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- This article is about the band, The Tubes. For the location, see The Tubes (place).
History of the band
The Tubes are a collection of high school friends from Phoenix, Arizona. The Beans and The Red, White and Blues Band eventually merged after relocating to San Francisco in 1969. The core band membership remained largely intact for more than a decade: Fee Waybill (real name John Waldo) (vocals), Re Styles (real name Shirley MacLeod) (vocals), Bill "Sputnik" Spooner (guitar, vocals), Roger Steen (guitar), Prairie Prince (real name Charles L. Prince) (drums), Michael Cotten (synthesizer), Vince Welnick (piano), and Rick Anderson (bass). Ex-Santana percussionist Mingo Lewis was also a fixture for much of the band's history.
Showbiz excess was a common theme of the band's early work, with Waybill sometimes assuming the onstage persona of Quay Lewd, a drunk, drugged-out, barely coherent lead singer, decked out with flashing glasses and impossibly tall platform shoes. "White Punks on Dope," from their debut album, was an absurd anthem of wretched excess, and a tribute to their rich, white teenage fanbase in San Francisco. The song was covered as "TV Glotzer" by Nina Hagen as the opening track of her band's first album.
The Tubes first album was produced by Al Kooper. The second album for A&M Records, Young and Rich was produced by Ken Scott and features the hit "Don't Touch Me There". The Tubes third album gave way to thematic experimentation with Now and after the classic live record What Do You Want From Live, (recorded during their record breaking run at the Hammersmith Odeon) their fourth for A&M Remote Control was a concept album produced by Todd Rundgren about a television-addicted idiot savant. The cover of Remote Control is also a classic, showing a baby watching Hollywood Squares in a specially made "Vidi-Trainer."
One critic noted that with their media savvy and theatrical skills, The Tubes were born to create rock video, but arrived several years too early. Instead, they put their creativity and art skills into their live performances, in which songs could be full-fledged production numbers, from a beach movie parody for "Sushi Girl," to leather-clad S&M hijinks in "Mondo Bondage," to the game show antics of "What Do You Want From Life?" At their peak, their act featured dozens of other performers, including tap dancers and acrobats.
These shows were expensive to produce, however, and while they earned the band a reputation for being one of the most entertaining live acts of all time, by the early 1980s they found themselves short of money. At this time the band left A&M Records and moved to Capitol Records. The live shows were scaled back and the band tried to reposition itself as a strait-laced rock band. The Completion Backward Principle, another concept album, posited itself as a motivational business document, complete with shocking pictures of the band members cleaned up and wearing suits. Outside Inside followed a few years later, and these two albums contain the band's classic rock war-horses, "Talk To Ya Later" and "She's A Beauty."
1985's Rundgren-produced Love Bomb went nowhere—Spooner once told a concert audience the record company executives couldn't promote it because they kept "dying of hemorrhoids"—and became the last new Tubes album for over a decade. 1996 brought Genius of America and a reformed lineup, minus Welnick (who had joined the Grateful Dead), Cotten, and Spooner. Welnick committed suicide on 2 June 2006.
Albums
- The Tubes (1975) #113 US
- Young and Rich (1976) #46 US
- Now (1977) #122 US
- What Do You Want From Live (1978) #82 US
- Remote Control (1979) #46 US
- The Completion Backward Principle (1981) #36 US
- Outside Inside (1983) #18 US
- Love Bomb (1985) #87 US
- Genius of America (1996)
Singles
- "Don't Touch Me There" (1976) #61 US
- "Don't Want To Wait Anymore" (1981) #35 US
- "She's A Beauty" (1983) #10 US
- "Tip Of My Tongue" (1983) #52 US
- "The Monkey Time" (1983) #68 US
- "Piece By Piece" (1985) #87 US
External links
- thetubes.com, Official Web Site of The Tubes
- Bill "Sputnik" Spooner's website. Many great old Tubes photos here
- The Folk-Ups, current project of Bill "Sputnik" Spooner
- A new feature length documentary is in production, directed by Tubes synth player Michael Cotten.
- Roger Steen Interview, 1999
- Michael Cotten on My Space
- The Tubes Live on My Space
- The Internet is a Series of Tubes
"The Tubes"