THIS IS SPINAL TAP

THIS IS SPINAL TAP
DVD rip (1984)
Runtime: 1 hr 22 mins

Synopsis
Largely improvised by director Rob Reiner and his cast, This Is Spinal Tap looks and sounds like a "real" documentary, with Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest as David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls, and Nigel Tufnel, the key members of a going-nowhere British heavy metal band called Spinal Tap. The "group" started as an informal skiffle band, eventually maturing into an R&B act called the Thamesmen (their hit was "Gimme Some Money"). After going through a psychedelic period with "Listen to the Flower People," the band mutated into Spinal Tap, a hard rock outfit responsible for such albums as "Intravenous DeMilo," "The Sun Never Sweats," and "Bent for the Rent." This Is Spinal Tap finds them in the midst of their first American tour in years as they support their new LP Smell the Glove, with filmmaker Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner), who specializes in TV commercials, on hand to document the occasion. Just about anything that can go wrong does: shows get canceled, stage props go wrong, wireless guitar pickups start broadcasting air-traffic reports, no one shows up for in-store appearances, David's girlfriend tries to take over the band, they wind up billed second to a puppet show at an amusement park, and the group teeters on the verge of breakup. After the film's initial release, McKean, Guest, and Shearer did a short club tour as Spinal Tap; the "band" reunited in 1992 for a new album, Break Like the Wind, followed by a full-fledged tour and TV special, The Return of Spinal Tap.

SPINAL TAP
BREAK LIKE THE WIND (1992)
320 KBPS

Has there ever been a rock band more unjustly maligned than Spinal Tap? Accused of everything from heralding the demise of heavy metal to being the very raison d'être for alternative rock, they suffered their greatest indignity at the hands of director Rob Reiner (cowardly hiding behind the moniker Marty DiBergi), whose 1984 "rockumentary," This Is Spinal Tap, muckraked its way through the band's courageous, tragedy-strewn history in service of a few mocking laughs. Reiner/DiBergi even stooped so low as to employ a heartless, mercenary band of Hollywood writer/comedians to burlesque the band's core members--David St. Hubbins (played by mendacious Michael McKean), Nigel Tufnel (callow Christopher Guest), and Derek Smalls (haughty Harry Shearer). But the great ones just won't be denied; Spinal Tap reached deep down in 1992 and let loose with Break Like the Wind, another potent blast of the very stuff that made their legend. Featuring an all-star supporting cast (the title track alone boasts Slash, Steve Lukather, Joe Satriani, and Tufnel look-alike Jeff Beck), the Tap gallantly tried to stem the tide of flannel and tattoos with thundering odes to gender enlightenment ("Bitch School"), mystic quests ("Clam Caravan"), and its own glorious rock-fest legacy ("Stinkin' Up the Great Outdoors"). Pop diva Cher and St. Hubbins share a vocal tryst on the uplifting ballad "Just Begin Again," while even Steely Dan's reclusive Walter Becker pens technical notes, praising the album's pioneering use of the Crosley Phase Linear Ionic Induction Voice Processor System. Sadly, they just don't make albums like this anymore.

1. Bitch School
2. The Majesty Of Rock
3. Diva Fever
4. Just Begin Again
5. Cash On Delivery
6. The Sun Never Sweats
7. Rainy Day Sun
8. Break Like The Wind
9. Stinkin' Up The Great Outdoors
10. Springtime
11. Clam Caraban
12. Christmas With the Devil
13. All The Way Home

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