News of the UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED DVD release is all over the web! See what everyone is talking about.
USA Today
IGN Entertainment
Sun Sentinel
LAist
The Washington Times
Big Shiny Robot!
Blog Critics
On Milwaukee
Undercover
Delaware Online
Punchline Magazine
Blabbermouth
Asylum
The Post and Courier
IGN Entertainment
Sun Sentinel
LAist
The Washington Times
Big Shiny Robot!
Blog Critics
On Milwaukee
Undercover
Delaware Online
Punchline Magazine
Blabbermouth
Asylum
The Post and Courier
UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED DVD being available on September 1st from Amazon.com
By DAVE ITZKOFF / The New York Times
Published: May 21, 2009
By DAVE ITZKOFF / The New York Times
Published: May 21, 2009
UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED
An Evening with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer
Comes out on DVD – September 1st/Courgette Records
UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED: An Evening with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer has the legendary musical and comedic trio performing music from heavy metal's loudest band Spinal Tap along with the folk music from A Mighty Wind, and more.
The UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED DVD features two plus hours of songs from the original soundtrack This Is Spinal Tap (1984), the studio album Break Like The Wind (1992), and A Mighty Wind (2003) along with some special surprises and rarities thrown in as captured during the trio’s Spring 2009 tour at the Riverside Theatre in Milwaukee.
Guest, McKean, and Shearer have a rich history going back decades. Guest and McKean first met in college where they wrote songs together. As for McKean and Shearer, they have known each other since 1970 when they were both members of satirical group The Credibility Gap on radio, stage and records.
In 1979, Guest, McKean and Shearer appeared together for the first time in a Rob Reiner-produced, sketch comedy television pilot called The TV Show. It was here the world got their famous glimpse of Spinal Tap featuring lead singer David St. Hubbins (McKean), guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Guest), and bassist Derek Smalls (Shearer). In 1984, Reiner and the lads devised a way to bring the group back this time in a major motion picture, This Is Spinal Tap, and the rest is history, literally."
In 2003, Guest, McKean and Shearer came back reincarnated for the Christopher Guest directed film A Mighty Wind where they portrayed The Folksmen, a trio of folk musicians consisting of Mark Shubb (bass vocals and upright bass, played by Harry Shearer), Alan Barrows (tenor vocals, mandolin, guitar, and five-string banjo, played by Christopher Guest), and Jerry Palter (baritone vocals, guitar, and mandolin, played by Michael McKean).
The title track A Mighty Wind (written by Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy and Michael McKean) was a 2004 Grammy Award Winner for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture while the song A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow (written by Michael McKean and Annette O'Toole) was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song.
And over the years, Guest, McKean and Shearer have continued to appear and work together in various configurations in the Guest directed films: Waiting For Guffman (1996), Best In Show (2000) and For Your Consideration (2006).
UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED is not about funny costumes and characters, but rather three long time friends and collaborators who make each laugh and love nothing better than to find some excuse to get together and play music. The trio commented, "With this being the 25th Anniversary of the film This is Spinal Tap, we thought this would be a fun and at the same time, a little challenging, as we have never performed as ourselves. Think of the evening as three old friends jamming in your living room. As opposed to OUR living rooms; we won't be home."
HERE’S WHAT THE CRITICS SAID ABOUT THE UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED TOUR:
“A hilarious, two-hour multimedia jaunt down memory lane complete with stories, clips, and songs predominantly from two classic film satires about seemingly disparate genres of music.”- CREATIVE LOAFING
“THE BEST PARODIC ROCK ENTITY ON THE PLANET” - THE BOSTON HERALD
“Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer are masters at their music and certainly at making people laugh. They are the modern, hip, American version of Monty Python.” - JACKSONVILLE TIMES UNION
“The classic unplugged format highlighted the strength of their melodies and arrangements and emphasized the brilliantly subtle humor of their lyrics, both of which display a deep knowledge of and devotion to more than half a century of popular music.”-THE CHICAGO SUN TIMES
“These guys write songs so well-engineered that their sheer genius is a marvel, with or without props.” - COLUMBUS OTHER PAGES
“It was probably inevitable for Spinal Tap to reunite. But it's hard to imagine another reunion as charming as this one.” - DAILY VARIETY
“McKean, Guest and Shearer offered two sidesplitting hours dubbed "Unwigged and Unplugged." The show may not have been loud but, comically, the group definitely took it to the max” - BOSTON GLOBE
“This acoustic teaser...is a rare glimpse at funnymen who don't usually let their guards down – a chance to pick apart the many facets of their talents and appreciate them one by one.” - THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
“The jokes, the natural between-song banter, the hilarious and sometimes twisted song lyrics as well as the impeccable comic timing of these three gentlemen could easily make you forget that these guys are good musicians.” - DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DVD srp $15.97 - CAT# CGT 00100
Street date: September 1, 2009
"On the Road, Without Wigs and Spandex"
By DAVE ITZKOFF / The New York Times
Published: May 21, 2009
By DAVE ITZKOFF / The New York Times
Published: May 21, 2009
LATE into their set at the Warner Theater here on a recent Wednesday night, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, the members of the comedy music groups Spinal Tap and the Folksmen, put down their guitars and offered to take questions from the audience. "Especially questions that don’t involve the number 11," Mr. Shearer announced.
Concertgoers began raising their hands and asking the three performers about characters they had portrayed in films and television shows. Was Mr. McKean, who long ago played the goofy greaser Lenny on "Laverne & Shirley," still friendly with Squiggy? Was that Mr. Guest’s actual motor home that he drove when he played the outdoorsman Harlan Pepper in "Best in Show"?
In a cadaverous deadpan, Mr. Guest replied: "You understand that I was playing a character in a movie. When you see a cowboy in a film, you know that’s not his gun. Or his horse." Having been collectively zinged, the crowd laughed and cheered in approval.
The purpose of their costume- and character-free tour, which the trio has called "Unwigged & Unplugged" and which comes to the Beacon Theater in Manhattan on Tuesday and Wednesday, was in part to illustrate that Mr. McKean, Mr. Shearer and Mr. Guest are different from their comic alter egos. They are not the folk-music fogies of "A Mighty Wind" or the small-town theater geeks of "Waiting For Guffman." And they most certainly are not the heavy-metal doofuses they played in the 1984 pseudo-documentary "This is Spinal Tap" and two decades of concerts.
As Mr. Guest said in an interview earlier that day, "You would do a show, and it’s loud, and it’s a thing, and then you’d go to a grown-up restaurant in real clothes. And that’s a necessity, because we aren’t those other people." The fake bands they have created, which have now lasted far longer than anyone expected, have provided periodic opportunities to play music they wouldn’t normally perform and to pretend to be people they would never be. But the latest of their rare tours underscores that beneath the fright wigs and the stuffed leather trousers they are performers with increasingly divergent lives and careers.
"It’s astonishing to me that they even know one another," said John Michael Higgins, who has acted with the three in several of Mr. Guest’s films. "But I see them communicate through music. They’ve done it for so long that they don’t need to speak too much. They just pick up their guitars and feel their way around tunes together."
As Mr. McKean and Mr. Guest, who are both 61, tall and a bit stouter than in their "Spinal Tap" heyday, ambled around Georgetown with Mr. Shearer, who is 65 with slightly stooped posture, it was clear what still united them.
