"These Go To 11"

It has come to my attention that there are people in the world who haven't yet seen the 1984 movie This Is Spinal Tap. Here's a little glimpse of it.

In this scene, Spinal Tap guitarist Nigel Tufnel is explaining to documentary producer Marty DiBergi why his amplifiers are superior to other amplifiers.



The movie has great cameos by Paul Schaffer, Fran Drescher, Howard Hesseman, Anjelica Huston, Billy Crystal, Ed Begley, Jr., Dana Carvey and the late Bruno Kirby. It created a genre-- the "mockumentary."

Other great Spinal Tap quotes:

"I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem *may* have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being *crushed* by a *dwarf*. Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object."

"You put a *greased naked woman* on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a man's arm extended out up to here, holding onto the leash, and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. You don't find that offensive? You don't find that sexist?"

"Come on, don't talk back, mime is money, come on, move it."

"Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It's just not really widely reported."

"The Boston gig has been cancelled...I wouldn't worry about it though, it's not a big college town"

"It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever."

As a lifelong rock fan, I think that I particularly find the movie funny; many of us rockers spent our youth looking for truth and meaning in rock music, only to find, as adults, that many of the rock stars (with notable exceptions, like the Clash) we looked up to were actually dumb as a box as rocks, and shallow as a puddle. Spinal Tap examines this in a humorous way, and points out that in the end, message or not, rock music is still a whole lot of fun.