Halloween got a full month of posts. Christmas is getting a week and change, mainly because I’m sick to death of seasonal overkill. The entertainment and retail combines don’t even wait for the candy corn and cobwebs to get cold before rolling out the balsam-scented, red and green juggernaut, whipping the public into a state of consumer debt-fueled hysteria.
Peace on earth? Good will toward men? Fuck that shit, there’s an open parking space right by Target’s entrance, and if I have to run down a family of four with my Escalade to get it, then so be it. No one stands in between me and a sale-priced portable DVD player.
(In all seriousness, I nearly got hit three times today while crossing the Target parking lot. In each case, the vehicle in question was a minivan driven by a suburban soccer mom, eyes blazing and face contorted with the terminal stages of Yuletide consumer madness. All I wanted was a bag of potato chips and some toilet paper.)
Bad News – Cashing in on Christmas (from Bad News, 1987) – A z-grade heavy metal act whose members’ ambitions far outstrip their talents, Bad News were the subject of two mockumentaries aired on The Comic Strip Presents… British TV series in 1983 and 1988. Their lineup consisted of Vim Feugo (Adrian Edmondson), Den Dennis (Nigel Planer), Colin Grigson (Rik Mayall), and ‘Spider’ Webb (Peter Richardson). Yep, that's three cast members of The Young Ones in the band, so you pretty much know what to expect.
Queen fans take note: The above track (and album it appeared on) was produced by Brian May.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
jingle bells make money, everybody sing
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7 comments:
I thought it was a mark of genius getting them on the bill of a legit metal festival for the 1988 reunion special. What I would have given to have been in the crowd when they started playing.
Even so, I prefer their version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" to the original...
I'm very thankful for Bad News and Spinal Tap existing side by side as they do, without one being in any way influenced by the other. Two strikingly different approaches to the same basic idea: Spinal Tap took on excess and downfall, whereas Bad News was all about childish ambition and disappointment, as well as taking a fair few swipes at the medium of the "rockumentary" too (often brilliantly absurd ones, such as Den's concerns about the continuity in the cafe scene). Spider's John Lydon act was also a joy.
Have you seen this, by the way?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6BQWU2FmXE
Beautifully put, Peter. I wrestled with making a Spinal Tap comparison, but didn't because:
1. as you said, they are two different beasts
2. nearly every description of the Bad News mentions them
3. I got lazy toward the end and wanted to get back to playing videogames....
More than Spinal Tap, what the Bad News episodes remind me of is a sequence toward the end of the 80's Britpunk documentary, UK DK, where the members of some Discharge clone are interviewed and spend more time talking about a robbery they committed than about their music.
I hate to do this to y'all but:
http://lastdaysofman.blogspot.com/2006/08/teezar-bakkstage-pass.html
AHHHH! I remember that post!
There's a guy named Robbie Roadsteamer doing the same "is he serious of spoofing" rawkin' gimmick up here in Boston currently.
His signature tune is "I Put a Baby in You."
"I Put a Baby in You." -- What a great title.
Wasn't there a band a few years ago in the Boston area called "Waltham" that was also doing that schtick? Or was I hallucinating?
I'm not sure what Waltham's deal was. The local weekly sold them heavily as the successors to the Del Fuegos, but the band never achieved escape velocity.
The weekly went back to fawning over the Dresden Dolls, instead.
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