They are inveterate jokers, verbally dexterous and constantly commenting on everything around them, whether they are looking at a sign for a local tuxedo shop ("Do they sell flesh tuxedos?" Mr. McKean asked, referencing the Spinal Tap song "Big Bottom") or reflecting on their audience at the previous night’s show in Baltimore. (Mr. McKean: "They were insane." Mr. Guest: "Actually, clinically insane." Mr. Shearer: "There was this one guy dressed as Napoleon.")
Among their favorite inside jokes is imitating Larry King as he adds entries to the list of stray observations he maintains on Twitter. (In a throaty, mock-King accent, Mr. McKean declared: "If there’s a better invention than the pulley, I haven’t heard of it.")
It was music as much as comedy that first brought them together. As acting students at New York University in the late 1960s Mr. McKean, the son of a record company executive, and Mr. Guest, the son of a British baron and diplomat, bonded over the Gibson ES-335 TD guitars they both owned and their mutual adoration of the blues-rock band the Electric Flag. In 1970 Mr. McKean joined Mr. Shearer, a former child actor, in the Los Angeles radio comedy troupe the Credibility Gap while Mr. Guest worked for the National Lampoon.
In 1979 they were united on "The T.V. Show," a failed sketch-comedy pilot for ABC that featured the first appearance of Spinal Tap. Five years later that satirical rock band was propelled to cult stardom by "This is Spinal Tap," the comedy directed by Rob Reiner that is perhaps best remembered for its eminently quotable dialogue. ("You can’t really dust for vomit"; "It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.")
Today the band members’ careers seldom intersect: Mr. Shearer is a longtime star of "The Simpsons" and the host of the topical radio satire "Le Show," as well as an advocate for the restoration of New Orleans, where he lives half the year; Mr. McKean has recently appeared on Broadway in "The Homecoming" and may return in the fall in the Tracy Letts play "Superior Donuts"; and Mr. Guest is now the director of his own ersatz documentaries (plus the occasional commercial for Healthy Choice meals).
Though they consider themselves friends, the three men said that they infrequently spend time together outside their work. "We’ll have dinner occasionally," Mr. Shearer said, "and Michael will come over, and we’ll just play or something. But we’re radically different people."
"We don’t go playing golf with Chris, for example," Mr. McKean added. "And he doesn’t go playing golf with us. It’s win-win."
But on a handful of occasions they have reunited in the guise of Spinal Tap — on short tours in 1992 and 2001, and at a Live Earth concert in 2007 — sometimes opening for themselves as the Folksmen, the fictional folk band from "A Mighty Wind." (Audiences didn’t always get the joke. At a 2001 Spinal Tap show at the Beacon Theater some fans vocally objected to an unannounced appearance by the Folksmen. In the crowd Mr. Guest’s son, Tom, then 5 years old, asked when the "old guys" were getting off the stage and the "loud guys" were coming on.)
In 2005, when the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of Mr. Guest’s work, Mr. Shearer and Mr. McKean joined him in performance as themselves, setting aside the costumes and the fake British accents of Spinal Tap, and discovered that they enjoyed the freedom.
While the move might be liberating for them, it has also made them vulnerable to fans who misconstrue their un-self-conscious clowning for personal openness. As Mr. Guest was walking to lunch at a Georgetown restaurant, he noticed a man who was preparing to take his photograph. In retaliation Mr. Guest unholstered an iPhone and began taking pictures of his startled admirer, directing him as if at a photo shoot. ("Just stand there like a regular guy. Look up. Up!") He then darted into the restaurant before he could be photographed in kind.
When people who do not usually spend this much time together are made to travel the country in a cramped tour bus, they are bound to butt heads. Without quite explaining the details of their dispute, Mr. Shearer acknowledged that he and Mr. McKean have had "a running debate on a subject that shall not be mentioned here."
Mr. McKean replied, "Harry’s life is about 85 percent debate. We just step into them."
Despite the occasional conflicts the friction among the three men makes them a tighter and more responsive performing group, said Jane Lynch, who frequently appears in Mr. Guest’s comedies.
"You can just tell this is 30 years of friendship, of probably being at each other’s throats just like Spinal Tap," she said in a telephone interview. "And now they’ve mellowed into their late middle age and they just accept each other. They definitely have that wizened chemistry between them."
There is another Spinal Tap album on the way (called "Back from the Dead," to be released on June 16), but the "Unwigged & Unplugged" tour allows its members to push beyond the boundaries of that group.
The live show features jazz and acoustic arrangements of Spinal Tap songs; dramatic readings of lines that NBC censors wanted to cut from a television broadcast of "This is Spinal Tap"; clips of Mr. Shearer, at the age of 9, acting in the biblical epic "The Robe"; and appearances from the comedians’ spouses: Annette O’Toole, Mr. McKean’s wife, sings onstage, and the hands of Jamie Lee Curtis, Mr. Guest’s wife, appear in a video that accompanies the song "Stonehenge."
Mr. Guest, who does not readily admit to being excited about things, confessed: "I’m having a ball doing this. It’s just us. It really represents everything we do."
Asked if there was any incongruity inherent in a group of balding men in their 60s still pretending to be wildly coiffed rock stars, Mr. McKean reflected on a fateful appearance he made at a 1979 RV show with David L. Lander, his partner in their Lenny-and-Squiggy days.
At one point "the guy who ran the show pulled us aside and told us: The motto of this world is, ‘Boogie till you puke,’ " Mr. McKean said. "I thought those were pretty good words to live by."
Mr. Guest nodded as if he recognized the credo. "Didn’t Bertrand Russell have that on his coat of arms?" he asked.
Concertgoers began raising their hands and asking the three performers about characters they had portrayed in films and television shows. Was Mr. McKean, who long ago played the goofy greaser Lenny on "Laverne & Shirley," still friendly with Squiggy? Was that Mr. Guest’s actual motor home that he drove when he played the outdoorsman Harlan Pepper in "Best in Show"?
In a cadaverous deadpan, Mr. Guest replied: "You understand that I was playing a character in a movie. When you see a cowboy in a film, you know that’s not his gun. Or his horse." Having been collectively zinged, the crowd laughed and cheered in approval.
The purpose of their costume- and character-free tour, which the trio has called "Unwigged & Unplugged" and which comes to the Beacon Theater in Manhattan on Tuesday and Wednesday, was in part to illustrate that Mr. McKean, Mr. Shearer and Mr. Guest are different from their comic alter egos. They are not the folk-music fogies of "A Mighty Wind" or the small-town theater geeks of "Waiting For Guffman." And they most certainly are not the heavy-metal doofuses they played in the 1984 pseudo-documentary "This is Spinal Tap" and two decades of concerts.
As Mr. Guest said in an interview earlier that day, "You would do a show, and it’s loud, and it’s a thing, and then you’d go to a grown-up restaurant in real clothes. And that’s a necessity, because we aren’t those other people." The fake bands they have created, which have now lasted far longer than anyone expected, have provided periodic opportunities to play music they wouldn’t normally perform and to pretend to be people they would never be. But the latest of their rare tours underscores that beneath the fright wigs and the stuffed leather trousers they are performers with increasingly divergent lives and careers.
"It’s astonishing to me that they even know one another," said John Michael Higgins, who has acted with the three in several of Mr. Guest’s films. "But I see them communicate through music. They’ve done it for so long that they don’t need to speak too much. They just pick up their guitars and feel their way around tunes together."
