The Tubes

The Tubes is an American band from San Francisco .

The beginning of the team is situated in Phoenix , Arizona in the late 60s there were guitarist Bill Spooner, keyboard player Vince Welnick and bassist Rick Anderson group The Beans . After she moved to San Francisco in 1972, the band was expanded with guitarist Roger Stone and drummer Prairie Prince . The Tubes were complete by the arrival of Michael Cotten on keyboards and Fee Waybill as a singer.

The Tubes were best known for their strong parodiserende texts and their massive, bizarre live shows that were widely perceived as offensive. Waybill played in those shows include the roles of the "crippled Nazi" Dr. Strange Kiss and go glam rocker Quay Lewd. After they signed in 1975 by A & M released their self-titled debut album. That was followed a year later by Young And Rich. However, the albums could not match the atmosphere of their concerts. However, Do not touch me there was some notoriety and became only the single White Punks On Dope a modest radio hit. Nina Hagen had more success with the German version of the song, TV Glotzer, which she released in 1978.

After their 1977 album Now flopped toured The Tubes in the UK. Because some of those concerts were banned they received massive media attention. The tour had to be stopped prematurely when Waybill broke his leg. The live album What Do You Want From Live! Contains recordings from this tour. After she returned to the United States, she took Todd Rundgren in the arm, which produced the album Remote Control,published in 1979. Again, this was not a commercial success. The next album, Suffer for Sound, was considered too poor to bring out, reason for A & M to terminate the contract.

In 1980, The Tubes played a small role in the film Xanadu with the song Dancin '. Then she signed with Capitol and took a new contract in 1981 on the album The Completion Backwards Principle. With this album the band successfully hit a more commercial direction. The album landed in the Top 40 and the single Do not wanna wait anymore was a modest hit.

Thanks to a provocative video clip the single She's A Beauty came in the top 10 and the album Outside / Inside (1983) in the album top 20. In 1985, there was one last album, Love Bomb, both artistically and commercially respect it was not a success. While the band was about to go on tour again broke Capitol besides the contract, which the band members were in serious financial difficulties. In 1986 left Waybill, due to major differences of opinion on how to proceed musical direction, the band. Led by Spooner was the band with David Killingsworth as the new vocalist, until 1989. Spooner brought referred a number of solo albums while Welnick, after a tour with Todd Rundgren, joined the Grateful Dead . Waybill wrote songs for other artists, including the band Vixen, sometimes in collaboration with Richard Marx . In 1993 Waybill, Steen, Anderson and Prince, supplemented by the new keyboardist Gary Cambra, reunited and toured in the US and Europe. They took in 1996, a new album, Genius Of America. In 2000, a second live album Tubes World Tour 2001. In 2004 and 2005 has also toured Europe again. From a performance in London released recordings on CD and DVD.

Gary Cambra left the band in May 2006. On June 2 of that year Vince Welnick committed suicide.

[Discography edit ]

 * The Tubes (1975)
 * Young and Rich (1976)
 * Now (1977)
 * What do you want from Live (1978)
 * Remote Control (1979)
 * The Completion Backward Principle (1981)
 * Outside Inside (1983)
 * Love Bomb (1985)
 * Genius of America (1996)
 * Tubes World Tour 2001 (2000)
 * Wild in London (2005)