Sunday Synthpop Brunch: The Tubes

By the mid-1970s, The Tubes were one of the most notorious traveling "shock-rock" acts on the road. While they weren't ghoulish enough to stage their own public executions during their sets a la Alice Cooper, the San Francisco-based lineup had no problems making a lasting impression on their audiences (anyone seeing heavily made-up lead singer Fee Waybill standing nearly 8 feet tall in his platform boots while clad in bondage gear and wielding a running chainsaw is probably either in therapy or denial to this day). Also, unlike many of their contemporaries in the theatrical rock biz, The Tubes utilized a highly developed sense of satire, which is certainly apparent in their twin radio hits from 1975: "White Punks On Dope" and the gleefully over-the-top satire of "What Do You Want From Life?"

Following their FM radio breakthrough, The Tubes made a decent commercial inroads with their second album Young And Rich in 1976 (featuring the hilariously suggestive minor hit "Don't Touch Me There") and seemed on the verge of breaking into superstar territory on the next go-round.

Instead, things seemed to go rapidly downhill for the band when Now was released in the spring of 1977. For starters, the new album wasn't a critical or commercial hit, and even the band themselves thought they might have pushed things a little too far at last. Worse, while performing overseas in support of the album, things really fell apart in a hurry after Waybill broke his leg onstage while acting out one of his outrageous onstage personas ("Dr. Strangekiss," "Quay Lewd" or "Hugh Heifer" were among his repertoire), which stopped the tour on a dime. With the label's promotional strategy now in tatters and the album tanking everywhere, what looked like promising momentum had quickly become a disaster, and the band desperately needed a hit to keep themselves signed to the A&M Records roster.

While a hastily-released live album (What Do You Want From Live -- taped during the same run of shows that the band were playing when Waybill sustained his injury) briefly occupied the lower rungs of the Top 100 in early 1978, the Tubes hooked up with ace producer Todd Rundgren and recorded the album that many consider to be their masterpiece: Remote Control.

Released in March of 1979, Remote Control found The Tubes firing on all cylinders. As a concept album revolving around a man unhealthily obsessed with television and packing plenty of the band's trademark lyrical barbs, Remote Control was greatly enhanced by the band's increased focus on songwriting and stretching themselves out musically under Rundgren's admittedly-heavy hand (there aren't many albums dear Todd has produced that don't wind up sounding like one of his own). Bursting with excellent cuts ranging from the ballad "Love's A Mystery," the zippy pogo pop of "Turn Me On" and the near-Utopia soundalike "I Want It All Now," this was an album designed to put the band over the top at last.

One of the Remote Control's most immediately addictive singles was the disco-leaning swirl of "Prime Time." On a musical level, "Prime Time" was one of the lovelier songs the Tubes had ever recorded, while lyrically it was a subtly disturbing paean of cooing devotion delivered by the protagonist (Waybill) to his flirtatious television set (seductively voiced by the band's "lead dancer" Re-Styles). While the overall sound of "Prime Time" is pure 1979 as far as production is concerned, I've always liked the contrast between the relentlessly pulsing bass synth line and the warm, glistening synth work laid around it by Rundgren as well as Tubes keyboardists Michael Cotten and Vince Welnick (I could also swear I hear Todd's distinctive vocals throughout the song's beguiling midsection).

Despite the fact that Remote Control pretty much mirrored the chart performance of their previous high watermark Young And Rich (both albums reached #46 and were listed on the charts for 4 months), The Tubes found themselves dropped by A&M Records soon afterwards. Apparently, A&M had expected far bigger things from the album, which had failed to launch a single hit of any kind despite its rich variety of accessible material.

As it turned out, A&M were a tad premature in letting The Tubes go -- the band quickly found a new home at Capitol Records and found far greater success than had ever come their way before after adopting a more mainstream rock-friendly sound. Over the next four years, the band had great success with the format staple (and early MTV favorite) "Talk To Ya Later," as well as a pair of bona fide pop hits in the form of the startlingly-MOR ballad "Don't Wanna Wait Anymore" and their lone Top 10 smash "She's A Beauty." The band's newfound commercial success didn't last long, however: following the commercial failure of 1985's rather gimmicky Love Bomb (also produced by Rundgren), the Tubes quietly disbanded.