shirt similar to the one Nigel Tufnel wore throughout the film.
• The "n̈" with an Umlaut exists in the minor Jacaltec language of Guatemala and the Malagasy tongue, where it represents a velar nasal consonant. This mark and the dotless I that precedes it are included as a parody of the heavy metal umlaut.
• Metallica's "Black Album",AC/DC's Back in Black and King Crimson's Earthbound are three examples of (almost) all-black album covers.
• A number of Spinal Tap's songs cover identical subjects to renowned songs by other bands. For example, "Gimme Some Money" is similar to the Beatles' "Money (That's What I Want)" (and its appearance in This is Spinal Tap is a parody of the Beatles' famous appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show) and "Big Bottom" is similar to Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls." The subtext is that Spinal Tap is so unoriginal they do not just imitate other bands' sounds, but their subject matter as well. Big Bottom features three bass guitars, the abundance of "bottom" frequency EQ resulting ties in with the pun of the title and lyrics.
• Metallica's S&M album was recorded with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. In 1969, Deep Purple recorded an album with the London Symphony Orchestra - Concerto for group and orchestra (David St. Hubbins once mentioned his desire to record with the London Philharmonic).
• In an interview with The Observer, Noel Gallagher said his brother Liam (both of British rock band, Oasis), "...had seen the film This is Spinal Tap, loved it and thought they were a real band."
• The British band Supergrass uses a line from "All the Way Home", the first song Nigel and David wrote together, in "Evening of the Day." The original line is "If she's not on the five-nineteen, Then I'm gonna know what sorrow means." while in the Supergrass song it's "If she's not on that three fifteen, Then I'm gonna know what sorrow means." The Rialto song "Monday Morning 5:19" might also be a reference to this same song; the line there is "It's Monday Morning 5:19, and I'm still wondering where she's been."
• The version of "All The Way Home" as portrayed in the film is most likely a reference to the Beatles' song One After 909 which was also written in the early days of the band and then subsequently revisited in the movie and album Let It Be. They are also very similar in style and lyrical content.
• Spinal Tap's "none more black" quote inspired the name of the punk band of the same name.
• In September 2002, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary included the entry: "Up to eleven: up to maximum volume" a reference to Nigel's amplifier that had controls that went beyond the usual maximum setting of 10.
• The three "real" members of Spinal Tap are also the members of another mostly fake band, a folk trio called The Folksmen. The Folksmen originally appeared as the warmup band for some of Spinal Tap's live concerts, but eventually became the subject of their own mockumentary, A Mighty Wind, directed by Christopher Guest.
• In the game Guitar Hero, during the load screen before each playable song, a randomly generated message is displayed on an animated amplifier. While the player waits for the song to load, the controls on the animated amp move up in succession, ending at 11, in reference to Nigel's infamous amp. One of the random messages also reads, "Eleven IS louder than ten." The sequel, Guitar Hero 2, allows players to play Spinal Tap's "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight". After the song is successfully finished by the player, the drummer of the band randomly explodes.
• Nigel Tufnel is based upon Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, who were both members of The Yardbirds. Nigel's physical appearance resembles Beck, and his name ("Nigel Tufnel") is a reference to Clapton. [3]
• In an episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown, Alton asks for a toaster from a scientist, and he brings out a very modified and outlandish toaster. When Alton says it is too much, the "scientist" exclaims, "But it goes up to eleven!"
• The now defunct Working Designs had "Our games go to 11!" as their slogan.

[edit] See also

• Spinal Tap discography

[edit] External links

• The Ultimate Spinal Tap Discography - an illustrated guide to Tap's albums (both real and imagined)
• Band's official website, redirected to a fan site as of April 2006
• Diary of a Spinal Tap "audition", from the website of the Royal Crown Revue drummer
• This is Spinal Tap at the Internet Movie Database
• SpinalTapFan.com, compiled by Taphead Chip Rowe
• Video of Gimme Some Money on YouTube.com, purported to be Spinal Tap's first big hit in 1965 and featuring their first drummer John "Stumpy" Pepysda:Spin̈al Tap

de:This Is Spın̈al Tap es:Spinal Tap ms:Spinal Tap no:Spinal Tap fi:Spinal Tap