Bring out the Gimp: The LEGENDARY Tubes perform "Mondo Bondage"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTiaVT_BViY

...because it's been one of THOSE days.

:toast:

[redqueen]

1. Legendary?

Is that sarcasm or do you mean like as in 'legendary for for extreme suckage'?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. One of the most amazing bands of ALL TIME. That kind of "legendary."

I saw them at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, right after Boz Scaggs hit paydirt with his album "Silk Degrees." During "White Punks on Dope," Scaggs came out in a 3-piece navy pinstripe suit with a white Stratocaster. There was also a guy in a gorilla suit with a Strat. Add in the Tubes' two guitarists and there were four guitars onstage, bobbing up and down in unison, which inspired lead singer Fee Waybill to bellow "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN...THE LYNYRD SKYNYRD GUITAR SECTION!"

In the "original" days...but particularly before Todd Rundgren got his "hitmaking hands" on them...these guys were like no other band.

Today, with 4 out of the original 7 members still performing...they are STILL

LEGENDARY. As in "LEGENDARY."

[trof]

2. Yeah, the lyrics are...um...lyrics.

Mondo Bondage
I've been tied up so long
There's no escape
I've been strangled
All choked up inside
Swallowed all my pride
Roped and hog-tied
Been tied up in knots
That's all I got
Gimme glove shoes
This ain't no way for havin' fun

I could run away to Spain
But I'd just get tied again
I could run off to Jamaica
If this bondage I could breaka

I could run away to Spain
But I'd just get tied again
I could run off to Jamaica
If this bondage I could breaka

[Amerigo Vespucci]

4. Four words: "You had to be there"

On paper, these guys MIGHT VERY WELL blow chunks.

In concert...ESPECIALLY during the Waybill / Steen / Spooner / Welnick / Prince / Anderson / Cotten days, the intentionally bad lyrics were part of the charm. They were a rock band and a satire on rock all rolled into one...Spinal Tap before Spinal Tap.

[trof]

5. I've never seen anything like that before.

I watched the entire video.
I understand there are some who get off with bondage and sado-masochistic 'sex'.
That ain't my kinda sex, but to each his own.
Just don't frighten the horses, I guess.

And I reckon as long as it's among 'consenting adults' and no one actually dies, it's at least tolerated.

But in my tiny closed minded way of thinking, that shit is sick.
Whatever floats your boat.
:eyes:

[Amerigo Vespucci]

7. OK, but here's the "joke"...

...it's a satire on "some who get off with bondage and sado-masochistic 'sex'..."

...NOT a performance that attempts to glorify or get you off with "bondage and sado-masochistic 'sex'."

SATIRE.

Just like their platform shoe-wearing, Rod Stewart-wigged, perpetually coked-out and drunk "Quay Lewd" character (Fee Waybill's persona on "White Punks On Dope") really wasn't glorifying rich kids in Beverly Hills who were stoned out of their heads.

That's why I said "you had to be there," and maybe I'm just a nostalgic old fuck hanging on to the bands of my youth, but if you were there, you knew that this wasn;t as song about tying people up and stuffing ball gags in their mouths.

It was a song about people who like that shit.

And that may be one in the same to some people, but...

YOU HAD TO BE THERE.

:toast:

[bbernardini]

6. One of my favorite bands of all time.

Although, I think they did some of their best work with Rundgren. It's David Foster that almost ruined them, in my opinion (and in the opinion of more than one member of the band). As I was told, David Foster originally wanted to give the Tubes one side of "Outside Inside", and the other side would be his own studio crew (basically Toto), with Tubes vocals. They managed to avoid that atrocity.

(Did you know? The backing vocals on "Remote Control" were done by having the entire band sing each harmony line in unison, effectively creating a 20-something member choir.)