The Tubes were one of my favorite rock bands in the mid-late 70s (and still).
The Tubes are a
San Francisco-based rock band whose 1975 debut
album included the
hit single "White Punks on Dope". During its first fifteen years or so, the band's live performances combined quasi-
pornography with wild
satires of
media, consumerism, and politics.
By late 1975, the band created a stage show unlike any other after hiring Kenny Ortega to direct/ choreograph, comedian
Jane Dornacker and her band "Lelia and the Snakes" and event support/video pioneer
T.J. McHose to run a live video feed with films for each song. The show was critically acclaimed and broke them into show business in Los Angeles during sold out runs at the
Roxy Theater, David Allen's Boarding House and Bimbo's in San Francisco as well as
The Bottom Line in New York City. Compared at the time to "
The Rocky Horror Picture Show", the Tubes stage show was closer to "Saturday Night Live" with its mix of topical satire and subversive post modern Andy Kaufman-like routines such as Fee beating up a couple in the front row (who were planted) during the "Crime Medley" then taking off his disguise as the band launched into "Mondo Bondage" and a huge stack of "Kill Amplifiers" (cardboard) falling on Quay Lewd during the finale of "White Punks on Dope." The band was part of the mid-seventies underground comedy scene in California that included The Credibility Gap, Firesign Theater, Ace Trucking Company, Kentucky Fried Theater, Groundlings and from New York,
Ken Shapiro's Channel One Video Theatre and
National Lampoon. The L.A. Connection Comedy Theatreperformed during the Tubes show intermission many times. In 1975, The Tubes were offered a spot on Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell and
Saturday Night Live but manager Mort Moriarty wanted the band to play several songs in a row to show off how tight the bands transitions were. The shows declined and without major network TV appearances on
The Midnight Special and
Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, the band missed out on huge TV exposure cementing their cult status until the early 1980s. The band's touring crew was up to 24 people at this point making it hard to tour for the standard weeks on end most bands of the era were committing to build a fan base.
White Punks Dope - live at the Old Grey Whistle Test
What Do You Want From Live - live album from '78
Also went more pop a little later -
Remote Control is still one of my favorite albums ...produced, co-written by non other than Todd Rundgren.
The fourth album for A&M,
Remote Control (1979) was a
concept album produced by
Todd Rundgren about a television-addicted idiot-savant based on the Jerzy Kosinski novel "
Being There" (which was later made into a movie starring Peter Sellers.) The cover of
Remote Control (1979) shows a baby (Rikki Farr's son) in a specially made "Vidi-Trainer" (A car seat/ TV with a baby bottle nipple) created by Michael Cotten and Dave Mellot. Much of the new music was rewritten by Todd and the band in studio including "Turn Me On" formerly "Get Over It" and cannibalized "The Terrorists of Rock" number to become "Telecide".
Fee and Re Styles shared vocals on "Prime Time" although Rundgren had tried to record a version with just Styles. When Waybill found out he demanded to sing as well. The band performed the song on "
Top of the Pops" and on tour in Europe before cutting it from the set due to tensions between Waybill and Styles.