As Mr. McKean and Mr. Guest, who are both 61, tall and a bit stouter than in their "Spinal Tap" heyday, ambled around Georgetown with Mr. Shearer, who is 65 with slightly stooped posture, it was clear what still united them.
They are inveterate jokers, verbally dexterous and constantly commenting on everything around them, whether they are looking at a sign for a local tuxedo shop ("Do they sell flesh tuxedos?" Mr. McKean asked, referencing the Spinal Tap song "Big Bottom") or reflecting on their audience at the previous night’s show in Baltimore. (Mr. McKean: "They were insane." Mr. Guest: "Actually, clinically insane." Mr. Shearer: "There was this one guy dressed as Napoleon.")
Among their favorite inside jokes is imitating Larry King as he adds entries to the list of stray observations he maintains on Twitter. (In a throaty, mock-King accent, Mr. McKean declared: "If there’s a better invention than the pulley, I haven’t heard of it.")
It was music as much as comedy that first brought them together. As acting students at New York University in the late 1960s Mr. McKean, the son of a record company executive, and Mr. Guest, the son of a British baron and diplomat, bonded over the Gibson ES-335 TD guitars they both owned and their mutual adoration of the blues-rock band the Electric Flag. In 1970 Mr. McKean joined Mr. Shearer, a former child actor, in the Los Angeles radio comedy troupe the Credibility Gap while Mr. Guest worked for the National Lampoon.
In 1979 they were united on "The T.V. Show," a failed sketch-comedy pilot for ABC that featured the first appearance of Spinal Tap. Five years later that satirical rock band was propelled to cult stardom by "This is Spinal Tap," the comedy directed by Rob Reiner that is perhaps best remembered for its eminently quotable dialogue. ("You can’t really dust for vomit"; "It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.")
Today the band members’ careers seldom intersect: Mr. Shearer is a longtime star of "The Simpsons" and the host of the topical radio satire "Le Show," as well as an advocate for the restoration of New Orleans, where he lives half the year; Mr. McKean has recently appeared on Broadway in "The Homecoming" and may return in the fall in the Tracy Letts play "Superior Donuts"; and Mr. Guest is now the director of his own ersatz documentaries (plus the occasional commercial for Healthy Choice meals).
Though they consider themselves friends, the three men said that they infrequently spend time together outside their work. "We’ll have dinner occasionally," Mr. Shearer said, "and Michael will come over, and we’ll just play or something. But we’re radically different people."
"We don’t go playing golf with Chris, for example," Mr. McKean added. "And he doesn’t go playing golf with us. It’s win-win."
But on a handful of occasions they have reunited in the guise of Spinal Tap — on short tours in 1992 and 2001, and at a Live Earth concert in 2007 — sometimes opening for themselves as the Folksmen, the fictional folk band from "A Mighty Wind." (Audiences didn’t always get the joke. At a 2001 Spinal Tap show at the Beacon Theater some fans vocally objected to an unannounced appearance by the Folksmen. In the crowd Mr. Guest’s son, Tom, then 5 years old, asked when the "old guys" were getting off the stage and the "loud guys" were coming on.)
In 2005, when the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of Mr. Guest’s work, Mr. Shearer and Mr. McKean joined him in performance as themselves, setting aside the costumes and the fake British accents of Spinal Tap, and discovered that they enjoyed the freedom.
While the move might be liberating for them, it has also made them vulnerable to fans who misconstrue their un-self-conscious clowning for personal openness. As Mr. Guest was walking to lunch at a Georgetown restaurant, he noticed a man who was preparing to take his photograph. In retaliation Mr. Guest unholstered an iPhone and began taking pictures of his startled admirer, directing him as if at a photo shoot. ("Just stand there like a regular guy. Look up. Up!") He then darted into the restaurant before he could be photographed in kind.
When people who do not usually spend this much time together are made to travel the country in a cramped tour bus, they are bound to butt heads. Without quite explaining the details of their dispute, Mr. Shearer acknowledged that he and Mr. McKean have had "a running debate on a subject that shall not be mentioned here."
Mr. McKean replied, "Harry’s life is about 85 percent debate. We just step into them."
Despite the occasional conflicts the friction among the three men makes them a tighter and more responsive performing group, said Jane Lynch, who frequently appears in Mr. Guest’s comedies.
"You can just tell this is 30 years of friendship, of probably being at each other’s throats just like Spinal Tap," she said in a telephone interview. "And now they’ve mellowed into their late middle age and they just accept each other. They definitely have that wizened chemistry between them."
There is another Spinal Tap album on the way (called "Back from the Dead," to be released on June 16), but the "Unwigged & Unplugged" tour allows its members to push beyond the boundaries of that group.
The live show features jazz and acoustic arrangements of Spinal Tap songs; dramatic readings of lines that NBC censors wanted to cut from a television broadcast of "This is Spinal Tap"; clips of Mr. Shearer, at the age of 9, acting in the biblical epic "The Robe"; and appearances from the comedians’ spouses: Annette O’Toole, Mr. McKean’s wife, sings onstage, and the hands of Jamie Lee Curtis, Mr. Guest’s wife, appear in a video that accompanies the song "Stonehenge."
Mr. Guest, who does not readily admit to being excited about things, confessed: "I’m having a ball doing this. It’s just us. It really represents everything we do."
Asked if there was any incongruity inherent in a group of balding men in their 60s still pretending to be wildly coiffed rock stars, Mr. McKean reflected on a fateful appearance he made at a 1979 RV show with David L. Lander, his partner in their Lenny-and-Squiggy days.
At one point "the guy who ran the show pulled us aside and told us: The motto of this world is, ‘Boogie till you puke,’ " Mr. McKean said. "I thought those were pretty good words to live by."
Mr. Guest nodded as if he recognized the credo. "Didn’t Bertrand Russell have that on his coat of arms?" he asked.
"Hello, Cleveland! Stars of 'This Is Spinal Tap' and 'A Mighty Wind' shine in side-splitting Unwigged & Unplugged gig at Ohio Theatre"
by John Soeder / Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic
by John Soeder / Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic
Hello, Cleveland! Stars of 'This Is Spinal Tap' and 'A Mighty Wind' shine in side-splitting Unwigged & Unplugged gig at Ohio Theatre
by John Soeder / Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic
Wednesday May 20, 2009, 1:22 AM
And here we always thought David Bowie was the ultimate musical chameleon.
Not so, my friends. That distinction rightly belongs to Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. (OK, so it's a three-headed chameleon.)
The ultra-talented stars of the beloved mockumentary films "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984) and "A Mighty Wind" (2003) -- which lampooned the heavy-metal and folk subcultures, respectively -- brought their Unwigged & Unplugged Tour here for a hilarious performance Tuesday evening at PlayhouseSquare's Ohio Theatre.
Over the course of a two-hour tour de force, Guest, McKean and Shearer effortlessly slipped in and out of musical styles the way Madonna changes outfits, from British Invasion psychedelia ("Rain Day Sun") to hootenanny melodrama ("Blood on the Coal") to breezy calypso ("Loco Man").
Naturally, they greeted the crowd with a hearty "Hello, Cleveland!" -- an immortal Spinal Tap punch line.
While they remain best-known for their acting careers, these guys reminded us that they're fine musicians, too.
