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In an abstract sort of way, the Tubes were, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, something similar to what the Bonzo Dog Dog Band had been ten years earlier and, for that matter, Spike Jones and his City Slickers, 20 years before that in the 1940s. That is to say, this was a band that poked fun of all the conventions of popular music while, at the same time, actually creating what stands the test of time as remarkable pop music in its own right. As videos from the period reveal (today they would be called “The YouTubes”), the band’s live concerts included elaborate parodies of the period television that they grew up watching in Phoenix in the 1960s (where, they explain, it was too hot to go outside most of the time, so all they ever did was watch TV). More importantly, there are like totally Tubular spoofs on every subgenre of the day, including "Slipped My Disco," an affectionate homage to the late ‘70s dance scene, while their best known number today, “White Dopes on Punk,” seems to have started as a ribbing of the safety-pin-in-the nose culture of CBGB’s. Yet the best of their songs hold up on their own, especially such paeans to exceptional women like “Sushi Girl” and “Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman.” (“Amnesia” even opens with a reference to Rodgers and Hart.)
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Author: Will Friedwald