Taking their cue from Frank Zappa‘s Mothers Of Invention, San Franciscan rock satirists The Tubes were one of the first groups to bring performance art to arena rock & roll.
Fronted by vocalist Fee Waybill, they also pulled in some heavyweight support as they camped out in 70s America, drawing a fan club that included Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa.
With platform boots as high as Blackpool Tower, his face behind shades that even Elton John would have dismissed as too vulgar, the sight of Quay Lude tottering to the microphone – dangling a 12-inch plastic dick down to his knees – to sing White Punks On Dope was the centrepiece of their live shows.
Waybill created Quay Lude as his drug-addled alter-ego during the 70s, but his parody of rock star excess would quickly engulf The Tubes, overshadowing the sometimes great music and marvellous shows they played.
White Punks On Dope was the dynamic final track to their 1975 debut album, though the song had turned into a sprawling shock-rock free-for-all by the time it appeared on their double live album, What You Want From Live in 1978.
The Tubes were dirty and nasty and had naked girls on stage, and their multimedia stage show – which included a phallic cigarette advert, a pantie-snatching Tom Jones parody and the whip-wielding dominatrix Re Styles who appeared during the song Mondo Bondage – got The Tubes banned from some British concert halls during their 1977 tour.
By the early 80s, they had toned down their image to a more commercial MTV-acceptable format. By the mid-80s the band were becoming “fried” (to quote Fee Waybill) and split up after their Love Bomb album in 1985.
Waybill and keyboard player Mike Cotten left first and the band struggled on for a while without them.
Having reunited in 1993 with original members Waybill, Roger Steen, Rick Anderson and Prairie Prince, The Tubes played a one-off show six years later. These days they can be seen on a fairly regular basis.
Fee Waybill Vocals Bill Spooner Guitar Rick Anderson Bass Mike Cotten Keyboards Vince Welnick Keyboards Roger Steen
Guitar Prairie Prince Drums Re Styles Vocals
Video
Related Posts
Exploding White Mice Forming in 1984 and taking their name from a scene in The Ramones' Rock & Roll High School movie (1979), Adelaide's Exploding…
Daddy Cool The world has seen plenty of 1950s revival groups, but to think of Daddy Cool as simply another Sha Na Na…
Exploited, The You would be excused for thinking that a band who sing about kicking a Mod in the head to the…
Warhorse Warhorse was formed in 1969 by original Deep Purple bassist Nick Simper who had been dismissed from the band prior…
Alternative TV (ATV) The success of the 70's London punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue was almost entirely due to the irreverent, pugnacious sincerity of its founder…
Elton John Reginald Kenneth Dwight began playing the piano as a schoolboy to supplement his earnings as a messenger/tea boy at a…
Jimmy & The Boys There were moments on stage when vocalist Ignatius Jones ceased to be human; when his bloodied face, bondage mask, obscene…
Little Feat One of the more offbeat and interesting bands to emerge in the 1970s, Little Feat left a catalogue of memorable…