McKean, 61, handled most of the lead vocals and switched between guitar and keyboards. Shearer, 65, played bass and Guest, 61, was a triple threat on guitar, mandolin and didgeridoo.
Yes, didgeridoo. Guest pulled out the latter instrument (a huge pipe of Australian origin) during "Clam Caravan." The solo brought to mind a fit of elephant flatulence, while the deadly serious expressions on the faces of the performers made the farce even funnier.
CJ Vanston, who produced Spinal Tap's new "Back from the Dead" album (out Tuesday, June 16), also pitched in on keyboards.
The freewheeling set list featured a handful of selections from the upcoming release, including "Saucy Jack," a Jack the Ripper romp making its live debut.
Tunes from "A Mighty Wind" were perfect for the concert's acoustic format, especially "The Good Book Song" and "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow." McKean's wife, actress Annette O'Toole, made a delightful guest vocalist on those numbers.
Surprisingly, the Spinal Tap material came off wonderfully, too -- even if the amps weren't cranked up to 11, as they were in the movie.
Granted, the stripped-down versions of "Hell Hole," "Stonehenge" and "Big Bottom" (reborn as a finger-snapping, Peggy Lee-style jazz ballad) weren't exactly conducive to headbanging. All the same, the songs had fans nodding their heads vigorously and howling their approval.
Another highlight was "This Bulging River," an outtake from one of the Unwigged & Unplugged trio's other film projects, "Waiting for Guffman" (1996).
Whether they were having fun at the expense of heavy-metal, folk or any number of other genres, the true genius of Guest, McKean and Shearer was in their delivery. They played it straight, even as they were mercilessly sending up countless musical and lyrical cliches. It made you wonder if the real joke was on the musicians who actually take music seriously, or at least too seriously.
In the middle of the show, the threesome paused for questions from the audience.
Someone asked how they settled on the name Spinal Tap for their alter-ego band.
"We were trying to find a name that denoted severe pain," Shearer said.
Rest assured, he and his partners brought the pain in concert. They left your sides hurting from laughing so hard.
SET LIST
"Celtics Blues," "Hell Hole," "Never Did No Wanderin'," "Clam Caravan," "Bitch School," "Loco Man," "This Bulging River," "All the Way Home," "Blood on the Coal," "(Listen to the) Flower People," "Corn Wine," "The Majesty of Rock," "All Backed Up," "Stonehenge," "Start Me Up," "Cups and Cakes," "A Mighty Wind," "Saucy Jack," "Big Bottom," "The Good Book Song," "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow," "Rainy Day Sun," "Sex Farm"
FIRST ENCORE
"Gimme Some Money," "Old Joe's Place"
SECOND ENCORE
"Celtics Blues"/"Heavy Duty"
by John Soeder / Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic
Wednesday May 20, 2009, 1:22 AM
And here we always thought David Bowie was the ultimate musical chameleon.
Not so, my friends. That distinction rightly belongs to Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. (OK, so it's a three-headed chameleon.)
The ultra-talented stars of the beloved mockumentary films "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984) and "A Mighty Wind" (2003) -- which lampooned the heavy-metal and folk subcultures, respectively -- brought their Unwigged & Unplugged Tour here for a hilarious performance Tuesday evening at PlayhouseSquare's Ohio Theatre.
Over the course of a two-hour tour de force, Guest, McKean and Shearer effortlessly slipped in and out of musical styles the way Madonna changes outfits, from British Invasion psychedelia ("Rain Day Sun") to hootenanny melodrama ("Blood on the Coal") to breezy calypso ("Loco Man").
Naturally, they greeted the crowd with a hearty "Hello, Cleveland!" -- an immortal Spinal Tap punch line.
While they remain best-known for their acting careers, these guys reminded us that they're fine musicians, too.
McKean, 61, handled most of the lead vocals and switched between guitar and keyboards. Shearer, 65, played bass and Guest, 61, was a triple threat on guitar, mandolin and didgeridoo.
Yes, didgeridoo. Guest pulled out the latter instrument (a huge pipe of Australian origin) during "Clam Caravan." The solo brought to mind a fit of elephant flatulence, while the deadly serious expressions on the faces of the performers made the farce even funnier.
CJ Vanston, who produced Spinal Tap's new "Back from the Dead" album (out Tuesday, June 16), also pitched in on keyboards.
The freewheeling set list featured a handful of selections from the upcoming release, including "Saucy Jack," a Jack the Ripper romp making its live debut.
Tunes from "A Mighty Wind" were perfect for the concert's acoustic format, especially "The Good Book Song" and "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow." McKean's wife, actress Annette O'Toole, made a delightful guest vocalist on those numbers.
Surprisingly, the Spinal Tap material came off wonderfully, too -- even if the amps weren't cranked up to 11, as they were in the movie.
Granted, the stripped-down versions of "Hell Hole," "Stonehenge" and "Big Bottom" (reborn as a finger-snapping, Peggy Lee-style jazz ballad) weren't exactly conducive to headbanging. All the same, the songs had fans nodding their heads vigorously and howling their approval.
Another highlight was "This Bulging River," an outtake from one of the Unwigged & Unplugged trio's other film projects, "Waiting for Guffman" (1996).
Whether they were having fun at the expense of heavy-metal, folk or any number of other genres, the true genius of Guest, McKean and Shearer was in their delivery. They played it straight, even as they were mercilessly sending up countless musical and lyrical cliches. It made you wonder if the real joke was on the musicians who actually take music seriously, or at least too seriously.
In the middle of the show, the threesome paused for questions from the audience.
Someone asked how they settled on the name Spinal Tap for their alter-ego band.
"We were trying to find a name that denoted severe pain," Shearer said.
Rest assured, he and his partners brought the pain in concert. They left your sides hurting from laughing so hard.
SET LIST
"Celtics Blues," "Hell Hole," "Never Did No Wanderin'," "Clam Caravan," "Bitch School," "Loco Man," "This Bulging River," "All the Way Home," "Blood on the Coal," "(Listen to the) Flower People," "Corn Wine," "The Majesty of Rock," "All Backed Up," "Stonehenge," "Start Me Up," "Cups and Cakes," "A Mighty Wind," "Saucy Jack," "Big Bottom," "The Good Book Song," "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow," "Rainy Day Sun," "Sex Farm"
FIRST ENCORE
"Gimme Some Money," "Old Joe's Place"
SECOND ENCORE
"Celtics Blues"/"Heavy Duty"
'Spinal Tap Ditches Wigs, Cranks Up Comedy' By Chris Kohler ~ 'Wired'
OAKLAND, California — How hard did Spinal Tap rock the Paramount Theatre Wednesday night? A woman in the front row went into labor during "Stonehenge." That hard.
Maybe the audience member's labor pains were not, per se, caused by the classic Spinal Tap rock anthem. But you never know what will happen when Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer get together.
In 1984, the trio starred together in the legendary rock 'n' roll mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, playing a trio of stereotypically oblivious British rockers bumbling their way through a tour of America. Now, celebrating the cult classic film's 25th anniversary, the three actor-musicians have hit the road for real, playing songs from Tap and other films in a show called Unwigged & Unplugged.
Far removed from Spinal Tap's array of outrageous props and production numbers, Unwigged is a simple production: three men in their 60s playing acoustic instruments. But it's still a highly entertaining evening, because the songs these veteran comedians have written over the years are just plain good — catchy, subtle and very funny.
