Everyone turn your amps up to eleven, and let's discuss one of the true imaginary legends of rock . . . who've made more impact than many "real" bands.

What always amuses me is how often people will get into the joke, and pretend they are a real band. Last year on they were VH1's The List, and host George Wendt was in on the joke. Years ago Guitar World Magazine, I think it was, had an article on Tap, that accepted their "reality". Even The New Book of Rock Lists treated them as a real band. And fans always refer to albums such as Shark Sandwhich and Inter-Venus DeMilo as records that have really existed.

I've always thought a great concert bill would The Rutles/Spinal Tap. Maybe even throw in The Traveling Wilburys.

Well, following the success of the movie, Spinal Tap toured and played as a band, and also released albums that you can actually go out and find at your local record store, so I guess that makes them as much of a "real" band as anyone, despite their fabricated history.

I must admit that I'm one of the ones who occassionally looks for Intravaneous or Shark Sandwich to turn up in the bin of used vinyl stores, and am still awaiting their release on CD!

A poster on the BOC board suggested that Blue Oyster Cult was indeed the real-life Spinal Tap. Although Tap was certainly inspired by and contains recognizable elements of many different hard rock bands, I'd like to propose that my own favorite band, Uriah Heep, contains the strongest claim to this title. I offer the various pieces of evidence below.

EXHIBIT A: Spinal Tap has two key members in the movie named "David" and "Mick" (singer David St. Hubbins and drummer Mick Shrimpton). Uriah Heep's original vocalist was David Byron, and the lead guitarist (the only member of the original lineup still with the band today) is Mick Box. In addition, the surnames "St. Hubbins" and "Byron" of the two singers suggest a similar classical grandiosity.

EXHIBIT B: Both bands had their roots in flower-power pop bands of the late sixties before renaming and becoming hard rock bands of the seventies. Uriah Heep was previously known as Spice and two key members came originally from a Beatles sound-alike outfit called the Gods.

EXHIBIT C: Both bands had trouble with the stability at the drummer position in their early years, although the fate of Heep's drummers was (as far as is known) not nearly as dire as that of Tap's drummers. However, since 1972, apart from one album, Heep has found stability at the drummer position in the person of the venerable Lee Kerslake, who remains the drummer today despite being in his early sixties and afflicted with artheritis.

EXHIBIT D: Both Tap and Heep have been prolific in releasing albums, especially during the seventies. Even most people who consider themselves Heep fans and have a few albums in their collection probably don't realize how extensive the back catalogue is (twenty studio albums from 1970 through 1998, twelve of those during the seventies, including numerous live albums.) Tap's imaginary back catalogue shows a similar regularity.

EXHIBIT E: The title Spinal Tap song "Stonehenge" brings to mind Uriah Heep's sixteen-minute 1971 epic orchestral number "Salisbury". In addition the song "Stonehenge" itself, with it's fairy-tale fantasy elements, is highly reminiscent in form of another Uriah Heep epic, "The Magician's Birthday".

EXHIBIT F: A scene from the Spinal Tap movie has the band hear a radio station play one of their early songs, only to hear the announcer give the information that the song was a selection for their "Where Are They Now?" feature. Today in the real world, American DJ's from classic rock stations will occasionally play one of Uriah Heep's blockbuster hits of the seventies such as "Easy Livin'" or "Stealin'" with a similar "Where are they now?" comment, totally unaware that the band is still existant, performing, releasing albums and touring to eager fans all over the world.

EXHIBIT G: The dissension which is portrayed among the members of Tap was present with Heep during most of their career. This was a band which just simply couldn't get along with each other in their halycon days, although the current lineup gets along just fine and has remained stable since 1987.

EXHIBIT H: One of the showcase scenes of the Spinal Tap movie concerns a disastrous booking in Cleveland for the band, when they couldn't find the stage. Last Thursday as I write this, Uriah Heep had a disastrous booking in Cleveland when the band found out that the "concert venue" they were booked to play in was a hole-in-the-wall dive which held 200 people max.

EXHIBIT I: One of the more recently performed Spinal Tap original songs (whose title escapes me at the moment) contains the lyric in the chorus "You Can't Keep a Good Band Down." "Can't Keep A Good Band Down" was the title of a song from Uriah Heep's 1976 High And Mighty album.

EXHIBIT J: This is probably the most compelling piece of evidence. The scene in the Tap movie where the band finds themselves booked at an Air Force base attended by mostly elderly people actually happened, in real life, to Uriah Heep. Heep's keyboardist John Sinclair was with the band at the time this happened, and later worked on some of the music for the Spinal Tap movie. He suggested the story to the film's producers, who put it in.

Question: I got the DVD and distinctly remember two scenes that are not on there anywhere.

One: The drummer gets a solo, and a video camera follows Derek Smalls out of the theatre, he gets in a limo, goes to a restaurant, grabs a bite to eat, gets back in the limo and back to the theatre, all the while the drummer's solo is going on.

Two: They finally get a correctly proportioned Stonehenge prop made, but it's so big the roadies can't get it in the door.

If these weren't in a "special, longer edition" of the movie, where are they from? Was it a reunion special or something?

Yeah, in the early Nineties there was a "Return of Spinal Tap" reunion special. It was aired to coincide with the release of the Break Like the Wind album. I believe that is where those scenes come from, Aifix.

Anybody seen a recent movie called "Still Crazy"? It was a film about a seventies hard rock band trying to stay alive on past glories in the nineties, a lot like Spinal Tap in many respects.

This was one of the first discs I got for my new DVD player . . . I was really looking forward to the hours worth of deleted scenes, but these were mostly disappointing and it's easy to see why they were deleted. However, this was made up by an unexpected pleasure, the version of the movie that has Nigel and David's commentary over the film . . . it's like watching an episode of MST3K for the Spinal Tap movie! Wonderful.

Todd! How could you forget! Derek also contributed to the commentary track. ("He's dead." "I think they have that for sale on eBay.")

The best of the deleted scenes were those surrounding Nigel's replacement. The "Replacement" was such a dead on parody of the quintessential Eighties hair metal guitarists.

Yes, of course, I didn't mean to leave out Derrick . . . my favorite comment was about catching Mick Shrimpton's death on film and how that came in handy for the trial.

The "Heavy Metal Memories" promotional commercial for Spinal Tap's greatest hits collection contains the titles of three songs - "Rainy Day Sun", "The Sun Never Sweats" and "Break Like The Wind". These songs were all on the "Break Like The Wind" album, which didn't come out until years after this commercial!

>> The title Spinal Tap song "Stonehenge" brings to mind Uriah Heep's sixteen-minute 1971 epic orchestral number "Salisbury" <<

Ever visited the southwest of England, Todd? Then you'll know that the town of Salisbury and the Stonehenge circles are about 30 miles apart. Funny, eh?

That's why I made the connection between the two.