Onstage, Guest, McKean and Shearer appear as themselves, not as Spinal Tap's long-haired heavy metal heroes Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls. Hence the "unwigged." And the songs are all acoustic arrangements of the absurd rock parody songs like "Hellhole" and "Bitch School" that the film made famous.
All three men play multiple instruments during the show. McKean switches between guitar and piano. Shearer alternates between a bass guitar and a sleek stand-up bass. And Guest moves from acoustic guitar to electric to mandolin and even spends a thankfully brief period of time blowing out an intentionally horrible solo on the didgeridoo in the middle of introspective ballad "Clam Caravan." Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest rock out on an acoustic version of the Spinal Tap classic "Hellhole." Photo: Karen Chu/Wired.com
Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest rock out on an acoustic version of the Spinal Tap classic "Hellhole." Photo: Karen Chu/Wired.com
They deliver the songs with a mix of irony and earnestness — they are good songs, and they've clearly lavished attention on the arrangements, most of which are up-tempo and energetic. Of the Tap numbers, my favorite was "Big Bottom," a song that Spinal Tap played at Live Earth in 2007 with 19 guest bass players. On this tour, it's played with only bass — Shearer slaps out a walking bass line while McKean and Guest snap their fingers and sing a smooth jazz ode to the female posterior:
Big bottom, big bottom
Talk about mud flaps, my girl's got 'em
Big bottom drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?
Does the switch to lighter arrangements take the punch out of Spinal Tap's hilariously gross lyrics? On the contrary: It highlights McKean, Guest and Shearer's clever writing. When sung with a country twang and a snappy tempo, the lyrics of "Sex Farm" —
Scratching in your hen house
Sniffing at your feedbag
Slipping out your back door
Leaving my spray
— sound even dirtier.
But the evening wasn't all Spinal Tap. The trio played just as many songs from their other fake band The Folksmen, as featured in Guest's 2003 mockumentary A Mighty Wind, which did to folk music what Spinal Tap did to rock. Christopher Guest delivers a mercifully brief didgeridoo solo during "Unwigged." Photo: Karen Chu/Wired.com
Christopher Guest delivers a mercifully brief didgeridoo solo during "Unwigged." Photo: Karen Chu/Wired.com
Songs like "Loco Man" and "Corn Wine," said Shearer during the show, poke fun at "the fake folk music being written in office buildings in Manhattan's Upper West Side." Noting that half of all folk songs were written about tragedies like train wrecks and coal-mining disasters, the Folksmen wrote one called "Blood on the Coal" that has both:
Blood on the tracks, blood in the mine
Brothers and sisters, what a terrible time
Ole 97 went in the wrong hole
Now in mine No. 60 there's blood on the coal.
While the Spinal Tap songs were largely reworked versions of the originals, the Folksmen numbers were played just as you heard them in the film. Clapping along to the chorus of "Old Joe's Place" feels like being part of A Mighty Wind's climactic concert scene.
And the Folksmen's finest moment is a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" that must be heard to be believed.
Comedy bits — like rare Spinal Tap videos and a dramatic reading, set to music, of the lengthy list of cuts that NBC recommended be made to This Is Spinal Tap before it could be aired on television — are sprinkled throughout the Unwigged & Unplugged show.
The trio seems in awe of the fact that people still want to hear Spinal Tap songs 25 years later. They involve their followers at every turn during the concert, showing fan-made YouTube videos of their songs and inviting audience members up for a brief Q&A session.
If you know what you're getting into, Unwigged & Unplugged is a great time. But if you're hoping for a full-on Spinal Tap show with all the bells and whistles, you'll have to fly yourself to London for the one-off reunion gig in June.
Leaving the theater, we ran into a musician friend of ours who'd seen the Tap on tour back in 1992. He said the show was even better than he'd expected, and paraphrased something he'd read about Spinal Tap once:
"It's not bad music. It's good music in bad taste."
Maybe the audience member's labor pains were not, per se, caused by the classic Spinal Tap rock anthem. But you never know what will happen when Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer get together.
In 1984, the trio starred together in the legendary rock 'n' roll mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, playing a trio of stereotypically oblivious British rockers bumbling their way through a tour of America. Now, celebrating the cult classic film's 25th anniversary, the three actor-musicians have hit the road for real, playing songs from Tap and other films in a show called Unwigged & Unplugged.
Far removed from Spinal Tap's array of outrageous props and production numbers, Unwigged is a simple production: three men in their 60s playing acoustic instruments. But it's still a highly entertaining evening, because the songs these veteran comedians have written over the years are just plain good — catchy, subtle and very funny.
Onstage, Guest, McKean and Shearer appear as themselves, not as Spinal Tap's long-haired heavy metal heroes Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls. Hence the "unwigged." And the songs are all acoustic arrangements of the absurd rock parody songs like "Hellhole" and "Bitch School" that the film made famous.
All three men play multiple instruments during the show. McKean switches between guitar and piano. Shearer alternates between a bass guitar and a sleek stand-up bass. And Guest moves from acoustic guitar to electric to mandolin and even spends a thankfully brief period of time blowing out an intentionally horrible solo on the didgeridoo in the middle of introspective ballad "Clam Caravan." Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest rock out on an acoustic version of the Spinal Tap classic "Hellhole." Photo: Karen Chu/Wired.com
Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest rock out on an acoustic version of the Spinal Tap classic "Hellhole." Photo: Karen Chu/Wired.com
They deliver the songs with a mix of irony and earnestness — they are good songs, and they've clearly lavished attention on the arrangements, most of which are up-tempo and energetic. Of the Tap numbers, my favorite was "Big Bottom," a song that Spinal Tap played at Live Earth in 2007 with 19 guest bass players. On this tour, it's played with only bass — Shearer slaps out a walking bass line while McKean and Guest snap their fingers and sing a smooth jazz ode to the female posterior:
Big bottom, big bottom
Talk about mud flaps, my girl's got 'em
Big bottom drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?
Does the switch to lighter arrangements take the punch out of Spinal Tap's hilariously gross lyrics? On the contrary: It highlights McKean, Guest and Shearer's clever writing. When sung with a country twang and a snappy tempo, the lyrics of "Sex Farm" —
Scratching in your hen house
Sniffing at your feedbag
Slipping out your back door
Leaving my spray
— sound even dirtier.
But the evening wasn't all Spinal Tap. The trio played just as many songs from their other fake band The Folksmen, as featured in Guest's 2003 mockumentary A Mighty Wind, which did to folk music what Spinal Tap did to rock. Christopher Guest delivers a mercifully brief didgeridoo solo during "Unwigged." Photo: Karen Chu/Wired.com
Christopher Guest delivers a mercifully brief didgeridoo solo during "Unwigged." Photo: Karen Chu/Wired.com
Songs like "Loco Man" and "Corn Wine," said Shearer during the show, poke fun at "the fake folk music being written in office buildings in Manhattan's Upper West Side." Noting that half of all folk songs were written about tragedies like train wrecks and coal-mining disasters, the Folksmen wrote one called "Blood on the Coal" that has both:
Blood on the tracks, blood in the mine
Brothers and sisters, what a terrible time
Ole 97 went in the wrong hole
Now in mine No. 60 there's blood on the coal.
While the Spinal Tap songs were largely reworked versions of the originals, the Folksmen numbers were played just as you heard them in the film. Clapping along to the chorus of "Old Joe's Place" feels like being part of A Mighty Wind's climactic concert scene.
And the Folksmen's finest moment is a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" that must be heard to be believed.
Comedy bits — like rare Spinal Tap videos and a dramatic reading, set to music, of the lengthy list of cuts that NBC recommended be made to This Is Spinal Tap before it could be aired on television — are sprinkled throughout the Unwigged & Unplugged show.
The trio seems in awe of the fact that people still want to hear Spinal Tap songs 25 years later. They involve their followers at every turn during the concert, showing fan-made YouTube videos of their songs and inviting audience members up for a brief Q&A session.
If you know what you're getting into, Unwigged & Unplugged is a great time. But if you're hoping for a full-on Spinal Tap show with all the bells and whistles, you'll have to fly yourself to London for the one-off reunion gig in June.
Leaving the theater, we ran into a musician friend of ours who'd seen the Tap on tour back in 1992. He said the show was even better than he'd expected, and paraphrased something he'd read about Spinal Tap once:
"It's not bad music. It's good music in bad taste."
'Spinal Tap: Unwigged and Unplugged' By STEVEN MIRKIN ~ 'Variety'
The jokes started coming even before the band hit the stage for Spinal Tap's Unwigged and Unplugged tour at the Wiltern Sunday night. Following the usual request to turn off cell phones, it was announced that "the part of Christopher Guest will be played by Michael McKean and that Harry Shearer will be played by Christopher Guest."
OK, it wasn't a knee-slapper, but it set the gently satiric tone of the evening and served as a reminder that Guest, McKean and Shearer appear as themselves and not as David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap, the self-proclaimed "England's Loudest Band" introduced 25 years ago in "This Is Spinal Tap," or, for that matter, as the Folksmen, the '60s folk revival trio at the center of "A Mighty Wind."
The show puts the spotlight firmly on the trio's musical talents (while they perform under their own names, all three are careful to credit each song to its fictional composer). Over the concert's 90-minute running time, it becomes apparent the songs are more than just parodies; they are wonderfully crafted takes on the last 50 years of pop music, with lyrics that move from the mundane into the ridiculous with perfect comic timing.
There are showtunes such as "A Penny for Your Thoughts" (from "Waiting for Guffman," featuring Judith Owen, Shearer's better half, on vocals); the potted folk of "Old Joe's Place" and "Blood on the Coal," a comically overstated disaster ballad; and various styles of Brit rock -- the whiny blues of "Gimme Some Money," the psychedelia of "(Listen to the) Flower People" and the metallic "Majesty of Rock."
There's even the Oscar-nominated "A Kiss at the End of a Rainbow," a straightforward romantic duet performed by McKean and wife Annette O'Toole (who also gets a chance to show off her big growling voice on "The Good Book Song").
Which is not to say humor takes a back seat. Studded among the songs are fan-made YouTube videos, including a wacky stop-animated Lego version of "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight," a mock travelogue of Scandinavian cheese-rolling that was a trailer for "This Is Spinal Tap" plus a dramatic reading of an NBC censor's notes on edits needed to make the movie acceptable for airing. And "Stonehenge" returns, with a video featuring the famed mini-prop-on-a-string and troll dolls.
Two radical reworkings of songs are also included -- the Folksmen's bluegrass version of the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" and "Big Bottom," a Tap favorite that was performed by 19 bassists at Live Earth, now arranged for Shearer's solo bass and turned into a slinky, '50s hipsterish finger-snapper, complete with a black-clad Nell Geisslinger (O'Toole's daughter) performing an interpretative dance.
It was probably inevitable for Spinal Tap to reunite. But it's hard to imagine another reunion as charming as this one. Show plays New York's Beacon Theater on May 27.
OK, it wasn't a knee-slapper, but it set the gently satiric tone of the evening and served as a reminder that Guest, McKean and Shearer appear as themselves and not as David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap, the self-proclaimed "England's Loudest Band" introduced 25 years ago in "This Is Spinal Tap," or, for that matter, as the Folksmen, the '60s folk revival trio at the center of "A Mighty Wind."
The show puts the spotlight firmly on the trio's musical talents (while they perform under their own names, all three are careful to credit each song to its fictional composer). Over the concert's 90-minute running time, it becomes apparent the songs are more than just parodies; they are wonderfully crafted takes on the last 50 years of pop music, with lyrics that move from the mundane into the ridiculous with perfect comic timing.
There are showtunes such as "A Penny for Your Thoughts" (from "Waiting for Guffman," featuring Judith Owen, Shearer's better half, on vocals); the potted folk of "Old Joe's Place" and "Blood on the Coal," a comically overstated disaster ballad; and various styles of Brit rock -- the whiny blues of "Gimme Some Money," the psychedelia of "(Listen to the) Flower People" and the metallic "Majesty of Rock."
There's even the Oscar-nominated "A Kiss at the End of a Rainbow," a straightforward romantic duet performed by McKean and wife Annette O'Toole (who also gets a chance to show off her big growling voice on "The Good Book Song").
Which is not to say humor takes a back seat. Studded among the songs are fan-made YouTube videos, including a wacky stop-animated Lego version of "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight," a mock travelogue of Scandinavian cheese-rolling that was a trailer for "This Is Spinal Tap" plus a dramatic reading of an NBC censor's notes on edits needed to make the movie acceptable for airing. And "Stonehenge" returns, with a video featuring the famed mini-prop-on-a-string and troll dolls.
Two radical reworkings of songs are also included -- the Folksmen's bluegrass version of the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" and "Big Bottom," a Tap favorite that was performed by 19 bassists at Live Earth, now arranged for Shearer's solo bass and turned into a slinky, '50s hipsterish finger-snapper, complete with a black-clad Nell Geisslinger (O'Toole's daughter) performing an interpretative dance.
It was probably inevitable for Spinal Tap to reunite. But it's hard to imagine another reunion as charming as this one. Show plays New York's Beacon Theater on May 27.
Venue Change in Houston and Cleveland - and Baby born After Unwigged Show!
The Unwigged and Unplugged event scheduled for Friday May 1, 2009 8PM at Jones Hall in Houston has been moved to House of Blues at 1204 Caroline Street between Dallas and Polk streets, also in downtown Houston. The show will take place at the same date and time. Tickets purchased to Jones Hall will be honored at House Of Blues.
Sent to us by email!!: I wanted to relay a story to you regarding your April 22 Spinal Tap gig at the Oakland, CA Paramount.
Having been a big fan of the original Tap movie (as well as le show, the Simpsons, and going all the way back to having seen Christopher play in Lemmings in Kansas City in 1973), i was quite excited to be able to score front row seats to your unplugged unwigged tour.
Things have been a bit hectic lately as my wife was 37 weeks pregnant the night of the show and somehow i got the starting time wrong and we showed up promptly at 9:00, dismayed to find that the show had been going for an hour.
The usher led us down to our front row seats (scored just by ordering online the day they went on sale) and had to evict the couple people who had been squatting in these prime seats. There were a couple rows of folded chairs in front of us and in front of the stage, so you likely did not notice us coming in.
Well the next song you launched into was Listen to the Flower Children, which i have often sung to my wife in an appropriately quavering voice. The 3-D act was sooo freaking funny, i thought that Lynne was going to pee her pants, she was laughing so hard. I joked to myself that this could jump start the labor if she wasn't careful (we theoretically were not due until mid-May). Then, when you went into Stonehenge, she leaned over and WHOOSH, her water broke. She looked at me with shock and proclaimed as much. I asked her if she possibly just peed her pants with laughter, and she said probably not. So after 3.5 songs, as the video Stonehenge arch began its descent, we evacuated our seats, leaving them to the next squatters who would discover one of them to be quite wet.
We cleaned her up, went home, and her contractions started about 4:00 A.M., 11 hours later, in a planned natural homebirth, Lynne gave birth to Dexter Harris Newton Carlson (with some considerations to throwing a "St." in given the circumstances).
We're all happy and healthy and just wanted to share our story with you, as we have been sharing it with all our loved ones, many of whom are Tap aficionados and some of whom were even at your show.
We love you guys in all your guises and could not be happier that this is how our family started.
Peace & Love,
dan, lynne & dexter
Sent to us by email!!: I wanted to relay a story to you regarding your April 22 Spinal Tap gig at the Oakland, CA Paramount.
Having been a big fan of the original Tap movie (as well as le show, the Simpsons, and going all the way back to having seen Christopher play in Lemmings in Kansas City in 1973), i was quite excited to be able to score front row seats to your unplugged unwigged tour.
Things have been a bit hectic lately as my wife was 37 weeks pregnant the night of the show and somehow i got the starting time wrong and we showed up promptly at 9:00, dismayed to find that the show had been going for an hour.
The usher led us down to our front row seats (scored just by ordering online the day they went on sale) and had to evict the couple people who had been squatting in these prime seats. There were a couple rows of folded chairs in front of us and in front of the stage, so you likely did not notice us coming in.
Well the next song you launched into was Listen to the Flower Children, which i have often sung to my wife in an appropriately quavering voice. The 3-D act was sooo freaking funny, i thought that Lynne was going to pee her pants, she was laughing so hard. I joked to myself that this could jump start the labor if she wasn't careful (we theoretically were not due until mid-May). Then, when you went into Stonehenge, she leaned over and WHOOSH, her water broke. She looked at me with shock and proclaimed as much. I asked her if she possibly just peed her pants with laughter, and she said probably not. So after 3.5 songs, as the video Stonehenge arch began its descent, we evacuated our seats, leaving them to the next squatters who would discover one of them to be quite wet.
We cleaned her up, went home, and her contractions started about 4:00 A.M., 11 hours later, in a planned natural homebirth, Lynne gave birth to Dexter Harris Newton Carlson (with some considerations to throwing a "St." in given the circumstances).
We're all happy and healthy and just wanted to share our story with you, as we have been sharing it with all our loved ones, many of whom are Tap aficionados and some of whom were even at your show.
We love you guys in all your guises and could not be happier that this is how our family started.
Peace & Love,
dan, lynne & dexter
Watch the guys live on Olbermann
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Second Nite Added In NY - Tickets On Sale 4/10 10am!
Due to overwhelming demand, Unwigged & Unplugged has added a second date at the Beacon Theatre in New York City on May 27. NYC fans will be treated to the only two-show stop on the tour on May 26 and May 27. Tickets go on sale Friday, April 10 at 10:00am, and are available for purchase via Ticketmaster.com, by phone charge (800) 745-3000, and at the Beacon Theatre box office.
Watch the guys live on Olbermann
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Watch the guys live on Olbermann, Tonight!
Christopher, Michael and Harry will be on Keith Olbermann tonight - Tues, April 7th.
5pm PST / 8pm EST, closing spot.
5pm PST / 8pm EST, closing spot.
Watch a Clip of from The Tonight Show!
Watch a Clip from the April 1st Leno Appearance!
Air America Interview with Harry Shearer
Click the Link Below to Listen the the Air America interview with Harry Shearer
media.libsyn.com/media/radioornot/3-25-09_Harry_Shearer.mp3
media.libsyn.com/media/radioornot/3-25-09_Harry_Shearer.mp3
Fire your web designers/photoshoppers
http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com
I think it would be a great idea to have a look on the image of the band you spread everywhere.
There is an invisible ghost in the background what lays his visible hand on the shoulder. I am just not sure if it's the left or right hand which belongs to the ghost.
Was the hobby photographer angry about something?
And btw - press images are normally in high resolution and not like they are coming from a 20$ child camera.
~ Greetings from Germany
'Who's hands are where? Good lord.' - Candace
Are you aware the photo on your main website page is abstract to say the least? On the shoulders of the guy in the middle with the brown jacket there are one too many hands? There is a blog on the internet that someone had pointed this out on. Just though I would let you know as some constructive feedback.
- Shell
'On your website's home page - please be aware of the extra hand on Mr. McKean's shoulder - unless Mr. Shearer has three hands, or this was intentional.'
Thanks,
--lisa
'Ummm. Exactly how many hands does Harry have? Or, was this done on purpose?'
-Brad
I think it would be a great idea to have a look on the image of the band you spread everywhere.
There is an invisible ghost in the background what lays his visible hand on the shoulder. I am just not sure if it's the left or right hand which belongs to the ghost.
Was the hobby photographer angry about something?
And btw - press images are normally in high resolution and not like they are coming from a 20$ child camera.
~ Greetings from Germany
'Who's hands are where? Good lord.' - Candace
Are you aware the photo on your main website page is abstract to say the least? On the shoulders of the guy in the middle with the brown jacket there are one too many hands? There is a blog on the internet that someone had pointed this out on. Just though I would let you know as some constructive feedback.
- Shell
'On your website's home page - please be aware of the extra hand on Mr. McKean's shoulder - unless Mr. Shearer has three hands, or this was intentional.'
Thanks,
--lisa
'Ummm. Exactly how many hands does Harry have? Or, was this done on purpose?'
-Brad
New Date Info - Anaheim / Santa Barbara
The show on April 23rd will now be in Anaheim at The Grove instead of the Santa Barbara County Bowl. Tickets for the Anaheim show go on sale Saturday, March 21st at 1pm. Refunds for Santa Barbara are available at point of purchase.
Tour Diary
Harry has started a tour diary, the first post can now be read on the Blog page,
more to come ....
more to come ....
Unwigged on the Travis Smiley Show
Travis Smiley Show, Friday March 20th PBS
WATCH: Christopher Guest, MichaelMcKean & Harry Shearer on the Tavis
Smiley Show.
Friday,March 20th on PBS
IN LOS ANGELES: 7pm & 11pm on KCET;
IN NY: 12midnight and re-broadcast the following Monday at 1pm
FOR OTHER CITIES: Check your local, late-night PBS listings for Friday, March 20, 2009).
WATCH: Christopher Guest, MichaelMcKean & Harry Shearer on the Tavis
Smiley Show.
Friday,March 20th on PBS
IN LOS ANGELES: 7pm & 11pm on KCET;
IN NY: 12midnight and re-broadcast the following Monday at 1pm
FOR OTHER CITIES: Check your local, late-night PBS listings for Friday, March 20, 2009).
Tour Dates & Ticket Sales Annouced
Tour Dates and Ticket Sales have been announced!!
Check the Tour page to find out when tickets go on sale in a city near you.
Check the Tour page to find out when tickets go on sale in a city near you.
Unwigged & Unplugged Press Release
UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED
An Evening with
Christopher Guest, Michael McKean & Harry Shearer
(March 2, 2009 – Los Angeles) --- Actors/Directors/Musicians and Comedy Icons Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer are doing something they have never done before; performing a six week, 30 city multi-media acoustic tour without wigs and electric instruments.
UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED: An Evening with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer has the legendary musical and comedic trio performing music from heavy metal's loudest band Spinal Tap along with the folk music from A Mighty Wind, and more.
Tickets for the UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED tour go on sale Friday, March 6th, with the tour starting Friday, April 17th in Vancouver and ending Sunday, May 31st in Milwaukee.
UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED is not about funny costumes and characters, but rather three long time friends and collaborators who make each laugh and love nothing better than to find some excuse to get together and play music. The trio commented, "With this being the 25th Anniversary of the film This is Spinal Tap, we thought this would be a fun and at the same time, a little challenging, as we have never performed as ourselves. Think of the evening as three old friends jamming in your living room. As opposed to OUR living rooms; we won't be home."
UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED will feature songs from the original soundtrack This Is Spinal Tap (1984), the studio album Break Like The Wind (1992), and A Mighty Wind (2003) along with some special surprises and rarities thrown in.
Guest, McKean, and Shearer have a rich history going back decades. Guest and McKean first met in college where they wrote songs together. As for McKean and Shearer, they have known each other since 1970 when they were both members of satirical group The Credibility Gap on radio, stage and records.
In 1979, Guest, McKean and Shearer appeared together for the first time in a Rob Reiner-produced, sketch comedy television pilot called The TV Show. It was here the world got their famous glimpse of Spinal Tap featuring lead singer David St. Hubbins (McKean), guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Guest), and bassist Derek Smalls (Shearer).
In 1984, Reiner and the lads devised a way to bring the group back this time in a major motion picture, This Is Spinal Tap, and the rest is history, literally. This Is Spinal Tap was ranked #29 of the "100 Funniest Films of All Time" by The American Film Institute and The Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry's list of 25 American cinematic works selected for historical preservation calling the film a 'culturally significant' work. Entertainment Weekly recently awarded TISP eleventh place (of course) in their "cult film" list. And Netflix has ranked This Is Spinal Tap in the Top 1% of all Netflix Titles in terms of total rentals to-date!
And the music of Spinal Tap is as popular today as it ever was – their song Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight has been featured everywhere from the best selling video game Guitar Hero 2 to a Hallmark musical greeting card.
As for the ultimate compliment, the phrase "Up to eleven: up to maximum volume" was included in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as an ode to Nigel's amp that had controls that went beyond the usual maximum setting of 10…"Louder."
In 2003, Guest, McKean and Shearer came back reincarnated for the Christopher Guest directed film A Mighty Wind where they portrayed The Folksmen, a trio of folk musicians consisting of Mark Shubb (bass vocals and upright bass, played by Harry Shearer), Alan Barrows (tenor vocals, mandolin, guitar, and five-string banjo, played by Christopher Guest), and Jerry Palter (baritone vocals, guitar, and mandolin, played by Michael McKean). The title track A Mighty Wind (written by Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy and Michael McKean) was a 2004 Grammy Award Winner for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture while the song A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow (written by Michael McKean and Annette O'Toole) was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song. And over the years, Guest, McKean and Shearer have continued to appear and work together in various configurations in the Guest directed films: Waiting For Guffman (1996), Best In Show (2000) and For Your Consideration (2006).
Guest, McKean and Shearer summed up their working relationship and friendship this way, "The three of us make each other laugh and that's why we continue to do this. Why work with somebody who is going to bore you to death? If you have a choice about things like that, no one's going to choose the guy that puts you to sleep. "
An Evening with
Christopher Guest, Michael McKean & Harry Shearer
(March 2, 2009 – Los Angeles) --- Actors/Directors/Musicians and Comedy Icons Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer are doing something they have never done before; performing a six week, 30 city multi-media acoustic tour without wigs and electric instruments.
UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED: An Evening with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer has the legendary musical and comedic trio performing music from heavy metal's loudest band Spinal Tap along with the folk music from A Mighty Wind, and more.
Tickets for the UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED tour go on sale Friday, March 6th, with the tour starting Friday, April 17th in Vancouver and ending Sunday, May 31st in Milwaukee.
UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED is not about funny costumes and characters, but rather three long time friends and collaborators who make each laugh and love nothing better than to find some excuse to get together and play music. The trio commented, "With this being the 25th Anniversary of the film This is Spinal Tap, we thought this would be a fun and at the same time, a little challenging, as we have never performed as ourselves. Think of the evening as three old friends jamming in your living room. As opposed to OUR living rooms; we won't be home."
UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED will feature songs from the original soundtrack This Is Spinal Tap (1984), the studio album Break Like The Wind (1992), and A Mighty Wind (2003) along with some special surprises and rarities thrown in.
Guest, McKean, and Shearer have a rich history going back decades. Guest and McKean first met in college where they wrote songs together. As for McKean and Shearer, they have known each other since 1970 when they were both members of satirical group The Credibility Gap on radio, stage and records.
In 1979, Guest, McKean and Shearer appeared together for the first time in a Rob Reiner-produced, sketch comedy television pilot called The TV Show. It was here the world got their famous glimpse of Spinal Tap featuring lead singer David St. Hubbins (McKean), guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Guest), and bassist Derek Smalls (Shearer).
In 1984, Reiner and the lads devised a way to bring the group back this time in a major motion picture, This Is Spinal Tap, and the rest is history, literally. This Is Spinal Tap was ranked #29 of the "100 Funniest Films of All Time" by The American Film Institute and The Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry's list of 25 American cinematic works selected for historical preservation calling the film a 'culturally significant' work. Entertainment Weekly recently awarded TISP eleventh place (of course) in their "cult film" list. And Netflix has ranked This Is Spinal Tap in the Top 1% of all Netflix Titles in terms of total rentals to-date!
And the music of Spinal Tap is as popular today as it ever was – their song Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight has been featured everywhere from the best selling video game Guitar Hero 2 to a Hallmark musical greeting card.
As for the ultimate compliment, the phrase "Up to eleven: up to maximum volume" was included in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as an ode to Nigel's amp that had controls that went beyond the usual maximum setting of 10…"Louder."
In 2003, Guest, McKean and Shearer came back reincarnated for the Christopher Guest directed film A Mighty Wind where they portrayed The Folksmen, a trio of folk musicians consisting of Mark Shubb (bass vocals and upright bass, played by Harry Shearer), Alan Barrows (tenor vocals, mandolin, guitar, and five-string banjo, played by Christopher Guest), and Jerry Palter (baritone vocals, guitar, and mandolin, played by Michael McKean). The title track A Mighty Wind (written by Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy and Michael McKean) was a 2004 Grammy Award Winner for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture while the song A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow (written by Michael McKean and Annette O'Toole) was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song. And over the years, Guest, McKean and Shearer have continued to appear and work together in various configurations in the Guest directed films: Waiting For Guffman (1996), Best In Show (2000) and For Your Consideration (2006).
Guest, McKean and Shearer summed up their working relationship and friendship this way, "The three of us make each other laugh and that's why we continue to do this. Why work with somebody who is going to bore you to death? If you have a choice about things like that, no one's going to choose the guy that puts you to sleep. "
